Varying from person to person, the commercials can either be the most boring or the most “exciting”part of watching a show. It is also an essential part of television viewing as we get a lot of information from them, whether it be something useful or not. Manstead and McCulloch said, as cited by Akie Arima, most often than not, commercials depict our daily lives and mirrors the values of the currrent society.
Most commercials also show the different functions of the different genders in the society. This, in part, turns into what is now gender stereotyping in commercials.Gender stereotyping in commercials is not uncommon. There have been numerous studies investigating gender stereotyping in commercials.
Nireka Adachi and colleagues said in their study that in over 33 years stereotyping of males and females in commercials have decreased. But the stereotypic decrease is only on the argument made by the central person and on the price of what is endorsed. Other stereotypic variables such as age, credibility, and profession did not change. One Mikado Pretzel commercial is a perfect example for a typical stereotyping present in Japanese television.The central person in the commercial is a young female assistant and his male boss.
The female assistant went to the photocopying room to find his boss photocopying some papers himself while nibbling on some Mikado pretzels placed on the top shelf. The assistant who also wanted some for herself was however caught in the end (Shupakk22). In the commercial, the female is portrayed as a young girl who was only trying the product after seeing her boss eat it. It was as if she wanted to eat it only because she thinks that her boss thinks it is delicious.The male was also presented more maturely and acted more credible.
The male was also the boss and the female only an assistant. This stereotyping among Japanese commercials are common. Another one which shows the usual Japanese stereotyping in television is the Ajinomoto Stadium commercial. The central person in this commercial is a customer of the Happy Moving Company who is also a new comer in town. He sees plenty of beautiful girls around but was astounded to find out that the girls in the new area all sounded so manly.In the evening he meets a girl who sounded so normal that he right away liked her even if she looked so geeky (Scarykati).
In the commercial, the male was relatively young as compared to other commercials however, the females are all young. The male also had the central role and he was portrayed as somebody independent. Most of the females however were only fan of the product, which in this case was a stadium where the games were held. Also, all the females in the commercial are beautiful, unlike the males who can either be aesthetically pleasing or disturbing.In most Japanese commercials, the most common theme is that the male usually have the central role as opposed to females having central roles.
Though there are also a few where females have central roles, it is highly likely that the female will have a male counterpart and the male will be more intelligent than her. Most of the females are portrayed as unintelligent product users. In most Japanese commercials, females are also depicted as the more dependent type and the males as the independent ones. The females are the usual maiden who sit waiting for her knight in shining armor.
