The magazine tomb raider represents women through the character of Lara Croft as strong powerful woman being radical against the stereotypical woman, however she is also sexualised due to how she is positioned on the cover objectifying women in order to appeal to the straight male target audience. The men’s health magazine presents the idea of strength and masculinity making the perfect man a creates the idea that that’s what makes a man healthy. 

“Men’s health” magazine have presented men through the lexical fields of Strength and Fitness as audience positioning of the dominant ideology that the stereotypical “perfect man” being strong, fit and masculine. For example, one of the headlines used by the magazine is “demolish junk food cravings” creating the idea that having junk food cravings is a less masculine trait. The magazine does this in order to intis ether target audience of men to read the magazine in order to stop having junk food craving and become the “perfect man” and therefore read the magazine.  The magazine also includes an article focusing on a 69-year-old athlete Phillip Howells, in this article they explain his accomplishments and training to success, this further empathises the idea that men fitness and strength makes you the best man you can be and by include and article of an older man also makes the reader feel as if this is something then could do and need to do in order to become the stereotypical perfect male and emphasise the expectation. However, this contributes to toxic masculinity and can affect the confident of men cause insecurity if they not live up to the life style of Philip Howells or look like vin Diesel.  They Have positioned the dominate signifier of vin diesel a strong, muscly man centrally on the page with his arms exaggerated using selective representation to convey the dominate ideology and therefore try and gain reader attention. I believe the magazine is reactionary due to the fact it follows the stereotypical masculine man, which negatively sets the unrealistic high standard for men too aspire to and causes toxic masculinity into believing that looking like vin diesel is what makes you a better man. 

Tomb radar similarly does this by having there dominate signifier of Lara croft designed to be overly sexualised and positioned at an angle to emphasise her body. This is radical as women are often objectified in the media and made to be oversexualised in order to appeal to the straight male. Much like how Men’s health creates the idea of the perfect man and creates unrealistic expectations, tomb radar does this for women and how creates the idea that looking like Lara croft on the cover of the games is what is attractive. The character is also used to represent strong women and includes images on the back of Lara Croft fighting, this is radical to the stereotype of a women being the damsel in distress and Men being the fighters or hero’s. By opposing this stereotype, it empowers women and creates the audience positioning the women can be the fighters/hero’s themselves, however by having Lara croft be an overly sexualised character still reiterated the idea that in order to be a strong omen you have to look a certain way.  

In conclusion both Tomb Raider and Men’s health create unrealistic expectations for what makes males or females the best they can be. Whereas Tomb raider partly is reactionary going against the stereotypes of women being the damsel in destress and instead presents Lara croft and the fighter herself it still oversexualises women and creates and unrealistic expectations of how strong independent women look. Men’s Health similarly does this creating the idea that a healthy or perfect man is someone who is fit and strong and looks like vin diesel on the cover, this similarly creates the idea that in order to be a good man you need to look as certain way much like tomb raider conveys the idea that you have to look a certain way to be strong and independent.