Morgan Finley
Liz Lackey
Ashley Bridges
Amy Arismendez
“Narcissism as Liberation” by Susan J. Douglas
Description of Topic: Throughout history women have been trying to liberate themselves from stereotypes as well as from social expectations. Douglas discusses in the article that through advertising, women in the 1980s were beginning to backtrack and with their liberation become narcissistic. Women were now stressed to be successful and focused yet young, fresh, and feminine. They were then thrust products which would help them fit their new mold and told, “You may be successful, but with this product you’ll look and feel even better”. Douglas points out how many of the different beauty campaigns are set up as well as gives examples such as L’Oreal’s “I’m Worth It” and Virginia Slim’s “You’ve come a long way, baby”.
Summary of Key Points: Douglas covers many different aspects of women’s liberation and how they are portrayed in advertisements. Advertising agencies learned a new technique for the “modern woman” of the 80s where both feminism and anti-feminism still resulted in the need for certain beauty products that no person could live without. Douglas also brings up the book The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch and how ad agencies started to use women’s self-love and began to focus on how women failed to measure up to others causing competition and the need for certain products and beauty habits.
Discussion Questions:
1. In 1980’s advertising began using woman’s wants against them, making woman feel as though in order to be “feminine”, they had to buy certain products and that they would be successful if they purchased certain products. So woman, do you feel that this is still happening or have woman become more aware of this tactic? Now men, do you feel as though you are targeted through certain commercials to look or buy certain products to be successful?
2. Through advertising, do you think that companies need to associate their product with celebrities to sell the product or could the product be as successful if sold by the average consumer?
3. Why do we let advertisers frame our mindset or attitude of how we should look and why? Is there a solution to this problem?
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