TORONTO – A new advertisement urging women to self-examine for breast cancer is going viral because of the amount of breasts it shows – men’s breasts. The advertisement highlights handsome, topless men in an attempt to gain the attention of women.
According to the advertisement, women viewing the advertisement would not pay attention if the men did not look the way they do. Raising the question, does society need to objectify men and women in order to promote health awareness?
We spoke to Megan Boler, a Professor of Media and Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto about the advertisement’s goal, the objectification of men and women, and if sexually suggestive advertisements diminish the seriousness of cancer.
Does this detract from the seriousness of breast cancer?
In fact, women’s health, if you look at the funding numbers from the federal government and other sources that fund research, etc. women’s health is, in almost all developed countries, not a priority. The majority of health studies that are done, tend to be done on diseases that affect men and with men as the subjects and thus with diseases that impact men more predominantly. You know the fact is that breast cancer is an epidemic, so I don’t see that this is detracting in anyway but what’s interesting – culturally – in terms of the images that are being used: why is it that it has to be made sexy to get out this public service announcement? And if it has to be made sexy, what are the issues with the kinds of images that are being used. In some ways, yeah, it’s good because it draws attention and even if people get upset -- perhaps with the fact women’s bodies are being objectified to get out this public health message about early detection -- At least that gets people talking about it. So wherever you sit on the topic, it gets people talking. So when you look at the number of views on videos that are even health related – I’m not positive and there is no way to track this – but to somebody that studies social media and YouTube, the number of views is phenomenal, so it’s really clear to me that a lot of the people watching that are not watching it to get information about health. So that points to this cultural fetish of women’s breasts.
Do you see any problems with the advertisement?
One thing that bothered me is the information could have had a lot more specific and clear on how to do breast exams and what a woman would be looking for. So when the guy is doing it and has the post-its, it actually just totally misses an opportunity to give quick and clear messages that are really crucial to early detection. And I would add that early detection is so crucial in breast cancer that whatever one thinks of this campaign, if it gets people looking, then that’s great. But if it gets people looking and doesn’t have quick and clear information that is really unfortunate.
What about the need to objectify women in advertisements about women’s health?
I think it’s really ironic that there is a need to use sexualized and objectified images of women to sell women’s health in terms of a PSA. And that the bottom line is that using these kinds of images really re-inscribes the fact that in our culture objectifying women is acceptable, it’s part of our daily media diet. I’ve been teaching for a couple of decades now, it’s really challenging to point out that despite the gains of women’s liberation and the feminist movement and despite the hype that feminism is dead because women can supposedly do everything, we don’t even see the objectification and sexualization of women. It’s used in advertising and marketing to such an extent that some people say they don’t even notice it. I think inarguably you could not get away with same, while there is racism in advertising, you could not get away with the same kind of racist objectifications as you can with these kind of misogynistic representation.
Do you think advertisements like this take cancer less seriously than they should?
Yes I do. In that short space of time, when they have that hunky guy examining his breast, he doesn’t give clear information on how to do the exam. Its really vague and why not in that one moment, if you think “this is going to get women looking at this and we’re going to stop this epidemic, we’re serious about it,” then give us the right information in that thirty seconds.
Is the primary goal of this campaign to get people talking?
Yeah. That’s what I was intonating, that whatever one thinks of these campaigns, even if its just about controversy, it possibly gets people talking about it. Which is a good thing, and that’s why I would say, there may be some real strategy behind this.
Do these ads objectify women in the sense that women wouldn’t pay attention if the actors didn’t look like that?
Clearly, they are using men like that and they are quite explicit about that. The doctor says “the only way you are going to look at this, is if it’s a hot guy… if you are a woman the only way you are going to look at this, is if it’s a hot guy.” Well I actually have a question if that’s true. If you look at the comments on the videos, there are a lot of women who are really offended by the objectification of women’s breasts in order to address women’s health.
Why do you think that as a society we objectify women’s breasts in order to talk about cancer?
It’s a huge cultural fetish. Why is a big question on that, but one thing we can clearly say is that the media plays a huge role in this. And that’s what I was saying about the male gaze in cinema and media studies. There’s been decades of studies of why are women objectified, why are they sexualized, why are breasts sexualized. The clearest thing we can know is that the media plays a huge role in continuing that. So you see it, its just ubiquitous, sexual advertising and images that sexualize women are everywhere and it’s unavoidable and it goes down to the saying ‘sex sells.’ There’s no quick answer why it is that breasts are so fetishized, but that’s why I find this ironic. There’s ostensibly an interest in women’s breast health and yet they are re-inscribing this idea of perfect, glamorized breasts which many women in the comments say, ‘we can’t relate to this advertisement when it has this female model in it, give us women we can relate to.’
I think one of the key things I’m trying to communicate is that women’s health in terms of funding is generally not a priority, and there isn’t enough public information about breast cancer being an epidemic. So if this ad campaign supposedly helps that’s all for the good, but I find it ironic that in order to bring attention women’s health issues we have to use sexism to sell it.
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