3. Advertisements have been
understood as key sites for the production, reproduction and negotiation of
gender identity. Compare the ways in which gender has been constructed through
advertising in historical context.
Introduction
The dawn of consumerism in
the 1800’s
In Victorian England consumerism came
into existence largely due to the industrial revolution and became a big part
of the ideology of the middle classes. This meant that the consumption of
commodities became a ‘fundamental form of a new cultural system for
representing social values’ McClintock (1995). These social values were
showcased in advertising. With the rise of consumerism in the 1800’s these
representations centred around what it meant to be a colonial nation, calling
into question imperialistic motifs. The social semiotics of the time were
informed by the these motifs thus an 1800’s man would imbue different meaning
from a trope in an advert than a modern man would.
Ideologies of the 1800’s
A prime example of an imperialistic
motif was the marketing of soap as a personification of angelic and pure female
beauty. McClintock talks about how female beauty in soap adverts is maintained
as a spectacle to be admired bearing the traits of superiority and almost
religious divinity adhering to the ‘Victorian obsession with cotton and
cleanliness’ (1995. P.211). Along-side these motifs, women were also shown as a
gender of no political power unlike representations of men in adverts. For this
reason soap over time had to be masculinised because women could not be the
agents of history.
This shift of ideological function
perfectly exemplifies the role of advertising in negotiating ideas on gender
identity. Gender identity is constructed through advertisements and the media
to fit what is needed of that gender at the time. British advertisements were
looking to promote an imperialistic role model in the form of a strong military
man. I will discuss this later in relation to a Pears soap advert.
Female magazines
Through analysing adverts from various
eras we can gain an understanding of the socio-cultural thinking that existed
at that time. We can also inspect what roles this delimiting of genders would
bring about. In the 1950s consumerism was on the rise and was a key part of
western society. This meant that there was an expansion of the middle classes,
and a buying trend that manufactured more needs and wants. Driven and
conditioned by the system, the male breadwinners had to be washed, fed and
relieved of domestic labour, so it fell to the women to do this. This viewpoint
rippled out into women’s magazines during the 1950s which displayed adverts and
articles teaching the readers how to make sure their husbands, boyfriends and
daughters were well cared for.
Cronin talks about how female magazines
are ‘located on the margins of what are generally considered as the more
significant and interesting areas of television, cinema, video and music.’ (2000.
P.110) This is down to the fact that they are less innovative than men’s
magazines. In contrast women’s magazines have not changed from their traditional
format: ‘The style and content of both British and French editions of Elle in
my study are remarkably consistent over time: the subject and Female visions:
advertising, women and narrative’. (2000. P.112)
Joke Hermes writes how this on-going
narrative is echoed in the romance fiction of the 1980s and expresses the
‘significance of how women fit the activity of reading into their daily routines’
(2000. P.110). The narrative structures of weekly literature aimed at women helped
re-inforce these ideas, and acted as manuals to be followed with guidelines on how
to act. This is an example of how these forms of magazine advertisements and
articles are understood to produce and reproduce the female gender identity.
The male gaze
Cronin’s notion of ‘women’ as a
metaphor for sexist ideologies in turn creates a ‘currency to re-produce
specific forms of European male identity’ (2000. P.117). Advertisements that
show one gender in a certain light also impact how we view the other gender. The
idea of the male gaze is underpinned by evocative images of women that could be
considered voyeuristic. Advertisements are designed to appeal males by drawing
on licentious poses. Many would see this as a negative connotation of female
sexuality, but it also affects the way that males are reproduced in the advertisement
sphere: as active voyeurs of the female form. Susan Sontag writes:
'The camera doesn't rape, or even possess, though
it may presume, intrude, trespass, distort, exploit, and, at the farthest reach
of metaphor, assassinate - all activities that, unlike the sexual push and
shove, can be conducted from a distance, and with some detachment' (1979. P.13)
Fig 1 (see bibliography for source)
This sexist advert by American Apparel has
a clear message about sexual power and commanding male dominance. Jib Fowles
writes how gender is actually the most used social resource in advertising at a
time when ‘maleness and femaleness are strident features of the mediated
content available to the young’ (1996. P.201). There are increasing concerns
about gender being heavily stereotyped ‘as soon as their media participation
begins, children are exposed to a vast assemblage of starkly bimodal gender
depictions.’ (1996. P.201).
