Capitalism and Halitosis: Following Gender Roles Through Listerine’s Advertisements in 1920

The study would looked at the advertising campaigns on the two theme Listerine company, which intersect each other in the 1920’s and shape them todays. The first of these two themes is aimed at transforming the society into aconsumerist society and the second one is to examine how the gender roles used in society. In this context, the methods about antiseptic which was use in surgery room to predecessor the sector and system have been promoted as an another field –as a mouthwash–. Then it was used as a possibility for capitalist system. The ossification of the gender roles that will guide the course of the period has also been tried to be investigated in the advertising campaigns. It is thought that the work which is limited from a historical point of view will help to develop a critical point of view about today’s advertising and therefore popular culture world. In terms of influencing consecutives, it is important to watch the fiction of male and female roles in the 1920’s to see the foundations of today’s cultural world.In this direction this study was searched the foundations of the advertising world and brands as an important tool for women to feel insecure abaut their gender roles and the need for established consumption of a problem and solution that did not exist previously but which had a medical meaning and value after the advertising campaign.