The ’She’ In Imagine

In the modern society, the advertisement is ubiquitous. Looking over the Chinese andforeign advertisement history, the advertisement which include the character element isover ninety percent of all advertisements, but feminine image entered the stage is morefrequently than the male image by far. The feminine image took not merely one kind ofcommercial mark but took one kind of social culture mark which appears massively in theadvertisement, it may be said it was one of the most important culture symbols in themodern society. Television has been playing an important part in China since1980s, whichis accompanied by the emergence of market economy. Now TV advertisements lead in theads market due to the great power of Television. Mass culture emerges in China since1990s, and meanwhile, female journalistic experts noticed that more and mote femaleimages started to appear in the rising advertisement field. So to explore into the femaleimage in advertisements is a significant part in the study of female culture. Postmodernfeminism, which came into being since1980s or1990s and was affected bypostmodernism, absorbed various concepts of postmodernism, stopped pursuing theconcrete goal of women liberation; it tried hard to decode the influence of social awareness,habits of thinking, human initiative and male chauvinism on feminism. Besides, it enrichedand developed feminism in the aspects of social culture and ideology, which unavoidablyaffected the shape of female image in advertisements.The female image in TV advertisements is a historical and developing phenomenon,which is accompanied by the emergence of TV advertisements. Meanwhile, it is alsoshaped into a particular module by the prosper of TV advertisements. The female image iswidely used in a variety of products such as food, cosmetics, domestic appliance, cellphones and so on. In order to adapt to the diversified demands of today’s audience, thefemale TV ads images also take on the trend of diversifying, and this trend is inevitable.The thesis intends to probe into the female images in advertisements from1980s up tillnow based on the theoretical background of postmodern feminism. The first four chapterspay attention to the study already done by others about the female ads images which issupported by the theory of modern feminism; The latter two chapters peer into thebreakthrough of female ads images affected by postmodern feminism, that is, to face andaddress the difference, object to essentialism, grand narrative, general principles andsimple binary opposition, and value the position of diversity and fluidity. The thesis fullyrecognizes the initiative of the female gender and puts forward some suggestions on raisingthe profile of female images in advertisements. The advertisement culture is a branch ofmass culture; in the general research into the changes of female images in advertisementsof China, apart from relevant theories of postmodern feminism, the thesis also takes intoconsideration of other factors such as social structure, social gender, social psychology,consuming structure and so on, in order to make the study deeper and morecomprehensive.