Adverts of children for
children
The evocative images of women that are
moulded to fit a finely tuned aesthetic give the young unrealistic
representations of what it is to be beautiful. According to a study by Barcus (1983.
P.64), only 22% of characters in children’s television shows are female ‘the
predominance of males could be taken by young viewers to mean that males are
more important than females.’ (1996. P201). Gender depictions are most easily
produced when the young are the target because the ideologies of a generation
in their youth are often the ideologies that they take forward into their adult
life. In this advert for GAP clothing the idealized boy is viewed as an
‘Einstein’ and the girl as ‘the talk of the playground’.
Fig 2 (see bibliography for source)
In modern times circa 2017 the
ideologies absorbed by the younger audience are made much more potent by using children
as models. Here young girls are ‘more likely than their brothers to be shown
alone and asleep (in a vulnerable state)’ (1996. P205).
Macho man
The delimited gender definitions are
continued into adult advertising too where as Julia Wood expresses ‘Typically
men are portrayed as active, adventurous, powerful, sexually aggressive, and
largely uninvolved in human relationships.’ (1994. P.35) This can arguably have
a negative effect on the male identity. Less active, adventurous and sexually
charged men are deemed less masculine in the cultural sphere, rendering those
who do not fit the archetype confused and at a loss with their identity. This
macho man imagery is continued into the rhetoric of the brand name and slogan.
Fig 3. see bibliography for source
Fig. 4
Motherly women
Where adverts showed women in important
roles it was only really in the sphere of motherhood. In this advert from just
after the turn of the 18th century a laxative product is sold
through invoking ‘strongly held feelings’ (Fowles. 1995. P45) of motherly instinct.
Fig 5
Military men
Men in 1800’s advertisements were often
depicted as military heroes of colonialist Britain. This Pears soap advert features
an example of the idealized Victorian male
Fig 6 (see bibliography for source)
The 1950’s landscape
In America during the 1950’s this image
of the idealised man contained similar tropes. After World War 2 people wanted
stability and so went back to tradition. This is what potentially put
progressive thinking on hold through the early 50’s. The nihilism of the 40’s
gave way to a rebirth of the American dream. Consumerism reinforced the
optimistic notion that with a lucky break you could make it big, travel
anywhere and fulfil your potential. This was emphasised by the social change
brought about by the suburbanization of America, the popularity of the
automobile, the advent of the Mcdonalds fast-food chain in 1955 (Mcdonalds.
2016) and the first Holiday Inn. In the 1950’s the man of the house would drive
from the suburbs to work in the city and come home to a wife that would have to
please them.
Fig 7 (see bibliography for source) Fig 8 (see bibliography for source)
The adverts above show how men were seen
to be much more important than women where the female is depicted as being in
the role of servant. In the Van Heusen advert it is reinforced in the caption
‘show her a mans world’ and ‘for men only!... Brand new men-talking, power
packed patterns’ that it is implied that only men that can be powerful. The
positioning of male and female characters in the advert blatantly suggest fellatio
and with it the implication that the women has to be ultra-subservient to the
man. The Heinz soups adverts maintain the same theme of male superiority.
The Malboro man
In the 60’s The Marlboro man was a
figure used in cigarette advertising campaigns. He was a rugged man often
styled in the cowboy image. The campaign transformed filtered cigarettes into a
product that was initially seen as a women’s cigarette into a largely
successful male product. The advert was so successful, that despite the
increasing anxiety at the time that the product could kill, sales still
increased.
I would like to discuss the extreme
gender identity altering power that adverts can have. Previously I have been
discussing how adverts have been taking ideologies surrounding gender identity
at the time and producing a semiotic depiction of them. The Malboro campaign
does this but in addition successfully markets a certain type of cigarette to a
male audience
This creation of the male identity bore
less connection to the ideologies of the man at the time and more to a
manufactured identity for the company’s financial gain. The male identity has
been produced through advertising rather than reproduced. As consumerism has
increased we base our identity much more on the products that we own. As the
Marxist philosopher Georg Lukacs expressed in his book ‘History and class
consciousness’ (1923) our modern period is a melting of culture and
consumerism.
Depictions of femininity
Women in recent times have been
advertised in such a aesthetically idealized way that the viewers start to
manufacture a warped idea of what it is to be beautiful. If you do not display
the features promoted so heavily in the media such as being thin, blonde and
tanned then you are seen as less of a women. Adverts that depict women as
submissive and passive would alienate adventurous women who would not fit the
social norm of femininity.
