The master's thesis examines the objectification of women's bodies in advertising on the example of women's perfume advertisements. I analyzed the representation of women in selected advertisements. In visual media, objectification occurs in the way women are represented. They are often scantily clad and in positions that suggest sexuality. In the media, they are seen through the eyes of a heterosexual man and, at the same time, presented as a passive objects of the male gaze. In modern culture, the body of a woman is treated as an object that can be shaped to approach beauty standards and body ideals. The aim of the theoretical part is a comparative analysis of the literature on the subject of media discourse on the female body and body ideals, the theory of objectification through feminism, and the semiotics of advertising. In the thesis, I posed three research questions, namely how the female image or body is shown in the selected advertisements for women's perfumes, what these images symbolize and what are the differences between the advertisements of different brands. In the empirical part, I performed a content and visual semiotic analysis of advertisements for women's perfumes. I found that female images in advertisements symbolize different meanings through various signifiers. Selected advertisements show how women are tricked into thinking they will have more power over men by being more desirable. Using a particular perfume will help them achieve sexual desirability and, consequently, the promised power.
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