Goffman's Theory

 Advertising is a significant agent of socialization in modern industrialized societies, and is used as a tool to maintain certain social constructions, such as gender. Men and women are depicted as differing in attitudes, behavior, and social statuses. These differences are what separate the sexes into different genders. Gender advertisements give the viewers a glimpse into a world laden with socially defined and constructed gender relations, displays, and roles. These images are crafted to mimic real life and many mistake the concepts of fantasy and reality in regards to advertising. Erving Goffman would call it “Commercial Realism,when advertisers try to present the advertising world in ways which it could be real. Goffman argues that advertisements do not look strange to us, when they should. Advertisements take something that exists already in the world and they change it, forming a distorted reflection. “They emphasize some things and de-emphasize others,” it is a hyper ritualization of the world, and we recognize, and even relate with some of the images.