Compare the representation of gender in both Men’s Health and Tomb raider

In this essay I am going to discuss both the portrayal of the male gender as seen in ‘Men’s Health Magazine’ and the portrayal of the female gender as shown in the video game cover ‘Tomb Raider’. I will discuss the representation of both and how it is conveyed as well as whether the texts are radical or reactionary.

The portrayal of the female gender as seen in the ‘Tomb Raider’ game cover is sexualised and objectified. The use of the character Lara Croft as the dominate signifier draws peoples attention towards her and her appearance rather than the game itself, detaching the protagonist from the context of the game and instead objectifying her and focusing on aestheticism of the character. This is seen through the strategic positioning of the character in the center of the cover, this is attained through the rule of thirds which draws direct attention to the character and the contortion of her body to emphasis certain features such as her breasts and de-emphasie certain features such as her waist. This is further seen by the title being placed across her middle and by the use of serif text forces the subconscious eye to draw attention to these features. Hence making her characterisation purely sexual. The representation of Lara Croft is representation the stereotypes and ideologies of the female gender. At the time this game was released it the portrayal of Lara Croft was radical due to the fact that prior to this time all protagonists in action games had been male and females were only portrayed as villainesses, victims or seductresses, the fact that this game created a ‘Female Indiana Jones character’ was initially to ‘avoid a law suite’ however, lead to the development and varied representation of female protagonists in future games. However, to today’s audience might view this cover as reactionary as the objectification of female is typical on most game covers. Also by creating a female character who has ‘typical’ masculine, action game qualities such as, the iconic signs of ‘the gun, muscles, backpack’ suggests that a female protagonist has to adopt certain stereotypical masculine qualities to be applicable/ associated with action games and to be supported by the dominate ideology of hero-sexual, Christian, Caucasian males.

Similarly, the portrayal of the male gender can be seen from the use of ‘Vin Diesel’, a stereotypical masculine male as the dominate signifier. The focuses on the dominate signifier is again emphasised by the positioning in the center of the cover, attained through the use of the rule of thirds. The representation of the male gender here is muscular and physical fit. This is shown through the position of the dominate signifier and how he is contorted to emphasises muscle and minims body weight such as ‘his arm slightly outstretched and shiny’. This magazine also uses a juxtaposition of colour and lighting to represent males, by using ‘a mixture of black and white colours’ which has the indexical connotation of good and bad, positive and negative. Light colours and shine have been added to define the muscles and muscular form and used black/shaded the un-muscle defined areas showing that the stereotype of strong muscles bound masculinity is ‘a good/positive’ thing and should be seen and supported whereas, less muscular areas are hidden and shaded supposedly ‘negative and non-masculine.’ Through the presentation of the male gender shown on the cover of this magazine we can see that this magazine adopts a reactionary, stereotypical approach towards the presentation of males as it demonstrate and complies with, the typical conventions of male stereotype. The audience would see it as the idealised version of a male and perhaps the unrealistic body aims and representation of masculinity as supported by the dominate ideology.

In conclusion of both covers represent genders in a reactionary way, compiling to negative stereotypes and unrealistic expectations by objectifying their dominate signifiers and manipulating the audience into believe these dominate ideals.