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 gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns?

This essay will be a discussion and evaluation of theorists and their supporting ideas about gender. How they are relevant to current modern issues and advertising. Then contrasting them to older views about representation of gender in advertising and history.

Judith Butler mentions and holds an unequivocal view of how gender should be represented in modern society. She believes that gender is fluid, changeable and plural. This means and has created an ideology that gender is a matter of choice and representation learnt and chosen through a repeated amount of actions. Actions that can be changed and done differently whenever a person feels as though they feel different one day or one hour compared to the other, gender is actively changeable. To put it simply, someone may feel as though they want to be a male one day; this would mean repeating a masculine regarded repetition of performance and actions; then feel as though they want to be a female the next. Gender isn’t a physical thing, she says that nothing can decide what gender you are, you decide who you want to be and this quote “Biological anatomies do not determine our gender” reinforces this view. This basic idea supports her views that gender can not be assigned at birth, that what anatomy a person is born with has nothing to do with their gender. Gender is how a person feels like, it’s a mental attitude that is always changing and ‘fluid’.

Further to this point, her ideas support views that no matter the way you act you cannot be regarded a certain gender over the other. “Male and female identities are not naturally configured”. We can act in a more feminine or masculine way but specific gestures or speech and acts don’t determine if we are a man or woman. She is trying to break out of typical gender stereotyping where specific acts decide who we are. Such as a sport like football being considered a male sport to play or makeup being regarded as a female thing to use, she tries to break out of this idea and allow anyone to do anything they like to live and embrace their identity. This is contrasting to some of the ideas presented by Laura Mulvey which seem to suggest that gender is fixed – male or female. That gender is controlled and exerted by powerful influencers, institutions and certain individuals. This is an opposite idea to Butler that suggests that we have multiple identities that are performed to different people, in different social settings, under different social conditions.

When applying this to both close study products we can see a vast difference to both advertising techniques and how gender is represented. Looking at Maybelline, made in the 30th may 2017, we can see a modern advertisement where the main signifier and actor used is a man. This is significant as it supports the hypothesis of Judith Butler that make up isn’t and shouldn’t be regarded as a product for women, and using it doesn’t apply you to certain groups or associations. The use of a male star in the advert is a progressive field in the beauty area of advertising. The ad is trying to adhere to all gender, sexuality, race and social class. This can be seen as a strong social statement, but also as a clever marketing strategy to appeal to everyone, to obviously gain the biggest profit and return. But as in consequence it still positively applies to Judith Butlers theory and can be seen as a prosperity in the advancement and deeper understanding of gender and more profoundly, race. When applying ideas of feminism to race, we can see that in the attempt to understand to be oppressed as ‘a woman’, some feminist scholars sought to isolate gender oppression from other forms of oppression’. Therefore, there was a focus on oppression of women who were white and middle aged, if not, there would be a lack of any focus at all. This being a notion provided by theorists ‘Sigle-Rushton’ and ‘Lindström’ in 2013. Similarly, in recent times, the third wave of feminism has a focus on challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. The third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism. This began in the early 1990s, led by Naomi Wolf. Furthermore, we can also apply this to the second part of ‘that boss life’ Maybelline advert where they also include 2 new characters, one being a white, presumed straight female and the other being an Asian woman with a typical hairstyle, used to clearly direct the ad and create a conclusion that the product is for everyone of every gender, race and sexuality. The posture in the original ad and also in the second, shows a transformation from the regular casual clothing and confidence, to a more prestigious outfit — after use of their product, it creates a constructed reality where they are now more glamorous and more confident, a total transformation, no matter what gender or race you are, you can be who ever you want and you deserve to be confident in your individuality.

The modernisation of these recent advertisements is affecting and changing new generations of children and their perception of gender. David Guantlet said “We are transitioning from a society in which our identities were constructed via rigid traditions to a distinctly different phase that he calls ‘late modernity”, this idea is showing that our ideologies based from our cultures and traditions are slowly becoming less important and less involved with who we are in modern times, we are now moving away from characterization and organization of individuals into certain groups, it is now up to every individual to decide their identity and how they wish to represented.

On the other hand, we have the score advertisement, this ad was made in 1967 and shows a massive differentiation from modern views and ads. Score, the printed advert, shows a completely different view to gender representation. It shows men and women as separate identities, an identity where woman are shown to be socially beneath men in the hierarchy. Woman are used as a tool in advertising to market a health and beauty product to men. It shoes women holding a man above them, clean shaven, portraying the use of their product. To put it simply, this is a clear opposite view of gender representation, a view where men are viewed as the more powerful and stronger gender and women are beneath them both metaphorically, socially and literally in this ad. As Judith Butler makes clear, “Myths reinforce male power as the norm because males are the more naturally dominant gender”, we can apply this to the score advert dexterously. It shows that a male dominant society is factual and proven in previous times. Upon deeper analysis, we can also assign this to Anita Sarkeesian ideas of the ‘damsel in distress’, although these ideas are applied to modern video games we can also see it in the score advert as we can see the woman beneath the man with some of them holding their hand above their heads, looking as though they are seeking refuge and to be protected by the strong able man. These times held strong stereotypes where woman were not as strong as men, gender was represented in a much simpler and narrow minded way and links to ideas of  Laura Mulvey which says that gender is fixed and immovable, you are either male or female. Moreover, this advert follows a clear presentation that certain products are exclusively targeted for certain gender, the score ad is shown to be just for men, using woman to adhere to the male gaze and voyeuristic ideas produced by John Peter Berger.

In conclusion, I believe that in both aspects of close study products, Maybelline has had a more detached representation than common portrayals and ideologies of modern gender attitudes, as followed by ideas of Judith Butler, whereas, Score has a more archetypal show of customary and traditional views on how gender and authority is represented, as well as their displays of thoughts of individuality during the ads time period.