POM Wonderful
Similarly, another example comes from a television commercial which is part of a series “surrounding historical pomegranate legends” (POM Wonderful TV Commercials: Behind the Scenes) produced to promote the product POM Wonderful, a pomegranate juice. The commercial begins with the sounds of a flute accompanied by the natural sounds one might associate with a jungle. A close-up, black and white shot of a large snake slithering into the frame cuts to a close-up shot of the face a beautiful woman lying on her side on a bed of moss. The snake slithers to the woman’s feet, up her legs, and in a shot that reveals her foliage tattoos, peeks its head up over the curve of her side as the narrator says, “Some scholars believe it wasn’t an apple, but a ruby-red, antioxidant rich pomegranate, with which Eve tempted Adam, and only POM Wonderful has the juice of four whole pomegranates and is backed by modern science. Powerful then. POM Wonderful Now.” The gaze of Eve speaks powerfully to the viewer, both at the beginning of the commercial as the snake first touches her skin and as the narrator says the words “as Eve tempted Adam.” Both times the gaze of Eve is very sexual, tempting the viewer. In this case, the words of the commercial do not contradict the text of the ad, but the words of the commercial are confusing for the viewer. In the Christian version of the myth, the temptation of Adam led to the Fall and the destruction of paradise, and read within this code, Eve is asking the viewer to sin with her by drinking the product.
Both the print ad and the commercial present Eve as clearly in control of both her sexuality and what she does with it, and this speaks to the modern acceptance of a woman’s right to control and display her sexuality; however, the POM Wonderful Eve figure has no voice in the commercial, she is not a woman but a character, and she is unable to speak for herself while Angela Simmons is presented as Eve within a system of signifiers that are contradictory and confusing. In both cases, Eve’s body is part of the marketing scheme used to sell the products, and the presentations have no impact on, except to reinforce, the ingrained features of the male/ female power structure in which the female form is signified as a commodity, In this way, both ads are an example of how “visual culture is the visual construction of the social,” (Mitchell, 343) exemplifying the way in which the female form has been used by advertising to reinforce the adage that “sex sells” instead of as a tool for empowerment.
Both the print ad and the commercial present Eve as clearly in control of both her sexuality and what she does with it, and this speaks to the modern acceptance of a woman’s right to control and display her sexuality; however, the POM Wonderful Eve figure has no voice in the commercial, she is not a woman but a character, and she is unable to speak for herself while Angela Simmons is presented as Eve within a system of signifiers that are contradictory and confusing. In both cases, Eve’s body is part of the marketing scheme used to sell the products, and the presentations have no impact on, except to reinforce, the ingrained features of the male/ female power structure in which the female form is signified as a commodity, In this way, both ads are an example of how “visual culture is the visual construction of the social,” (Mitchell, 343) exemplifying the way in which the female form has been used by advertising to reinforce the adage that “sex sells” instead of as a tool for empowerment.