History- The Score hair cream advert is an historical artefact from 1967, as such it can be examined for its historical, social and cultural contexts, particularly in its relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques.

1967 can be seen as a period of slow transformation in western cultures with changing attitudes to the role of women – and men – in society, something that the advert can be seen to negotiate. Produced in the year of decriminilasiation of homosexuality the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signaling more anxiety than the surface level of the advert. The advertising techniques of fifty years ago are fundamentally similar to today’s adverts but there are clear signs and evolutions of techniques through out the years.

Hypermasculinity in advertising
Hypermasculinity is defined as: a psychological term for the exaggeration of male stereotypical behaviour, such as an emphasis on physical strength, aggression, and sexuality.

Advertising in the 1950s-1980s often featured a lot of hyper-masculine representation of men – and some representations in the media today still continue this.

Gelfer: Five stages of MasculinityGelfer suggests there are five stages of masculinity – how people perceive and understand what it means to be a man.
Stage 1: “unconscious masculinity” – traditional view of menStage 2: “conscious masculinity” – as above but deliberateStage 3: “critical masculinities” – feminist; socially constructedStage 4: “multiple masculinities” – anyone can be anythingStage 5: “beyond masculinities” – it doesn’t exist 
Gelfer says advertisers need to think about how their target audience views men and masculinity when creating campaigns.

Masculinity in crisis? David Gauntlett
Media theorist David Gauntlett has written extensively on gender and identity. He disagrees with the popular view that masculinity is ‘in crisis’:
“Contemporary masculinity is often said to be ‘in crisis’; as women become increasingly assertive and successful… men are said to be anxious and confused about what their role is today.”
Instead, Gauntlett suggests that many modern representations of masculinity are “about men finding a place for themselves in the modern world.” He sees this as a positive thing. (Gauntlett, 2002)

 

MEDIA LANGUAGE

MEDIA REPRESENTATION

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Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D. (born January 4, 1943) is a public speaker, writer, filmmaker and activist who is internationally recognized for her work on the image of women in advertising and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising.^[1] She is also credited with introducing the idea of educating about media literacy as a way to prevent problems she viewed as originating from mass media advertising campaigns. She also lectures about the topic,^[2] and her documentaries (such as the Killing Us Softly series) based on these lectures are viewed around the world.^[3]

She is a graduate of Wellesley College and holds a doctorate in education from Boston University, as well as an honorary doctorate from Westfield State College, for her “research [and] insights [that] lead us from consumerism to consciousness