Abstract
This paper looks at advertisements as a part of popular culture, where popular is defined as mass culture. It attempts to analyse how ads must remain polyphonic in the ideologies they encompass, despite being imposed from the top down, in service of the capitalist industry. This examination is done through a close reading of three Indian television ads released in 2013. The reading places these ads firmly in the context of public discourse at the time, the focus of which was gender-centric, as a result of the Nirbhaya incident in the capital city of Delhi. The kind of popular feminism generated by this incident was intricately linked to the Indian middle class and its sensibilities. This is the target demographic of the ads being examined and these ads encompass various gender ideologies, from traditional to subversive, to appeal to those who fall across the spectrum of this popular feminism. This multiplicity is what makes ads engage in a two-way communication process.
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