Recently, the female topics and female marketing-related events that appeared in the Chinese market in the first half of 2021 were arranged in a table, and a particularly interesting thing was found:
In the consumption of mass culture, women's likes and dislikes are a metaphysics.
For example, in a drama with a theme that is popular with female audiences, the protagonist may not necessarily be a woman.
For example, the mother-daughter relationship of "Hello, Li Huanying" in the Spring Festival file has made Jia Ling the highest-grossing female director in the world. "Go Ashore", two female screenwriters have also attracted attention; the male hero drama "Rocky" directed by overseas director Kate Herron won a score of 9.3 on Douban and IMDb as soon as it was released...and focused on creating a female concept The "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves 2" and "Listen to Sister" and other programs, but only gained about 5 points of embarrassment on Douban.
For another example, whether the appearance conforms to male aesthetics is not the key to triggering public opinion conflicts.
Many brands that advocate women to break the "white, thin and young" aesthetic have made good marketing cases. The "noboby is no body" of the underwear brand "inside and outside" is full of reputation, and "Victoria's Secret", which has always advocated sexy, also invites many fields. Women come to shoot the key visual. However, this does not mean that things that are in line with male aesthetics cannot be done. The thin and beautiful heroine in the TV series "Sito" also has a wave of goodwill because of her popularity with female fans; she declares that "wearing Lolita/jk uniforms/Hanfu is charming. "Male" online bloggers have been strongly opposed by many women.
Also, hiring female spokespersons may not please female consumers, but removing female spokespersons will definitely offend female consumers. Female talk show actors "understand everything they know" about the endorsement scandal; male actors can become "June girlfriends" ( The male protagonist in "The Day I Became You"), the female star who sold the "Jiquan Boss" character was called "greasy"...
Seeing this, the readers may have been stunned, and women are too difficult to please! ! In the end how to make women satisfied ah!
The frequent overturning of "she marketing" reflects the gradual awakening of women's consciousness, and the attention to women's themes is high, and the sense of capital is often the sharpest, but lack of theory and methods, the female group can only feel Emotional expressions when uncomfortable or offended.
This has also made many mass media, fast-selling brands, and companies eager to penetrate the female market at a loss as to how to do female marketing and female content.
In fact, these seemingly isolated cases have a common feature, that is: breaking the male gaze and calling for the female gaze.
1. Escape from the golden cage: women who don’t want to be stared at
Before thinking about "what do women really want", let's answer the question, what women don't want.
Women don't want the single aesthetic of "must be sexy, obedient and obedient / thin and beautiful", and many actresses, including Scarlett Johansson, are trying to tear off the label of overly sexy female characters;
Women do not want to be "dispensable people", and hope to see female characters in film and television dramas who can assume the role of promoting the development of the plot and indispensable characters;
Women don't want "female competition", and many female-themed dramas always like to sell bloody plots such as contradictions between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, plastic sister flowers, and the fight between the three girls in the main room...
The above phenomena, for a long time, are the main forms of media communication content constructed by the male gaze.
The "male gaze" is a term coined by telemarketing list film critic Laura Mulvey in Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975) to refer to seeing women and the world through a male perspective and perspective. In the male gaze, women's feelings, thoughts, and ego are not important, and only serve the male gaze.
An intuitive criterion is that removing female characters from the film would not significantly affect the plot. With the increase of various screens such as TVs, computers, and smartphones, the "male gaze" has also moved from the big screen to popular culture. The visual carrier of the screen has also become a "golden cage" created by men for women.
The feeling of being stared at is uncomfortable. For example, heterosexual men are reluctant to stare at naked men who are also male. Women are naturally more and more dissatisfied with this single male-centered gaze.
If film and television dramas and brand marketing are passed on to women, it is still the product of the male gaze of the last century, then the rollover is definitely not wrong.
2. The Elephant's Exodus: A History of Women's Media Exploration
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