Woods analysis extends into the
specificities of the women when they are shown as ‘disproportionally blonde or
auburn, more likely to be identified as single (50% vs 29% for males), and were
four times more likely to be provocatively dressed’ (Fowles. P208). In an
advert for lilyette a company that made lingerie, females are shown to be
accessories of men ‘umbrella.. blanket.. heater.. channel’ (Fowles. P210).
At a glance the 1950’s may seem far
removed from the 2000’s living in terms of gender role, but on closer
inspection many of the ideologies of gender roles, social norms and familial
structures still continue. The 50’s are often seen as the simpler times and to
a certain extend they were. Normality in the delimiting of genders is achieved
through the creation of a hypereality. When the world around you mirrors the
same thinking then you are often content because you have yet to experience any
difference. However soon feelings of discontent began to brew which I will
discuss later in relation to feminist literature.
In the 50’s marriage was seen as the
main aspiration. If you were a women and you wanted more for yourself you were
seen as not conforming to the social norm. All these ideologies were reflected,
negotiated and even sometimes created by the adverts of the time.
The 50’s was seen as a prosperous
period of calm conformity, but underneath there were rising feelings of
discontent about racial segregation and women’s rights. Betty Freidan writes
the ‘Feminine Mystique’: a book that highlights the unhappiness that many women
felt in the role of the ‘housewife’ This is credited with sparking a feminist
revolution. She writes: ‘Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she
made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material’ (1963. P15).
Books such as these alongside the invention of the birth control ushered in a
period of feminism and sexual revolution in the 60’s.
Adverts such as The Malboro Man that
informed the male gender role maintaining the macho man image. However other
male identities emerging at the time in more liberal adverts clashed with the
traditional ones. In the 60’s the coming out of homosexuals and other differentials
and the sexual freedom of women was respected and celebrated at the time.
Fig 10 (see bibliography for source)
Gender and Race
‘Mantegazza’s Morphological Tree of the
Human Races, for example shows vividly how the image of the tree was put at the
disposal of the racial scientists’ (McClintock. P37). This
extract expresses how scientific studies during the 1800’s rendered non-whites
as lower in the evolutionary stage deeming them as more animalistic.
Animalistic representation continues into the depictions black women today.
Fig 11 (see bibliography for source)
In more modern times, images reinforce
racial tropes that are embedded far into our collective post-colonial memory to
the point of losing their vulgarity. Kim Kardashian’s magazine cover shot
(Paper, 2014) is copied directly from the photographer Jean Paul Goudes work.
‘Champaign incident’ features a naked black lady donning a subservient,
cartoonish smile akin to that of the iconic black slave girl trope.
Beardswell stated that the postcolonial gaze ‘has the function of establishing the subject/object relationship’ (2000. P.8). He proposed that a photo suggested a relationship between the viewer and the subject. In doing so the viewer gains an understanding of himself or herself in relation to the subject, therefore establishing their identity. In regards to the male gaze when presented with an advertisement with a women in a sexually lurid and submissive pose a man builds his understanding of his identity around what it means to be the voyeur. In this instance a man would feel powerful in relation to the compliant women.
Advertising in modern
society
In regards to the way women are
depicted in modern society, stereotypes are definitely still used in
advertisement. Women are still being portrayed in a negative way. Ganahl (2003)
have compared TV commercials from three major US networks with a previous
analysis of TV commercials by Bretl and Cantor (1988). In this study despite
the changes in women roles between the two periods the advertisements still hit
the traditional stereotypes. (Eisend. 2010. P103)
In a fashion advertisement for Gucci
the girl is in a submissive position with the man’s hand on her bottom as if he
were about to spank her. If we juxtapose this image with an advert from the
1950’s the similarities are very clear, sadly the delimiting of the female
identity continues.
