Gender stereotypes are common in many television and online advertisements. These stereotypes depict a particular role played by a specific gender and convey a certain meaning to the audience. Gender-based stereotypes, commonly associated with socially defined gender roles, are frequently used in advertising (Grau and Zotos, 2016: 761). An example of stereotypical advertising that shows the feminine gender is the advertisement of the Memphis barbeque on YouTube (Civitas, 2014). Gender-stereotyped portrayals remain perverse in ads and other promotional activities in conventional print and broadcast media, as well as digital and social networking platforms.
Some of the signs in the Memphis barbeque advertisement on YouTube include images of ladies eating, pictures of barbeque that the ladies are holding, and some sauce dripping from the lips after the ladies have taken a bite of the barbeque. The ladies depict the feminine stereotype in food, while the barbeque depicts the starchy pasta food sold to the audience. The dripping sauce after a bit shows the yummy side of the burger. These signs are functioning to convey the meaning to the audience in different ways.
These ladies are eating the burger, their body expressions, and the way they are wearing show that barbeques are a luxury food that you do not need to go and spend your time in the kitchen preparing. One lady comes with a ready-made barbeque and gives it to the other who is frying meat, and immediately they go and start eating. It shows that the snack is already prepared, and all you need is to pick it up and enjoy yourself. The barbeque image displays spectacular layers filled with vegetables, protein fillings, and sauce. This sends the message to the audience of how yummy the food is. After the bite, there is an image of sauce dripping from the lips. This functions to send the meaning of the sweetness that is in the food such that it leaves you longing for another bite.
According to Roland Barthes,’ the first level of meaning is the denotation level. This is the first and the apparent level where the viewers take the literal meaning of the sign. In the Memphis barbeque burger advertisement, the views take the literal meaning of the barbeque images, the ladies who are advertising, the fillings in the barbeque, and the dipping sauce. They do not try to find any deeper meaning that the advertisement could be relying on. Roland emphasizes that denotation is the apparent meaning, and it is common sense to everyone (Sitanggang, 2020:11). It is the literal interpretation of the image that the viewer sees in an advertisement.
The second level of meaning, according to Roland Barthes, is the connotation level. This is the higher level of interpretation where the viewer adopts another arrangement that the image could relay. At this level, the advertisement transfers information through some strong gestures and symbols that the audience gets some perceptions and connections that trigger different emotions in each individual (Sitanggang, 2020: 10). This stage is beyond the purely and literal denoted image and requires the first degree of intelligibility to see more than the signs and shapes portrayed in the picture. In the Memphis barbeque advertisement, the connotation level goes beyond seeing the barbeque image and the ladies who are advertising and seeing the deeper meaning in the way they are holding each other when they are biting the barbeque, the way they are wearing, and the way they are sitting down when eating the barbeques. The viewers, therefore, use their intelligibility to perceive the other meaning that the advertisement wanted to bring across.
The third level of meaning is the mythical level. It is something that extends beyond knowledge or information, or culture, and something cunny such that the audience can not easily discern (Kroeger, 2018). It represents the visual pictures that do not convey symbolic or narrative information but are still essential and contribute to the advertisement’s overall graphic fabric. In the Memphis barbeque advertisement, flags are hanging over the meat roasting area and around the site, and some people are seen crossing over from one place to another. In addition, other people are seen taking photos of the ladies who are eating barbeque sitting on a pack of hays. All these are alluring and purely cinematic pleasures that we see in the advertisement. Although they represent nothing in particular, they bring joy to the viewers that can only be derived from the act of watching an ad. These images are actually in the sense that we love them, respond to them, and see them. Though they might be unreal, they contribute to overall pleasure as they help us realize how the advertisement is unique in a limitless number of ways.
The signs in an advertisement or image play a crucial role in conveying the intended meaning to the viewer. Depending on the viewer’s intelligence while watching the ad, they can either get the denotation, connotation, mythical meaning, or all of them. From the barbeque advertisement, viewers can either get the sense from the actual images of the barbeque and people who are advertising or can go beyond that and get the hidden meanings.
References
Grau, S. L., & Zotos, Y. C. (2016) ‘Gender stereotypes in advertising: a review of current research’, International Journal of Advertising, 35(5), pp. 761-770.
Kroeger, P. (2018) Analyzing meaning: an introduction to semantics and pragmatics. Language Science Press.
Sitanggang, A.O. (2020) ‘The meaning of advertising’ aqua life’ in the semiotic perspective of Roland ‘Barthes’, International Journal of Multi Science, 1(01), pp.9-21.
Civitas (2014) Stereotypes in commercials: fast food. YouTube. Web.