If you have taken the subway to Time Square-42nd Street in the last two weeks and looked up, you may have noticed that Target had begun posting its giant holiday posters. They are a modernized version of the twelve days of Christmas with substituting Target’s products for the material objects and humans for the animals. For example, the eight lords-a-leaping poster features eight dapper looking young men leaning forward, giving winning smiles to the spectator. The seven swans-a-swimming depicts children cavorting. These both seem relatively light-hearted, but then one notices the six geese-a-laying one. It displays six nearly identical blonde women pushing baby carriages.
It is the only ad posted yet that features adult women, and its implications are that their sole purpose is to be breeding birds. While swans are considered to be beautiful, graceful, even virginal creatures, geese are known for their monogamous instincts, the imprinting of the goslings on the mother, and for being a traditional Christmas dish.
It is my thought that the male gaze is particularly present these posters by displaying the men as handsome, winsome creatures while diluting woman to their most base physiological purpose—to give birth to children or to lay eggs. Furthermore, all the women are blonde, leggy, dressed in white, and are pushing pearly, almost egg-shaped carriages. The only touch of Target’s signature scarlet is in the background, causing the subjects to look even more pure by comparison.
I wonder if in the coming weeks will Target debut other “Days” posters and exactly how different their nine ladies dancing will be from their six geese, or will they have to acknowledge that their stylized version of womanhood is decidedly one dimensional?
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