Depiction of Body in Advertisements of Cosmetic Products

Abstract

This paper examines the depiction of the body in advertisements of cosmetic products namely, Nivea’s sunscreen and body lotion and Maybelline’s lipstick, in the light of Roland Barthes’s notion of myth and Jean Baudrillard’s notion of simulacra. Advertisements of cosmetic products and bodies come in a simultaneous manner. A body cannot be dislocated from advertisements because it is through the body advertisement disperses the messages it holds. Therefore, this research paper focuses on two specific questions: how does an advertisement depict the body when they disperse the motive of the company? And what role does a body play while disseminating the motive of the company? Focusing on these two questions, the paper claims that according to the Barthian notion of myth, the body supports hiding the actual motive of the company and portrays it in either way through which it creates a beauty myth. It persuades the consumers in such a way that the products are not produced to fulfill the profit motive of the company but rather are voluntarily produced for consumers. The myth functions to necessitate, naturalize, and essentialize the product, overshadowing the political motif of the company. Moreover, the body plays a role in persuasive mechanisms through which it instigates the consumer to impersonate the body in the advertisement and motivates them to be urgent buyers. Therefore, with the help of the body, the advertisements endorse the beauty culture among consumers through the media creating, in Baudrillardian terms, simulacra making it tough to distinguish between real and fake. Thus, the hyperreal simulation cannot be differentiated from the real itself, creating disillusionment among the consumer from which the producers merely profited