Miss Anos Dourados: as representações da mulher nos anúncios de Seleções do Reader`s Digest

Abstract

As object of this research we selected twenty personal hygiene and beauty advertisements of the magazine: Seleções do Reader´s Digest. The main purpose of the study is to learn about the influence of this communication vehicle in the Fifties Brazilian imaginary, especially upon woman s representations in the mentioned decade. To develop this work we used the Discourse Analysis Methodology (French School) and we went over 116 magazines with their innumerable advertisements, in order to select the most significant ones from personal hygiene and beauty categories. We reached the conclusion that advertising in Seleções worked as a dissemination and maintenance vehicle for the ideological propaganda of the American Way of Life. Following this idea, the magazine s publicity intend to sell a single type of an ideal woman: queen of the house. Considering the period of history we refer to, at first glance it seems that existed some progress at the woman´s image, but a more careful observation revealed that it had been the traditional model of wife-mother-housewife which remained. In other words, in the maganize´s advertisements women always appeared happy and satisfied, although, in fact, they were designed just to be an object for male consumption