Double Standard

            There is a double standard with how woman are portrayed in fine arts and in advertisements.  When we see a naked woman in a painting, it represents beauty rather than sex, but if you were to see a woman in an ad naked or wearing minimal clothing it would represent sex. The reason why is because we associate fine arts with high class, value, and beauty. When you see a painting, you look at the colors, the details, and the naturalness of the woman rather than pay attention to her being naked. In most paintings, women aren’t portrayed the way that our society would view as beautiful. They don’t have tan skin or perfect proportions, but this is usually how a woman looks. The painter paints what they believe to be beautiful and what they think will catch the viewer’s eye.  Although in art, the woman in the painting is still being portrayed as an object of desire for the male buyer.
            Advertisement is basically based on sexuality and the idea of sex sells. Ads are more provocative than fine art. Perfume ads and commercials usually contain a male and female in some type of sexual situation, which has nothing to do with the perfume, but it is supposed to be seen as desirable. Ads are used to sell the product and to make buyer be able to picture themselves in that product. The best way of doing this is using attractive, skinny, tan people. If you were going to buy a skin product, you would want the person in the ad to have perfect skin. The women used in ads are usually exploited and used as objects to not only sell the product but also attract men. Most ads are geared towards a male dominated society. The women in the ads look in a way that is pleasing to men in order to get women to buy the products to look a certain way or for men to buy that product to be able to get that type of women. Women are seen as slutty rather than beautiful like they are in art.