The Remington Trim and Shape and the Commodification of Sexuality in Contemporary Advertising Practices
Shulie Seidler-Feller

The use of sex in advertising is a practice that has, over the last decade or so, proliferated tremendously, contributing to the coinage of the phrase "sex sells". This practice has been adapted by hundreds of companies doing what they think will best sell their product, irrespective of whether or not the product being sold is intrinsically sexy or has anything to do with sex. This commodification of sexuality, that is, making sex into a product being marketed and sold to the public is a tactic employed in many, if not most, advertising campaigns today, displaying the underlying ploy, which is that these advertisements are selling an image, a lifestyle; not simply a product. In addition to the method behind advertising, the viewer sees, as a result of the proliferation of advertisements that in essence market sex, conceptions of sex, gender, and sexuality permeate consumer culture and result in norms being established about sex, gender, and sexuality. These advertisements set a precedent/paradigm for these elements of self in our culture that the general public is then forced to compare itself to. The viewer sees this exemplified in the recent advertisement for the Remington Trim and Shape.

The Remington Trim and Shape, a product new to the market, is an electric razor that is specially designed for the bikini area, with an adjustable head for trimming and a lubricating lotion that accompanies the product. The advertising campaign for this product has taken two forms. The first is the paper advertisement, which is found in magazines, and the second is the website devoted to promoting the campaign. While I will only be focusing on the paper form of the campaign, it is important to note the way Remington is constructing the campaign in this second form by setting up not one, but two websites in connection with the product. The website that is listed in the ad (www.trimandshape.com) is the website geared towards the US, which includes tips for hair removal and a sweepstakes for women. The second website: www.remingtonbikini.com, whose tagline is "the best haircut you'll ever have", is geared towards European women and displays pictures of scantily clad women. In addition, the website also offers hair removal tips, ideas/suggestions about what kinds of designs to shave into one's pubic hair, global pubic hair trends, postcards to send to your friends with pubic hair designs on them, and the same sweepstakes previously mentioned. Both of these elements (print and website) of the campaign thoroughly display the way that Remington is trying to reach women directly and then seduce them with the product, while forcing the idea of bodily alteration on them.

Before I explore the specific methods and effects of the Remington advertising campaign, it is helpful to look at a brief history of shaving, specifically women and shaving. Shaving, a practice which has been present in history for thousands of years, is a practice that has started to involve women relatively recently. Described as "an ingrained practice in all societies" (anchoragepress.com/archives/document5e3f.html), women began shaving in the U.S. in the early part of the 20^th century. Shaving was not made popular until May of 1915, when Harper's Bazaar magazine featured a model in a sleeveless evening gown that displayed her bare shoulders and hairless underarms. Soon after, Wilkinson Sword launched an advertising campaign calculated to persuade women that underarm hair was, "unhygienic and unfeminine". As a result, the sales of razors doubled in two years (source: http://www.beavershaver.com/history_of_pubic_hair_removal.htm). This background proves that even ninety years ago advertisements had precisely the same effect on the public that they do today, establishing a so-called norm about the body and promoting it, with the result being that the public then demands these "norms" of itself.

To begin, the advertisement, which I found in the December 2003 issue of Jane magazine, displays the traditional tactics used in contemporary advertising to sell sex and sexuality and the establishment of a norm about bikini shaving. The magazine, Jane, is a modern women's magazine geared towards working women in their twenties and thirties that represents itself as being a feminist and alternative (compared to the majority of women's magazines) women's publication covering such topics as: fashion, beauty, personalities, health, gossip, entertainment and culture through book, film, and music reviews[1]. However, the magazine not only runs ads such as the Remington ad, but promotes in the actual text of the publication itself, the alteration of women's bodies in various forms. It is also important to note that Jane's ad rate for a full color page is $38,180[2], revealing the kind of cost running an ad campaign in a national magazine entails which in turn shows the consumer the type of effort that companies put into selling product. The ad, from a visual perspective, displays several examples of the marketing of sex and sexuality. The ad, which is obviously marketing the bikini razor to women, displays the reverse silhouette (the figure is white and the background is black, instead of the other way around) of the body of a thin naked young female against a black background with the purple razor positioned vertically upright in the bottom right hand corner of the ad with text streaming out of the top of the razor in white print. The most startling aspect of the ad design is the text that appears in the genital area of the silhouetted woman, which we will examine later. The first example of the sexualization present in this ad is the way the woman is displayed. The ad is divided into this use of positive and negative space, the background as the positive space (in that the area is "used", it contains color) and the figure as the negative space (the are is unused, there is nothing that colors it or gives it shape but the way the black background forms an outline of the figure). Therefore, this woman is given no identity; she is a blank space that the viewer is supposed to fill in, to define. The woman is not represented in any way but by the suggestive outline of her body, which highlights her feminine and sexual qualities, drawing attention to the nipple on her right breast that is outlined as well as her vagina, where there appears text. This text, which reads "Trim and Shape Bikini Trimmer", is positioned in such a way as to fill in the pubic area, to act as pubic hair. The advertisement is telling the consumer that this product serves as the answer to pubic hair, implying that it will change the way that women deal with pubic hair permanently. Aside from pushing women to alter what is natural to their bodies, Remington takes the opportunity to present women in an overly graphic manner, heightening the sexuality implicit in their bodies and forcing the vagina/pubic area into the public sphere in an overt visual way. The final visual element of the ad is the usage of the product and the accompanying text in the ad. As previously mentioned, the razor is positioned upright and vertically in the bottom corner, asserting itself as a phallic instrument, which proves appropriate in an ad about altering the female genital area. Additionally, the text that streams out of the head of the razor, which reads "See what all the buzz is about www.trimandshape.com", appears as semen that is being ejected, comparing the razor to that of the functioning of the male sex organ. The viewer sees the effect of these strategically placed elements of the advertisement as succeeding not only in selling the product, but in selling the ideal woman.

The Remington campaign for the Trim and Shave follows in a long line of shaving and other hair removal products that are geared towards women in an effort to buy into the insecurities of many women about body hair. Through the Remington campaign, the viewer sees the power of advertising as a medium through which to communicate societal norms, or to create societal norms resulting in a culture that looks to advertisements for clues as to how to "fit in" to the culture that values consumerism so highly.

[1] Some background information: Jane is published by Fairchild Publications, Inc. and has a subscription rate of $10 per year in the US, thus showing its affordability and appeal to the consumer. Also, circulation is documented as 500,000 copies per issue, showing its popularity. Source: (http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/Search/fullCitation.asp?navPage=1&tab=1&serial_uid=255444&issn=10938737)

[2] source: http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ulrichsweb/Search/fullCitation.asp?tab=5&navPage=1&serial_uid=255444&issn=10938737