I know this advertisement is begging to be ripped apart, but I chose it because it elicited from me the same reaction that the scene in Dreamworlds did – the one in which band members chuck slabs of sliced lunch meat at women as they pin themselves up against a wall. I think that before taking the class I would have been able to identify vaguely why this ad left a bad taste in my mouth, but watching Dreamworlds, reading Jean Kilbourne’s “The More You Subtract, the More You Add,” and discussing the construction of representation in visual media in class focused my criticism.

I realized that I’ve become so used to seeing the fragmentation of women’s bodies in advertisements that I failed to even recognize it as problematic. But as Dreamworlds and Kilbourne suggest, our visual representations of women cut them down, fragmenting them into simple, sexualized images that are safe to be viewed by a heterosexual, male audience. In doing this we reinforce the notion of female sexuality as passive, inviting, and compliant. This technique, manifested here in part through the elimination of the woman’s face and legs, communicates a lack, or rather a denial, of the subjectivity of the individual being watched. Her passivity is further implied by her posture – she is backed into a corner and appears to use it as support. The construction of this image also draws on feminine touch as she caresses her hips and bikini bottom seductively.

What struck me about this specific advertisement was the way in which the message “wash me” was utilized. The woman in this shot doesn’t even have the authority to communicate this supposed sexual desire – instead, the message is relocated, placed seductively on her stomach as she lowers her bikini bottom. As Kilbourne argues, this fits in with the “beautiful but silent” image produced by the media (136). Essentially, you don’t need to hear her voice – or even look at her face – for a sexual invitation. The humor of the statement comes from the fact that ‘wash me’ typically anthropomorphizes an inanimate object; I’ve only ever seen this message is when it appears scrawled on the back of a dirty car. In that sense, its use here further objectifies the woman in this ad.

Although I was not familiar with Lynx, I was not surprised to find out that they produce bath products for men. As Dreamworlds suggests, the gaze of the camera acts out the sexual fantasies of heterosexual males, specifically adolescent boys, in which the powerful fantasy images include water – showering, swimming, wet T-shirts, and mud wrestling. No surprise that the lighting used in this shot highlights the water as it runs down the figure’s body. The Lynx website is essentially a collection of photographs like this one, except where mud is swapped for chocolate, or the single figure is replaced by a plumber girl duet and/or throngs of bikini-clad women.