Simulated-Life & Symbiotic Relationships

SIMULATED-LIFE

Simulated-life is the representation of a persona created through movies, television, and advertisements. Even though it is common knowledge that the characters that actors play in these types of media do not necessarily reflect the actor’s morals, beliefs, or styles they still send a very strong message via visual perception. In essence celebrities are not only selling products but they are selling an image, an image that many want to emulate due to the popularity of the star.
These images that are being sold inundate us, as viewers, daily. Everything from body images (including style), who to be attracted to (attraction standards), what types of jobs to idolize, and how to act socially are being sold in a simulated-life. These rules and boundaries are being communicated and translated by our society into our real lives.





SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIPS

The concept of Star Power is what drives advertisement and the need to buy. Similar feelings of seeing our most adulated celeb on the street, to a lesser degree, are experienced when we see celebrities endorsing products. Marketers know that stars can attain a larger buying power. Celebs instantly become the spokesperson for that product and inherently adopt the values of that product or company. For instance Queen Latifah is the spokeswoman for Jenny Craig. She is in a commercial that can be viewed at: http://www.jennycraig.com/queenlatifah, in which she sells the diet plan through a narrative that explains her own personal journey through weight loss using this program. Jenny Craig has utilized Queen Latifah’s Star Power, which is ultimately confirmed by the fact that she does not even mention her own name. Her face has become synonymous with the Jenny Craig program and life style. Marketers know that Queen Latifah embodies the struggle with weight that many Americans are dealing with constantly. In choosing a wholesome celebrity, Jenny Craig has also given their program a wholesome look and a certain appeal. How products affect the view of a celebrity and how celebrities affect the product being sold is a symbiotic relationship, again this is very clearly demonstrated in Queen Latifah’s Jenny Craig commercial.