Biscolata Stereotypes

The video of the advertisement that we analyzed shows us men and women can have opposite features and gestures and they can still be attractive while other advertisements in the media present men in a dominant and powerful role in the society and women as naïve and fragile.
As seen in the Codes of Gender “to recognize someone’s sex we have to interact with them, there is nothing natural about that recognition.” (Jhally, 2009, pg.1). The Biscolata advertisement represents men in the accepted characteristic feminine features as empathetic, superficial and soft it also represents masculine features as being strong and powerful. As we can see from the first seconds of the video, men in the video demonstrate strength in many ways like carrying
heavy loads and playing the ‘breadwinner’ role. But with the following scenes we can see that men have feminine moves like deep eye contacts, head tilts, working on kitchen duties, soft smiles, winks.
If we analyze these stereotypes of ‘Biscolata’ men; at the first look there is nothing strange; their actions look natural, we do not realize anything feminine but actually attractive and masculine.
As Goffman says “perhaps the most negative thing that we can say about these gender displays in ads is that they do not look strange to us – that is, as depictions of reality, they do not look peculiar or weird. They actually look kind of normal.” (Jhally, 2009, pg. 5). When we analyze gestures, their deep, concentrated looks and the following soft head tilts are the first thing that captures your attention. As stated at the Codes of Gender “women – rather than holding their heads up high, upright, and firm – are posed again and again with their heads in tilted and awkward positions, bent and angled – once again, off-balance and decentered.” (Jhally, 2009, pg. 9). Also the feminine touch that we can clearly see, following with Goffman’s analysis “Female hands are shown not as assertive or controlling of their environment but as letting the environment control them, just tracing the outlines of an object, or cradling it – rather than carrying it and being in control of it – or they are presented as just using the ends of the fingers to hold objects, delicately and lightly, rather than using the whole hand.” (Jhally, 2009, pg. 6). It is possible to notice that by the way they make chocolate, work dough, reach for the baking tray, use cream bag and serves the
biscuits.
According to Gaunlett “Some advertising is unapologetically sexist, and is presumably used because it is felt that the message ‘works` for the target audience.” (Gauntlett, 2008, pg.
83). Also a study conducted by New York City Department of Consumer Affairs showed that women often pay more for products almost throughout their lifetime. (gender-pricing-study,2015). Additional to these M.Fustier says “Men are natural producers while women are consumer.”(Fustier & Gurbaskan, 1974) about the traditional societies. If we also think about the last scene of the commercial where after they pack the products which also they produced, a woman appears on the screen, eating the biscuit seductively while laying on a sofa which is a posture of powerlessness (Jhally, 2009, pg. 8) but also we can realize that distinctively we can see in the video men are who serves to woman rather than another beautiful woman. And it is possible to conclude that, producers goal was women which is the one capable to spend more money in
society.
In conclusion as Goffman says “the key here is that none of this is biologically determined or predestined. This is simply a story that the culture tells us about how femininity and, by extension, masculinity are to be performed.” (Jhally, 2009, pg. 10).