Study Task 3

Today we were set a task to write a 300 to 500 word analysis on the idea of otherness and identity, which follows on from one of the previous lectures.

I will be talking about the idea of otherness and identity in this short analysis of this Lynx advert. This particular lynx advert is possibly the most controversial in sexist terms as the main part of the advert simply shows model like women running towards something, through different scenes. Starting in the forest, which gave off somewhat of an animal instinct sort of effect, which can obviously be seen to be degrading to women. This obviously plays on how women’s identities are supposedly portrayed by men and more importantly what will happen if you use lynx. By this I mean how in the advert at the start you see the women running and then towards the end of the advert you see that they were all running towards one man who was spraying lynx deodorant all over himself. The advert heavily relates and relies on otherness towards men as when they watch it they would be thinking as if they was that guy and would also be thinking that they could be that guy if they were using lynx, but that is fairly unlikely so they would associate the effect of using lynx to some sort of similar situation. The fact that the advert is set on a beach stereotypically allows them to show the women half naked in bikinis and automatically links to sex and what they perceive most guys to be thinking about. This also emphasises what they are trying to sell as they are trying to play on the fact that a lot of guys would want to go to the beach and attract the attention of women. Towards the end of the advert the camera pans on the guys face which looks almost shocked or overwhelmed as he continues to spray more lynx onto himself this shows how they are trying to get at how guys have somewhat more of sexual natural instinct.

In conclusion this advert uses some very basic and natural human instincts to show otherness in a fairly comedic but with a heavily sexist undertone, but has overall been successful at doing so as most males would be able to relate to this or would like to associate themselves with it.