In this essay I am going to be explaining to you how gender is represented for males and females in the media; focusing on two examples: the Tomb Raider Anniversary cover for the representation of females, and Men’s Health for how males are represented. 

Firstly, I want to talk about gender as its meaning has changed recently. The dictionary says gender is “Either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones,”. This takes into account two genders (male and female), however now people are saying they were born the wrong gender; this creates multiple new genders including: genderqueer, transgender, cisgender, gender expression and gender nonconfirming. This makes it more difficult to analyse gender in the media as now it is harder to distinguish between all of them.

In the cover for the Tomb Raider Anniversary game the protagonist, Lara Croft, is central on the cover. If we were to put a rule of thirds grid on the cover then Lara Croft would take up the entirety of the three central squares; for one sign to take up this much space on the games cover is to show it is the dominant signifier on the cover, which is rare for a female to be as typically males are the protagonist. The text has been strategically placed to draw your attention to her breasts and butt. This over sexualises her and the way she is positioned is unnatural. Along with the unnatural theme her breasts and butt are abnormally big, especially since she is so skinny,(the dominant ideology for women is to be skinny but have big breasts and butt; an hourglass figure) this shows its target audience is straight males. To these straight males it gives a false impression as typical women do not look like that. Another way, Lara Croft is over sexualised is her skin-tight and very revealing clothes this again gives a false impression to the over 12 year old (the age rating symbolic sign that shows it is rated for over 12s) straight males that the game is targeted at as most females do not wear as much makeup as her or wear clothes like that; or they did not when the game was released in 2007. Also she is dressed for an adventure and the fact she is holding guns in each hand shows she does not need a male to protect and take care of her; a radical view. The image of Lara Croft helps to is an iconic (as she is a human) and an indexical sign (as she is from the original game and a well known figure). Going to the back of the cover and we can see that the paradigm of images from the in-game footage show Lara Croft does not look anywhere near as good quality (more pixelated) as she does on the front cover. I think that the gaming cover for Tomb Raider Anniversary represents woman in mostly a reactionary way, however it has some radical signs in it.

On the other hand, men are represented differently in the media as they are pretty much opposites, what would be radical for a female is reactionary for a male and vise-versa. To see how men are represented in the media we are looking at Men’s Health magazine. The layout is pretty similar to the games cover as the iconic sign is the image in the centre that fills at least two of the three central squares on the rule of thirds grid. The iconic sign of Vin Diesel denotes males should be muscular, covered in oil and poorly lit as most of the photo of Vin Diesel is shadow apart from his arms and chest, this signifies that these are the areas the audience should be looking at; this view of males is a reactionary viewpoint. Similarly to Lara Croft, Vin Diesel’s stance is unnatural and uncomfortable as his shoulders and arms are not in the position we are used to seeing, this is done to make him look stronger and to emphasis how men should look. This unusual body position could also be a away to show he is different to the average man as he is special and we can not be like him however we should strive to become as close to being like him as possible. Additionally, words that stand out on the front cover are: blast, stronger, demolish, slay, lose, fast, muscle and six-pack; these connate either destruction or strength as these are words a man should surround himself with as he needs to be strong and needs to show it. A reactionary page in the Men’s Health magazine is the article titled “The Marathon Man” as it shows the dominant signifier as a man running however the photo is staged as it was taken in a studio; this suggests that men should stage and fake things (especially on social media) to give the impression we are someone that is stronger and better than the person we really are. The man in the photo is a radical photo as he is not the strongest male and does not look like the pretty negative stereotype we are used to portraying males as; instead he is an old man that is skinny but is still active. This is strengthened further with the quote on the image “Your only limit is your self belief” which denotes that if you believe you can do it you can. However, I think that this article was selectively included to represent what we should inspire to be like when we are older and to stay ‘in shape’ no matter what. The quote could also be spun to suggest that if we put our mind and have self belief that we will look like Vin Diesel, The Rock or Zac Efron we can, is this a myth? From this I would say that Men’s Health is still more of a radical text than a reactionary one, however it is far closer to being more 50/50 than it was in the games cover.

I conclude that both forms of media are radical and support the dominant ideology, and try to make us want to achieve unrealistic results that the dominant signifiers have. However, they both show ways that support the reactionary viewpoint (Men’s Health shows more reactionary views than in Tomb Raider Anniversary).