Sex and violence in commercials: Freedom of expression or symbolic aggression?

A qualitative research on Western commercials shows new trends in the use of sex and violence:

v  images eroticizing the use of strength over women

v  sexualization of children and young girls

v  promotion of an anorexic body type

v  spectacolarization of women’s death

v  degrading images portraying the women as animals

v  pornography, including gang rapes

Feminists display different views about the phenomenon: some believe there is no connection between violence against women and media representations of sex and violence, considered  harmless since the virtual world of images is perceived as insubstantial, far away from everyday life - people know it is not real, as a prominent feminist philosopher argued during a public debate on the research findings.  Other feminists tend to draw lines between material and symbolic forms of violence and to consider them as a problems of social justice. They engage in targeting sexualized and violent commercials, which are seen as promoting a vision of women and girls as objects, lowering their self-esteem, and encouraging sexual harassment and violent behaviors. 

Aims of the paper are:

1. to document the use of sex & violence in commercials, deconstructing the present trend of eroticization of  violence on women: the poorer women become, the more women become sexually commodified;
2. to challenge the idea that democratization processes necessarily imply more neo-liberism (in this case applied to women’s and girls’ bodies) and the belief that sex&violence representations have to be tolerated in the name of ‘freedom of expression’;
3.  to discuss the possibility of new forms of feminist agency (in alternative to the authoritarian prohibition of violent images)  based upon the derision of patriarchal features - such as the excitement for power, homosocial milieus, testosteronic imaginery – with the use of new media, irony, satire, and imagination. Visual examples will be shown.