Textual Analysis In Advertising

Advertisements are the lifeline of television all over the world especially in the case of India. The transition from the very first advertisement to the present century has been enormous. In the beginning the main purpose of an advertisement was the selling of a product by providing information about it to the audience or consumers. However the purpose of an ad now is not only to inform. It has a host of other important utilities. Today advertisements are a story by themselves. It has a sort of revolutionary touch that goes beyond the mere “sale”. They, are highly impactful and modified to suit the choices of the specific target audience, influencing the mind-set of men and women in different ways and establish an image within society, specifying

She talks about ‘bodily integrity’ being a woman’s right to have control over her body, including non-subjection to physical violence, right to intimacy, mobility and to make informed choices regarding sexuality and reproduction. The advertisement does reiterate these words exactly through Deepika’s narration of the poem “My choice…infinite in every direction, this is my choice” which seems ground-breaking to be shown in a patriarchal society where the woman’s body is a culturally coded space in which socially sanctioned norms are inscribed such as her role as mothers, wives, daughters; carrying the burden of “honour and shame”. Thus her body is constantly made to “fit and mould to societal expectations with a severe denial of rights, her bodily integrity constantly violated” (Mathur, 2008, p.55). Also the ad speaks of sexuality; “My body is not…ornaments can be replaced”, which is radical since talking about it in our society is a ‘taboo’. Sex is seen as an instrument for reproduction where pleasure is completely ignored. Women are denied sexual agency which is portrayed by the ad where Deepika is challenging this; “My choice…to have sex before marriage…not have sex”. The ad also addresses the problem of alternative sexuality. However the ad depicts women who are

By comparing these two advertisements we see that both of them are trying to portray women’s empowerment in a way through choices; “My choice” talks of women’s sexual agency which allows her to take informed choices and “Tanishq Remarriage” talks of the choice of getting remarried. But both of them fail to actually convey the true values of feminism that gets lost in convoluted portrayals and skewed visions. Although some parts of these respective advertisements are progressive in nature, yet the overall idea is that, these advertisements try to portray are a reinforcement of patriarchal norms and