The Illusive Promise of Women's Choice and Autonomy. Postfeminism in Perfume Advertisement

Essay aus dem Jahr 2018 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Literatur, Note: 1.0, Universität Zürich (English Department), Veranstaltung: Language Skills and Culture: Higher, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Rosalind Gill connects the neoliberal consumer and the 'active, freely choosing, self-reinventing subject of postfeminism' ('Postfeminist Media Culture' 164). In light of contemporary gender issues like 'Pink Tax' and equal pay, postfeminist or postmodern western media culture appears to play a major role by simultaneously constructing and dismantling the concept of the self-determined female individual. In view of this significant change in the perception of consumerism, Gill defines 'postfeminism', similar to the term postmodernism, as having 'become overloaded with different meanings' ('Postfeminist Media Culture' 147). In contrast to the numerous contested understandings of postfeminist notions, Gill proposes that 'postfeminism' is to be understood 'as a sensibility that characterizes increasing numbers of films, television shows, advertisements and other media products' (148). Moving beyond the concept of sensibility, Gill ascribes postfeminism the ability to construct 'an articulation or suture between feminist and anti-feminist ideas' (162). In order to pinpoint postfeminist media products, Gill provides us with a 'number of interrelated themes' that accompany the rise of postfeminist media culture (147). For Gill, these include the display of 'femininity as a bodily property' (149), the allusion of female sexual subjectivity (151), an emphasis on female 'choice [,] empowerment' (153) and 'self-surveillance' (155), as well as the use of the 'makeover paradigm' (156) and 'irony' (159). These themes and their relatedness to postfeminist sensibility will be elaborated on here by using the example of a Roberto Cavalli perfume advertisement for women from 2012. In this perfume advert, a young and attractive woman wakes up from an afternoon nap in a lavishly furnished bedroom, puts on a dress and Roberto Cavalli necklace, and then makes her way through an Italian palace to an extravagant garden party. Her walk to the garden is continuously juxtaposed with a trotting tiger, who appears to be heading for the same direction. As the woman arrives at the palace garden, all eyes are focused on her. She approaches a man sitting in a luxurious chair and throws her necklace at him. Not until then is the perfume properly being introduced to the viewer alongside a read-out. In this essay, the author will argue that Roberto Cavalli's perfume advert reflects postfeminism.