Commodification of feminism within neoliberalism: The notion of femvertising

In this thesis, which examines divergent appearances commodity feminism takes within the context of femvertising, first the historical development of feminism was discussed with a focus on the differences and similarities between major feminist currents in terms of rhetoric and practice. Then changes brought in feminism during the neoliberal phase of capitalism were evaluated with a view to the effects of postmodernism, consumer culture, and culture industries on feminism. After that, the question of how femvertising leads to the commodification of feminism was discussed. Building on the literature review, three commercial films that went on air in 2018 in Turkey, Selpak's Let's Erase Prejudices, ABC Detergent's Thanks to You Everything is in Proper Place, and Elidor's What Would Everybody Say, each of which hosts a different feminist discourse, were chosen by purposive sampling as cases to be studied in the thesis, which was designed as a comparative case study. As the method of analysis, the multi-layered semiological framework developed by John Fiske (2001), "codes of television," was employed. As a result of the research, it has been observed that the three commercials differ in the way they construct their audiences. Additionally, these commercials appropriate the discourses, slogans, and symbols of feminist movements that diverge from and even conflict with each other while building their messages. Finally, despite all the diversity they host and their indisputable contribution to increasing the visibility of feminism, femvertising commercials empty the political content of the feminist discourses, symbols, and slogans they contain. In all the three commercials analyzed, feminist discourses, symbols, and slogans were manipulated to increase/sell the awareness of the product/brand, and they themselves became disposable commodities.