FEEDING THE GAZE: OBJECT, SUBJECT AND ABJECT FEMININITIES IN CONTEMPORARY ADVERTISING IMAGES

Minnu James

doi:10.29121/shodhgyan.v4.i1.2026.141

Authors

Minnu James Assistant Professor, Department of English Mar Athanasius College (Autonomous), Kothamangalam, Kerala, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29121/shodhgyan.v4.i1.2026.141

Keywords:

Advertising, Female Body, Gaze, Objectification, Postfeminism, Hyperreality, Culture Industry

Abstract [English]

This paper examines the ideological constitution of objectified femininity in contemporary advertising images by reading ten selected advertisements from Femina and Vogue as visual-cultural texts. Drawing on the study's discussion of culture, signs, hyperreality, gaze, objectification, subjectification and abjection, the study argues that advertising does not merely represent women; it organizes how women are made visible, desirable, disciplined and consumable. The paper uses a multimodal method that decodes verbal slogans, body postures, colour symbolism, cropping, gaze direction, ritual imagery and commodity placement. The analysis shows that the female body functions as a privileged sign within the culture industry, often appearing either as an object directly arranged for patriarchal and imperialist vision, as a postfeminist subject who seems active and self-choosing, or as an abject figure whose exclusion secures the normative ideal of beauty. The advertisements considered here - including Femina's body-positive cover, L'affaire, Lulu Celebrate, FNS Forks and Spoons, Hidesign, Colorbar, Rhyme Nail Enamel, V Star, Sparkles Fashion Studio and Lacelle Colour Lenses - reveal the contradictory logic of contemporary feminine visibility. Even when empowerment, choice, confidence and individuality are foregrounded, the body is still made answerable to Eurocentric beauty norms, the heterosexual male gaze, self-surveillance, and the commodity form. The paper concludes that objectification today does not operate only through passive images of women; it also functions through apparently empowered images that transform freedom into consumer choice and agency into aesthetic labour.

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