Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words it is something learnt through repeated performance.
How useful is this idea in understanding how gender is represented? Compare and contrast your idea in terms of both print media and music videos
Refer in detail to your chosen music video Style models, Men’s health and Oh!
Judith Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism and literary theory. Butler questions and explores ideas of how gender is socially constructed and states that through the media and repeated traditions and actions, society has created its own rules of right and wrong or stereotypes for each gender. And from the repetition of the actions it becomes the “normal”. Her theories as well as others from theorists such as Chomsky and Lacan can be used to link to ‘Men’s health’ and ‘Oh’ as well as music videos.
The music video “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke, released in 2013, created mass controversy in and around the third wave of feminism as the music video portrays women as highly sexualised, passive sex objects – which is further enforced in the lyrics. They had constructed a music video in order to get a message across about how women are represented, however its explicit nature made it difficult for people to accept the more than often truth that woman were being seen in this way across media and society. This then enforced the idea of change, and many were focused on not taking down the video or continuing hate towards the artists, but by working towards changing societies culture towards sexism and gender stereotypes. In response to the “Blurred Lines” music video, Auckland Uni produced a “parody” version, in order to provoke and enhance this message for the need for change. The video is a role reversal, where the women act like the men and the men act like the women from the original music video. The aim of the parody was to show how bizarre it is to see men portrayed in the way women were in this and many other music videos. This was able to show that the use of new media technologies has been a clear demarcation for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out within feminism.
A key theorist which highlights the representation of gender in the media is that of Mulvey, who’s theory draws on previous works by Lacan who looked at identity and the recognition in the ‘mirror moment’. Mulvey looks at “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ and the controlling and subjective gaze of what is now referred to as ‘the male gaze’. This is the idea that there is a pleasure in looking, which has been projected onto the female bodies. This therefore results in the stylisation of female characters in media to be structured to fit this idea, for a profit gain – which then with repetition produces a strong visual and voyeuristic impact on society. The magazine ‘OH!’ Is known for combating these ideals, and as it is produced by an independent company, Iceberg, it is free from influence from corporate interest and, with the help of new technology’s it can target more niche audiences. Contrastingly magazine ‘Men’s Health’ is owned by a large conglomerate, Hearst, which makes large profits, such as its revenue of US$11.4 billion in 2019. Men’s health has also been seen to combat such gender stereotypes. However, there are still many stories inside that would follow classic gender roles, and so is not as radical as ‘Oh!’, which is a female owned magazine aimed to promote the empowerment of women and veers away from the sexualisation of women; catering for their audience of unique, creative young women. An extract from the magazine shows a young woman with minimal makeup and natural bushy eyebrows; giving her a powerful stance and feel to the magazine representing women in a powerful and positive light. This majorly contrast to that of ‘Men’s Health’ which supports Mulvey’s theory in terms of “visual pleasure” and uses the stereotypically most attractive male body image in their magazine as a marketing tool to reach audiences and profit rather than voice a political position such as feminism like Oh! does, largely due to conglomerates desire in profiting.
This also ties in with Noam Chomsky’s work, of manufacturing consent as from the mass evidence, of men’s magazines showing strong men on their covers. It can manipulate the audience to change their thinking, from how they “should” look, and what they “should” expect men to look like instead of just allowing them to be comfortable and confident in their bodies as they are; resulting in a very specific ‘expected’ stereotype of men in society. Another theory to draw up on is Louis Althusser’s theory of the Ideological State Apparatus, in which media is the apparatus transferring their dominant ideology and forming our ideologies in the process. Furthermore, even the smallest details such as how ‘Men’s health’ use the colour blue as the background of their front cover, as an indicator of a subliminal stereotyped message for their target audience – which can again be seen as something that was a factor of manufactured consent, over the decades, creating the dominant ideology that men associate with the colour blue. This also further proves Judith Butler’s quote on gender being constructed by repeated action highlighted in many areas of ‘Men’s health’ magazine.
In conclusion, Judith Butlers theory allows us to understand how gender is presented through media institutions, and how societies stereotype gender. Furthermore, her statements and ideas are just commenting on the sides of tradition that we have so easily accepted into society, as well as the way gender is constructed contrastingly between male and female ideas. But through new media products and fourth wave feminists ideas are slowly changing to have more positive and diverse representation, bringing these more radical views to the front, hopefully allowing these revised ideas to become the new dominant ideology.
