Media and Commodification of the female: This image—the cover art for The S.O.S. Band's 1982 album, S.O.S. III—serves as a classic case study in how 20th-century commercial media objectified and commodified women. The S.O.S band denied this commodification but acknowledged and warned us about it. Key Visual Themes & Dynamics 1. Juxtaposition of Essential Goods and Hyper-Sexualization Setting as a Commodity Exchange: The backdrop features a standard grocery store shelf stocked entirely with generic, branded consumer goods. Placing scantily clad women inside a grocery aisle visually equates female bodies with off-the-shelf items meant for mass consumption. Trivialization of Domesticity: The grocery store—a space traditionally associated with family nourishment, household management, and community sustaining—is converted into a stage for sexualized play. By depicting women riding in a shopping cart in swimwear, high heels, and leg warmers, the image explicitly detaches female identity from traditional roles like family building or community stewardship, recasting women strictly as sources of male visual entertainment. Click here.

 

Media and Commodification of the female: 

This image—the cover art for The S.O.S. Band's 1982 album, S.O.S. III—serves as a classic case study in how 20th-century commercial media objectified and commodified women. The S.O.S band denied this commodification but acknowledged and warned us about it.  

Key Visual Themes & Dynamics

1. Juxtaposition of Essential Goods and Hyper-Sexualization

• Setting as a Commodity Exchange: The backdrop features a standard grocery store shelf stocked entirely with generic, branded consumer goods. Placing scantily clad women inside a grocery aisle visually equates female bodies with off-the-shelf items meant for mass consumption.
• Trivialization of Domesticity: The grocery store—a space traditionally associated with family nourishment, household management, and community sustaining—is converted into a stage for sexualized play. By depicting women riding in a shopping cart in swimwear, high heels, and leg warmers, the image explicitly detaches female identity from traditional roles like family building or community stewardship, recasting women strictly as sources of male visual entertainment.

Click here. 

2. Gender Dynamics and Power Asymmetry

• The Male Gaze and Labor: A fully clothed store clerk holding a broom looks directly at the women. His position represents both the spectator/consumer and the working-class custodian, while the women perform for his (and the viewer's) gaze.
• ** Infantilization:** Placing a grown woman inside a shopping cart pushed by another woman infantilizes both subjects, framing adult female interaction as frivolous play rather than grounded in leadership, maternal, or professional responsibilities.

3. Commercial Distraction vs. Substance

• Packaging over Purpose: The album cover uses high-contrast, glamour-focused marketing typical of 1980s pop/R&B packaging. The visual strategy relies on provocative imagery to grab attention on record store shelves, prioritizing impulse consumer appeal over meaningful narrative themes of partnership or social continuity.

Societal Takeaway

This artwork illustrates how commercial media historically abstracted women from functional societal roles—such as family formation, economic leadership, and social development—and repurposed them as decorative, transactional elements designed to drive product sales.

The dual role of the woman as both the consumer ("shopping") and the commodity ("shopped for") is the central visual conceit of this cover. The image creates a direct, symbolic parallel between retail products and female bodies.

How She Is "Shopping" (The Illusion of Agency)

• Active Consumer Roles: She appears to occupy the traditional role of a shopper—she is inside a commercial market, navigating the aisles, and actively interacting with a shopping cart.
• Playful Autonomy: Her posture and expression project fun, freedom, and personal leisure. She is engaging in an act of acquisition, seemingly exerting choice over what she wants in a space designed for buying.

How She Is "Shopped For" (The Reality of Commodification)

• Literate Placement as Inventory: By physically sitting inside the metal wire frame of the shopping cart—the exact vessel built to carry merchandise—she is literally packaged as an item to be selected, wheeled around, and purchased.
• Equated with Shelf Goods: She is positioned directly alongside uniform, mass-produced containers of cleaning supplies and generic food products. The visual framing flattens the distinction between human beings and consumer goods; both are items sitting on display awaiting selection.
• The Spectator's Selection: The male bystander and the external record buyer (the consumer holding the album cover) are positioned as the actual "shoppers." Her dress—swimwear, high heels, and leg warmers in a standard grocery aisle—frames her body as a visual product designed explicitly to attract a buyer's attention on a store shelf.
• Transactional Identity: Her value in the image is tied entirely to display and aesthetic appeal. Just like the branded jars and boxes surrounding her, her presence is staged to facilitate a financial transaction—specifically, selling an album.

While consumerism relies on transactional exchange, the process of selecting a spouse mirrors a search process with fundamentally different goals: building a shared life, establishing a household, and forging a long-term partnership.

Seeking Compatibility vs. Acquiring a Commodity

• Value Creation vs. Value Consumption: In retail, "shopping" is an act of acquiring an item to extract immediate utility from it. In mate selection, searching for specific traits—such as reliability, shared values, emotional intelligence, and financial responsibility—is aimed at mutual investment. The goal is not to "own" a partner, but to find a compatible co-builder for a domestic and financial life.
• Reciprocity and Mutual Assessment: Retail transactions are one-sided; the shopper evaluates the product, while the product remains passive. Selecting a spouse requires reciprocal evaluation. Both individuals search for traits in each other while simultaneously demonstrating their own capability to contribute to a shared home, manage joint resources, and navigate long-term challenges.
• Shared Governance of the Household: Acquiring a home, building a family, or establishing a domestic routine requires long-term alignment. Searching for specific characteristics—such as temperament, conflict-resolution skills, and common life goals—ensures that the household operates efficiently and harmoniously as a joint enterprise rather than a transactional arrangement.  Will both parties respect the rights of the other to enjoy mail delivery at the shared home address? Will both parties teach and uphold the bible to the children in the home and enjoying media that accords with this chief goal? 

The Pitfalls of "Shopping" Mindsets in Relationships

Modern dating culture often adopts consumer-like behaviors—such as treating potential partners like items on a digital shelf with endless choices and strict "feature checklists." Applied to human relationships, this approach can create friction:

• Objectification: Evaluating a partner purely on surface metrics (such as status, appearance, or wealth) reduces a person to a set of static commodities, neglecting deeper relational qualities like loyalty, adaptability, and character.
• Impermanence: Consumer goods are designed to be replaced or upgraded when worn out or obsolete. Applying a consumer mindset to marriage destabilizes the commitment needed to weather life changes, aging, and economic shifts together.

Ultimately, while partner selection involves discerning specific qualities, the end objective is not a transaction, but the establishment of a shared household grounded in mutual accountability and long-term stability.

Warren A. Lyon, Londinium Media for SDGCK.