OBJECTIFICATION AND COMMODITY FEMINISM IN PANTENE INDONESIA ADVERTISEMENTS: A MULTIMODAL CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Albert Tallapessy, Ghanesya Harimurti


Abstract


Advertising plays a significant role in shaping public perceptions of gender and beauty, often reinforcing dominant social ideologies through verbal and visual representations. This study investigates how women are objectified in Indonesian hair-care advertising by analyzing two Pantene commercials, The Raline Look Super Straight Hair! (2015) and For Hair, No More Half-Hearted! (2022). The study aims to examine the discursive strategies through which these advertisements construct female identity and reproduce gendered power relations within neoliberal consumer culture. This research employs Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), integrating Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework of Critical Discourse Analysis, van Leeuwen’s theory of visual representation, and Nussbaum’s theory of objectification. The analysis focuses on spoken utterances, on-screen text, visual representations, and character interactions to explore the relationship between textual features, discursive practices, and broader social structures. The findings reveal that both advertisements construct women as deficient subjects whose social value depends on achieving an idealized hairstyle through product consumption. The 2015 commercial associates flawless hair with personal identity, attractiveness, and self-worth, thereby positioning women as objects of visual evaluation. Meanwhile, the 2022 commercial employs performative shaming, in which a male character attributes a woman’s romantic failure to inadequate hair care, reinforcing male authority in defining female value. Across both advertisements, objectification is normalized through narratives framed as humorous, aspirational, and empowering, obscuring the patriarchal assumptions embedded within the promotional discourse. The study concludes that Pantene’s advertising discourse reproduces and adapts patriarchal ideologies by linking female worth to physical appearance and consumer practices.

References


Adiprasetio, J. (2023). Deconstructing fear in Indonesian cinema: Diachronic analysis of antagonist representations in half a century of Indonesian horror films 1970-2020. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 10(2), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2023.2268396.

Allen, L. (2025). Hegemonic masculinity and addressing gender inequality. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 33(3), 575–591. https://doi.org/10.1177/10608265251329561.

Aspinall, E. (2013). A nation in fragments: Patronage and neoliberalism in contemporary Indonesia. Critical Asian Studies, 45(1), 27–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2013.758820.

Azizah, N. (2023). Gender equality challenges and raising awareness in the patriarchal cultural in Indonesia. Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies, 5(1), 47–52. https://doi.org/10.32996/jhsss.2023.5.1.7.

Banet-Weiser, S. (2018). Empowered: Popular feminism and popular misogyny. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11316rx.

Beta, A. R., & Rakhmani, I. (2026). Gender and Knowledge in Indonesia. Asian Studies Review, 50(2), 235–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2026.2618788.

Davis, J. E., Parsons, E., & Ashman, R. (2025). Take back control: Exploring the relationship between neoliberal inertia and far-right populism. Consumption Markets & Culture, 28(2), 101–123. https://doi.org/10.1080/10253866.2025.2519258.

Edouihri, P. A. (2024). The discourse of advertising: The power of language. International Journal of Research in Education Humanities and Commerce, 5(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.37602/IJREHC.2024.5101.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. Longman.

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.

Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315834368.

Gill, R. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2), 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549407075907.

Gill, R. (2016). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 19(5), 47–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549415615627.

Gill, R. (2020). The affective, cultural and psychic life of postfeminism: The case of ‘confidence culture’. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 25(4), 927–944. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367549420972210.

Goldman, R., Heath, D., & Smith, S. L. (1991). Commodity feminism. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8(3), 333–351. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295039109366801.

Gomez‐Borquez, C. L., Török, A., Centeno‐Velázquez, E., & Malota, E. (2024). Female stereotypes and female empowerment in advertising: A systematic literature review and future research agenda. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 48(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.13010.

Jhally, S. (2020). Advertising at the edge of the apocalypse. In The Spectacle of Accumulation (2nd ed., pp. 127–142). Peter Lang

Kaur, R. (2019). An analysis on women objectification in Rupi Kaur's Milk and Honey [Undergraduate thesis, Universitas Airlangga]. https://repository.unair.ac.id/135231/.

Kahlenberg, S. G., & Rojas, H. (2021). From slacktivism to activism: The role of femvertising in shaping consumer engagement. Journal of Advertising, 50(3), 251–267. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2020.1852865.

Kress, G., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2021). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (3rd ed.). Routledge.

Labiste, M. D., & Sykes, T. (2025). The Great Woman Theory of Media History: Maria Ressa, the neoliberal influencer brand and US-Philippine elite centrism. Media Asia, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2025.2571676.

Langton, R. (2009). Sexual solipsism: Philosophical essays on pornography and objectification. Oxford University Press.

Machin, D. (2010). Analysing popular music: Image, sound, text. SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446280027

Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2012). How to do critical discourse analysis: A multimodal introduction. Sage

Macken-Horarik, M. (2004). Interacting with the multimodal text: Reflections on image and verbiage in art express. Visual Communication, 3(1), 5–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357204039596.

Morris, K. L., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2015). Women, objects, and animals: Differentiating between sex- and beauty-based objectification. International Review of Social Psychology, 28(1), 39–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rips.2015.01.001.

Nahumury, A. P. (2025). Femvertising in Indonesia: Is it really empowering women? (a literature studies). Jurnal Desain, 12(2), 556. https://doi.org/10.30998/jd.v12i2.23137.

Nussbaum, M. C. (1995). Objectification. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 24(4), 249–291. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x.

O’Halloran, K. L. (2008). Systemic functional-multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA): constructing ideational meaning using language and visual imagery. Visual Communication, 7(4), 443–475. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357208096210.

Pantene Indonesia. (2016, June 10). The Raline look? Super straight hair! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UXZayvz_bs.

Pantene Indonesia. (2021, October 14). For hair, no more half-hearted! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUYJbAMSdIc.

Pasha, S. (2022). Sexual objectification: From Kant to contemporary feminism. In Proceedings of the 14th Congress of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (pp. 507–512). Wageningen Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.3920/978-90-8686-869-8_57.

Priyadharshini, B. I. (2025). Femvertising as a marketing strategy: A literature review. International Journal of Applied and Scientific Research (IJASR), 3(5), 269–286. https://doi.org/10.59890/ijasr.v3i5.15.

Sheehan, K. B., & O’Donnell, H. (2023). Femvertising: A systematic review and research agenda. International Journal of Advertising, 42(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2022.2087381.

Szymanski, D. M., Moffitt, L. B., & Carr, E. R. (2010). Sexual objectification of women: Advances to theory and research. The Counselling Psychologist, 39(1), 6–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000010378402.

van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. Oxford University Press.

Wardani, W. D. K., & Suherman, E. (2023). Objectification of women and the practice of male gaze in the short story collection Zou no Shoumetsu by Murakami. Japanology: The Journal of Japanese Studies, 10(2), 125–138. https://e-journal.unair.ac.id/JJU/article/view/54735.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.30743/ll.v10i1.13466

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.