Audience Studies


One of the key elements in understanding Victoria's Secret's advertisements' effect on women and men in the United States is analyzing the audience itself. As we are exposed to the different advertisements of lingerie on overtly feminized bodies, it is fair to assume that "audiences do not just passively absorb the messages contained in the media…rather, they actively make sense of them" (Rose 200). As a result of Victoria's Secret's encoding of messages within their advertisements and the various ways that one can decode them, culturally instituted ideas of normalcy are either reinforced or negated.
In the image on the left, the model is meant to advertise a pair of lacey underwear. However, it is possible for one to decode an entirely different message as a result of her specific positioning. She is wearing a small tank top and hinting toward the fact that she is undressing; by performing this act, she is, whether advertently or inadvertently, drawing attention away from the product that she is supposed to be advertising. The model's physical positioning is also accentuating arguably two of the most valued feminine features on the body: the bottom and the breasts. While using this to instill a sense of scopophilia in the viewers, both men and women, she is also "incorporating masculine standards for female appearance that emphasize physical attributes and sexuality" (Crane 315).
An alternative method in approaching this particular image is to take on Reina Lewis' notion of the lesbian gaze. Considering a female audience, it is possible that women can either see the Victoria's Secret advertisement as objectification, as sexual, or as identifiable. In other words, women can view Victoria's Secret ads as degrading as a result of the debatably compromising positions in which the models are placed; women can actually be sexually attracted to the ad and the model within it; or women can identify with the model with the notion, "If that is what men want, then I have to want to look that way." Victoria's Secret advertisements online and in magazines epitomize Lewis' statement that "in some magazines, fashion replaces or has a similar status to erotica, which was previously the place where style and visual transgression were housed" (Lewis 666). However, this perspective may be less obvious to an audience since the lesbian gaze is often glanced over when associated with mainstream media and the hegemonic structures associated with it.
In the advertisement on the right, the model serves the purpose of advertising a particular type of bra. While it is the only piece of clothing that is visible on her body, it is fair to say that her physicality is also of paramount importance in this photo. With her hand strategically placed next to her mouth and her breasts emphasized by the arch of her back, it is possible for a viewer to interpret this ad at its preferred meaning: that buying this bra will make you sexier. Although this is a very plausible situation, the viewer may also see the advertisement in a counter-hegemonic way; he or she may first notice a potentially unattainable standard of beauty and realize that the bra is not making the woman, but the woman is making the bra. Therefore, a situation in which an oppositional reading happens could, in fact, undermine the very encoding that Victoria's Secret engrained in its advertisement.
An important part of audience studies is the advertiser's access to the audience. However, this is also one of the more difficult parts of the process as well because of the current technology's lack of ability to truly know one's audience. Victoria's Secret attempts to allow communication between its audience and its advertisers by creating space on its webpage for comments and for tailoring searches to one's particular taste. Whether or not this seemingly genuine act of concern for the audience is actually authentic is up to the viewers to decide. While a variety of different shapes of lingerie are featured on the website from which a viewer can choose, the website and advertisements are lacking a variety of body types. Only those that emphasize the ideal that "the supermodel rather than the society woman" as the role model are featured, thus leaving room for an audience to believe that Victoria's Secret does not actually have interest in access to its audience.



Homepage Psychoanalysis Discourse Analysis Interpellating

Men/Women

 I Love My Body
Works Cited
Crane, Diana. "Gender and Hegemony in Fashion Magazines: Women's Interpretations of Fashion Photographs." Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Text-Reader. Ed. Gail Dines and Jean Humez. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2003. 314-332. Print.

Lewis, Reina. "Looking Good: The Lesbian Gaze and Fashion Imagery." The Visual Culture Reader. Ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002. 654-68. Print.

Rose, Gillian. "Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials". 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2007.

Illustrations

All figures: http://www.victoriassecret.com/

Elizabeth Wong

May 2, 2011