Freebie for the Blog Post #4

Greedy Advertisement

This is advertising...jewelry?  Makeup?  Surprise, it is advertising clothing!

This advertisement shows a young woman model looking into the camera with strands of opulent pearls in the foreground.  Interestingly enough, this advertisement is not for jewelry or makeup, rather, it is by the California clothing company PacSun for the company’s 2015 spring collection (although no clothes are shown in the image).  The pearls cover almost half of the advertisement in a curtain of unfocused shades of ivory white, silver, and pale gold.  The jewelry reflects small rainbows into the other parts of the picture, where the model’s face is shown in perfect focus.  Only the woman’s face can be seen; the pearls conceal her neck and shoulders.  A tiny rainbow obscures part of her eye, while another one dances behind her on an unfocused tan-gold wall with flowery decorations.  

    The advertisement above demonstrates the deadly sin of avarice through its color choices and composition.  The colors of gold and silver dominate the photograph--the luscious pearls, the woman’s pale face, and the gold background all emphasize wealth.  This color choice, as well as the inclusion of flowery decorations, rainbows, jewelry, and the woman model indicate that the target audience is wealthy women of a high social status.  Furthermore, the domination of pale colors also implies that the targeted audience is white, which inadvertently reinforces the stereotype of white supremacy in socioeconomics.  The model in the picture upholds the rich, white, upper class American women’s definition of beauty--thin, white, and young with thick straightened hair.

The blurriness of the wealth in the foreground implies its unattainability, which furthers the ad’s demonstration of greed.  Greed is an incessant desire for something one does not have, even if it is impossible to obtain.  In this advertisement, the contrast between the fuzzy foreground and crisp model’s face indicates that the audience’s intense desire for wealth and beauty is similar to a mirage or a realistic dream--they seem so possible and real, but in reality the greed for prosperity and fairness can never be truly satisfied.