The difference in modern society
compared to the 1950’s is that there has been a re-imagining of gender, Wernick
writes: ‘male partners have gradually been forced to take greater
responsibility for domestic chores so that few of either sex are now unfamiliar
with the joys of supermarkets and shopping malls.’ (1991. P49) The fact that
there are many more males living alone or together with other males due to
rises in divorce rates, the age of marriage, gay couples and students also
plays a factor. This has meant that companies that sell domestic day-to-day
products have to take into consideration ‘that men, too are potential buyers,
and so must be treated as part of the ‘you’ they address. There have also been
massive breaks in code where men are being sold more and more beauty products
which serves as cultural zeitgeist of how male identity is changing:
‘The promotion of fragrance to
heterosexual males, for example, involves a break with the formula that men
hunt, women attract’ (1991. P49)
Conclusion
In conclusion, adverts play a large role in the production,
reproduction and negotiation of gender. During the 1800’s the gender roles were
fashioned around idealizations of the imperialistic dream, whereas in the
1950’s the adverts aimed at promoting a rebirth of the American Dream. Both of
these ideologies categorised the role of men and women. The men presenting
macho, strong and important traits and the women more passive, subservient and
unimportant.
It was only during the 60’s when there was a wave of progressive
thinking on sex, gender and rights, that adverts began to show women as more
important, but the negative connotations have not completely gone away. Modern
advertising has not ceased to objectify women in a voyeuristic fashion yet
there has been a move towards the re-imagining of gender. When gender roles
change in our society it is reflected back into the advertising.
Companies have increased their sales by promoting products to both
genders and so gender identity is built around clothing, brands and technology.
Thus our depictions of our own identity have moved away from cultural
ideologies and more towards the depictions of a gender in the products we
possess.
Bibliography
Anne McClintock. 1995. Imperial Leather, Race, Gender and
Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. England. Routledge.
Jib Fowles. 1996. Advertising and Popular Culture. USA. Sage
Publications
Andrew Wernick. 1991. Promotional Culture. London. Sage
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Anne Cronin. 2000. Advertising
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McDonalds. 2016. Our History. 2016 [Online]
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Georg Lukacs. 1923. History and class
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Pictures
Fig 1.
Huffington Post. 2013. American Apparel Adverts Banned:
‘Sexual And Objectifying’ Images Show Models Half Naked (PICTURES) [Online] [9th
March 2017]. Available from
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/10/american-apparel-adverts-banned-sexual-objectifying-images-half-naked-models_n_3050235.html
Fig 2. Daily Mail. 2016. 'How can you seriously think this is OK?' Gap Kids provokes
fury with a 'sexist' ad calling little boys 'scholars' and girls 'social
butterflies' (and it even spells Einstein's name wrong) [Online] [14th
March 2017]. Available from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3718308/How-seriously-think-OK-Gap-Kids-provokes-fury-sexist-ad-calling-little-boys-scholars-girls-social-butterflies-spells-Einstein-s-wrong.html
Fig 3. MeTV.
2015. VINTAGE MEN'S COLOGNE ADS FROM THE 1960S AND 1970S [Online] [12th March 2017].
http://www.metv.com/lists/vintage-mens-cologne-ads-from-the-1960s-and-1970s
Fig
4. Live Journal. 2011. Planetary
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http://vintage-ads.livejournal.com/3065456.html
Fig 5. Nujol Constipation. Jib Fowles. 1996.
Advertising and Popular Culture. USA. Sage Publications
Fig 6. ThingLink. 2015. Pears Soap ad. [Online] [10th March 2017].
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‘Show her it’s a man’s world’: American
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2017]. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2119086/Show-s-man-s-world--American-adverts-Mad-Men-era.html#ixzz4bWlAYoZ5
Fig 8.
Findery. 2013. Does your husband yawn at the table [Online] [11th March 2017].
https://findery.com/broadside/notes/does-your-husband-yawn-at-the-table
Fig 9. AdPrinciples. 2012. Malboro Man [Online]
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https://adprinciples.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/marlboro-man/
Fig 10. The World of Kitsch. 2011. 60s & 70s Men's Underwear Print Adverts. [Online] [14th March 2017]. http://theworldofkitsch.com/worldofkitsch/60s-70s
mens-underwear-print-adverts/
Fig 11. Jezebel. 2013. Why Photograph a Black
Women in a Cage. [Online] [12th
March 2017]. http://jezebel.com/5337618/why-photograph-a-black-woman-in-a-cage
Fig 12. PaperMag. 2015. Paper: Break the
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http://www.papermag.com/no-filter-an-afternoon-with-kim-kardashian-1427450475.html
Fig 13. Refinery. 2014. The Troubling Racial
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http://www.refinery29.com/2014/11/77809/kim-kardashian-carolina-beaumont-john-paul-goude
Fig 14. News Activist. 2016. This isn’t very
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http://www.newsactivist.com/en/articles/gendered-world-views-section-11-winter-2016/isnt-very-gucci-you
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