The ideal postmodern woman is a collage of charm, grace, beauty, strength and independence. This ideal is what Keira Knightley embodies in the Coco Mademoiselle perfume commercial. Far from the original feminist movement that was rooted in politics, this post-feminism created a realm in which woman sought all the riches of the feminist movement but eschewed the title feminist (Goldman 1992, 130). Keira is presented as a beautiful, independent woman, free from the grasp of men and sexually liberated. However, upon close examination, it is clear that her independence is related to her power over the men in the commercial. Furthermore, this power is simply power over the man she wishes to seduce. The commercial begins with Keira entering her loft early in the morning, wearing only a white men's shirt and a black hat. He looks past the camera, never making eye contact. Keira is presented as the superwoman whom Goldman (1992) describes as “sublimely confident and confident, poised, effortlessly beautiful, [moving] with a style and grace called 'presence'... independent and successful; liberated, yet feminine and romantic; modern and at the same time traditional” (107-108). Looking beyond the camera Keira becomes the object of envy. This envy can only be achieved with distance, we look at her but she does not look at us, her behavior indicates trust, which we look at but have no connection with (Goldman 1992, 118). Throughout the commercial, Keira exudes confidence in a playful yet mature way. This trust, however, comes from her relationship with men. At the beginning of the commercial she is dressed in a way that suggests she has just left her lover's room. So the 'presence' that holds... at the center of the paper... the desire for control leads to a fetishization of the female body. This fetishization in turn lends itself to commodity consumption (Goldman 1992, 113), as the perfect femme fatale is impossible to achieve outside of a James Bond film. All this for the sake of controlling men, which ironically shows that if so much emphasis is placed on controlling men, are women really in control? The feminist movement aimed to achieve equality between the sexes, yet we have raped this movement of all its political meanings. Women objectified themselves to gain power over men, while simultaneously pursuing freedom from the objectification of men. This Chanel commercial clearly demonstrates how women objectify themselves to show a form of control over men. This need for control actually shows women's inability to justify her position in society separately from her relationship with men.
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