Advertising: Tide (Print) GapFill

At the time at which the Tide advertisement was created, women were widely expected to marry, raise families, and be good housewives to their husbands. This  feministhegemonicprogressivehomogeneous ideology is encoded across the advertisement, particularly in the comic strip illustration where two women are shown to be hanging up the clothes of women and men. It is quite clear that a contemporary audience would (almost) universally see the advert’s primary message as patronising and  racistpositivistmisogynisticidealist but we can also consider the responses audience might have had to the advert in the 1950s. This can be explored using Stuart Hall’s  semioticeffectsfeministreception theory.

Audiences taking  a pejorativea negotiatedan ameliorateda preferred reading might have sincerely believed that Tide was the best washing detergent on the market. Certain women may see the image of a woman embracing the product and decode its value, while also embracing the  superlativesimperativesintertextualitycolloquialisms ('whitest', 'cleanest') and hyperbolic language ('cleaner than any other wash day product'). Furthermore, women who took these positions in Western society may have become so used to the representations of their gender in mainstream patriarchal media, that they began to  internaliseevaluateinterrogatechallenge the depiction of women as being ‘domestic goddesses’ and then adjusted their behaviour to fit this stereotype. This relates to  David Gauntlett’sbell hooks’Judith Butler’sGermaine Greer’s theory of gender performativity. A possible example of   a preferreda negotiateda dysfunctionala pejorative reading may have come from a husband benefiting from the patriarchal society. He would perhaps show no personal interest in the product but accept the primary message of the advertisement that Tide is a product designed for women to use. Even at the time, however, there will have been women who would have viewed this advertisement as being offensively reductive and stereotypical. Women were being consistently rejected from working in industries despite the important role they played during the Second World War. These frustrations were articulated by writers and activists such as  Gloria SteinemMargaret AtwoodBetty FriedanSylvia Plath, who famously identified that a ‘propaganda campaign’ had kept women out of the workplace in the fifteen years following World War II in her book The Feminine Mystique. These women who paved the way for the women’s liberation movement would, most certainly, have taken   a negotiateda favourablea pejorativean oppositional reading of the Tide advert.

Print advertisements of this nature were designed to maintain the status quo.  George Gerbner’sClay Shirky’sPaul Gilroy’sPeter Lunt’s cultivation theory can be used to explore the ways in which advertisers repeat and reinforce messages to the extent that audiences will adjust their ideologies to  matchchallengedestroyridicule those promoted in the adverts. Not only does the set product convince audiences that Tide is superior to 'any other wash day product', but it also cultivates the idea that 'all women' are in love with the product. This, in turn, encourages women to remain in their domesticated roles. This argument can also be made using Albert Bandura’s  'end of audience'media effectscultivationidentity theory. Although his argument focused upon  racesexdrugsviolence and young children, the advert is attempting to implant ideas into the audience’s head.