Judith Butler is a philosopher and a gender theorist whose work influenced political philosophy and ethics and also the fields of third wave feminism. Butlers work was influenced by Jacques Le Can and her work is primarily known for having notable ideas on gender performance and gender as a social construction. Jacques Le Can invented the mirror theory. The Mirror Theory refers to an emotional action/reaction. Everyone you encounter is an emotional mirror of the love or the lack of love you express. In fact, they reflect back to you a part of yourself. It also explores how infants first look at themselves and identify that it’s them. Therefore this suggests that people view and interpret media in different ways and therefore giving different ideas about media. Another theorist that can be linked to the representation of genders is bell hooks. bell hooks is a theorist that said that we need to engage with popular culture in order to identify class struggle domination, renegotiation and revolution.
The music video “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, which was published in 2013, quickly became a massive controversy, because of the third wave of feminism in the mid 1990s. The music video portrays women as highly sexualised and passive sex objects. The producers have clearly constructed a music video in order to get a message across about how women are represented in nowadays. However, society was not happy with this, and decided that this idea of women needs to change, not by taking the video down, but changing its stereotypes of culture, racism and sexism. Barker and Jane are english fiction writers, and according to their theories, the third wave of feminism is the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists’ and enhance to characteristics of “sex positive”.
In response to the “Blurred Lines” music video, Auckland Uni produced a “parody” version of the hit single, in order to provoke/enhance the message of how women were represented in this music video. The video is a role reversal, where the women act like the men did and the men act like the women did in the original music video. The aim of producing this parody was to show how bizarre it would be to see men portrayed as women in music videos. This was able to portray that the use of new media technologies have been a clear demarcation for broadening out the arguments that are played out within feminism.
The forth wave of feminism began around 2012. The only difference compared from the fourth to the third, is that the forth wave feminism was more active, as we now have multiple foundations to support it, such as the “free the nipple” campaign, where Miley Cyrus got involved and gave her surpport for women.
The magazine “Oh Comely” was published by the independent publisher, Iceberg Press, which is a London based publisher. This magazine is about new ways of looking inside ourselves. It is a reimagination of women’s magazine, that constructs a representation of femininity with its focus on creativity and quickness. The front covers of Oh Comely show major themes of empowerment, as the female models stand with a strong, bold posture, with full face shots where they portray themselves as being independent. It is possible to apply Stuart halls theory of representation in this case as the absence of men creates an identity for the brand, as they are doing something out of the ‘ordinary’ by showing how women can have different representations and aren’t just objects, as you would see in various magazines and music videos, such as “Blurred Lines”.
From looking at the magazine “Oh Comely”, it is possible to clearly see a major contrast in the Men’s Health magazine, which was published by the company Hearst communications, where it pinpoints a focuses on the representation of men. This magazine supports Judith Butlers theory considering “a repertoire of acts”, suggesting that something can be learnt through a repeated action.
Hearst is a large conglomerate, owning other magazines such as Maire Claire and Elle. With Men’s Health being one of the world’s largest men’s magazine brands, it plays a big role in presenting genders and stereotypes. With its repetitive Men’s Health magazines, with all the men standing in the same position in each magazine making themselves look strong, bulky and strong it creates an ideology of the way men should be perceived. Overtime, when the magazines tend reach all audiences, it gives the audience an intended message on how they should look. This is enhanced by the various bold text that are featured in the front cover, “blast body fat” “new year muscle” etc. This magazine portrays how men should be perceived by audiences, making men feel like they have to look a certain way, encouraging them to become ‘bulky’ and ‘strong’.
Overall, Judith Butlers theory allows us to understand how gender can be presented through media institutions, and how societies stereotype different genders. Furthermore, the way gender is constructed through media can contrast each other. In the music video “Blurred lines”, it is seen that the women have been overly sexualized. The theorist Laura Muvely focuses on the Male Gaze. The ‘Male Gaze’ is the act of depicting women in the visual arts, from a masculine perspective. Muvley also focuses on how women are represented as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male view. This is clearly seen in “Blurred Lines”, through the use of minimal clothing and close up shots, making the women become identified as ‘sexual objects’. Which contrasts with the magazine “Oh Comely”, as it introduces women with long sleeved clothing and minimal makeup. Furthermore, it takes us away from the representation of women being seen as sexual objects, therefore creating a radical text for the reader, as they are used to large conglomerates and artists, such as Hearst, more specifically Men’s Health, creating a dominant ideology of how men and women should be seen.