Gabriel Wolfe
The 1920s marked a shift in France’s magazine industry. Magazines moved away from text based articles, and instead increased emphasis on ads and pictures, with often a single ad taking up an entire page. The intention being to promote the rich upper class readers, especially those that were younger, to go out and spend money on the products.
As seen in the picture above, the film has a prominent example of this, in which an advertisement for a regal car brand covers an entire page in the magazine. This advertisement induces Madame Beudet to dream herself in the car on a field of clouds. Later, she also imagines herself in the arms of a professional tennis player after she saw him in another ad. This is exactly what the shift in advertisement was trying to do: convince the susceptible rich readers that their lives would be better with these products, and then have them buy the products.
This idea was especially used by the fashion industry in France at the time. Clothing manufacturers were producing and promoting more “masculine” outfits that included trousers and straighter lines on dresses. By running large ads in magazines, they hoped to change the standard for typical women’s wear. When Madame Labas sees the advertisement for the car and women’s fashion, she gives a rather unconvinced shrug. She is unaffected by the images. Unlike Madame Beudet, Madame Labas is much older and seems unable to dream about the pleasure that the products can bring.
Stewart, Mary. “Marketing Fabrics and Femininity in Interwar France.” Textile History 35.1 (2004): 90-111. ProQuest. Web. 27 Oct. 2015.