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?

Judith Butler displays the idea that “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. This idea has been represented and utilised within adverts and media ever since media was created and products were being advertised. For example the idea that football is for men and netball is for woman, however Judith argues that “Stereotypes and opinions do not decide who you are.” but also publicises her idea because she believes that “Even though its all a lie, the stereotypes have a big effect on people.” which displays the idea that the repeated acts and stereotypes do have an affect on almost everyone and not many people actually accept who they are and change themselves, however when those people do they are looked down upon and seen as different. We can see this within the “First and Second wave of feminism”, after woman spoke out for the first time in 1792 with a book called “A vindication of woman’s rights” by Mary Wollstonecraft, they still didn’t get the vote until The British Suffragettes started to make statements and bringing attention to their points and ideas. In 1913 a woman under the name Emily Wilding Davison took it upon herself to break into the track of a horse race and being trampled/hit by King George V’s horse “Anmer” to make a point and publicise the suffragettes movement. As well as this the suffragettes supporter, “Miss Nell” chained herself to the railing of Buckingham palace to make a point about woman requiring a vote.

We can see this idea being represented through the “Score liquid hair groom” advert made in 1967 where we can see 5 woman carrying a man who has recently shaven using the product advertised, making him seem like a king. The company is advertising the product within the ideal male world and within the male gaze by including the five woman worshipping the man. The male gaze is the idea of woman being oversexualised within media and advertisements for male attention. However it can be noted that shaving cream is not only for men, this is because woman also shave, and they also use shaving cream. This is an example of Judith Butlers idea of repeated acts making us our gender, we can see that the idea of men using shaving cream is a stereotypical, repeated action by men, therefore this company advertises it for men and it is seen as an action performed solely by men. As we can see with products like “Veet Shaving cream for woman” are being made and shaving cream is not only for men and shaving cream is a unisex product.

In addition to this we can see the strap line “get what you’ve always wanted” paired with the advert, this line gives the idea that men’s ideal situation is one with many woman, using a typical stereotype of men always wanting the sexual attention and company of woman, and utilising a stereotype of woman being submissive to men who are attractive and doing anything they say. The idea of the woman in the advert being submissive goes with the idea of the “damsel in distress” by Anita Sarkeesian on her YouTube channel “Feminist frequency” where woman are seen to be useless and require saving by a man, in this case the man is saving the women from non-shaven men who aren’t using the product, I know this because the woman in the back right of the advert is reaching out to the man, giving the idea that she is desperately reaching for him to bring her in and save her. Accordingly this supports the work and research of Laura Mulvey who researched the idea of male drive within films and adverts. The score adverts fits within Laura Mulvey’s research as it utilises the idea of a man with multiple woman being “what you’ve always wanted” and having the attention of attractive woman being the main incentive to buy the product. The woman here are being used as a selling point, implying that when you use the product you will be worshipped by woman and many will all of a sudden become interested in you, this further proves the advert is targeted towards men and it can be described by one of Mulvey’s quotes, ‘Woman as image, man as bearer of the look’ .

Furthermore we can see in Maybelline’s large scale adverts since 1999, they’ve used curvy, oversexualised and glamourous woman to advertise their products. Resulting from this, Maybelline goes against Judith Butlers work and conjoins the stereotypes of genders to their products to increase sales and interest, they have done this by making it seem like woman are the only people to use makeup, however this isn’t true men have been starting to use makeup and expressing themselves through it, for example bands like Fall out boy, and celebrities like Johnny Depp have used and continue to use eyeliner when turning up to social events and shows. However as Judith Butler comments “gender is not a identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” and Maybelline is ignoring the idea of men using their products and wasn’t advertising them towards other genders until 2017 after they realised other genders had started to wear and buy makeup more regularly and it becoming more normal. Most importantly after they hired Manny Gutierrez to advertise their products for all genders it displayed that Maybelline was able to change their adverts and give the idea to their customers that they can display who they are and who they want to be through Maybelline’s products.

Lastly, as Maybelline has expanded their adverts and company, they made a product called “Big shot like a boss” in May 2017. Within this product they released adverts where the newly recruited Manny Gutierrez put on the make up and got “bossed up” which supports the idea of gender fluid representation by showing that males can use makeup and it be supported by the company and it is part of their advertising. This is because later within the part 2 of the “Big shot like a boss” adverts it shows a woman getting “bossed up”, this shows Maybelline’s support of Judith Butlers idea of genders being fluid and only being up to the biological way you were born, instead of the way you act and what you do.

In conclusion I believe both Maybelline and Score have gone against Judith Butlers idea of the fluidity of identity, however Maybelline has caught up and changed their style and changed their adverts to fit more with the current state of society and people choices on gender.

• Feminist = a political position
• Female = a matter of biology
• Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics

Naomi Wolf:

Naomi Rebekah Wolf is an American feminist author and journalist. Following her first book The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokeswoman of what has been described as the third wave of the feminist movement. 

First-wave Feminism:

First-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity and thought that occurred during the 19th and early 20th century throughout the Western world. It focused on legal issues, primarily on securing women’s right to vote. The goal of this wave was to open up opportunities for women, with a focus on suffrage.

Second-wave Feminism:

The second wave feminism movement took place in the 1960s and 1970s and focused on issues of equality and discrimination. Starting initially in the United States with American women, the feminist liberation movement soon spread to other Western countries. American feminist writer Betty Friedan helped ignite the second feminist wave with her book “The Feminine Mystique.” Released in 1963, Friedan builds on the foundation of Simone de Beauvoir’s work.

Third-wave Feminism:

The Third Wave of feminism was greatly focused on reproductive rights for women. Feminists advocated for a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and stated that it was a basic right to have access to birth control and abortion. Influenced by the postmodernist movement in the academy, third-wave feminists sought to question, reclaim, and redefine the ideas, words, and media that have transmitted ideas about womanhood, gender, beauty, sexuality, femininity, and masculinity, among other things.

Fourth-wave Feminism:

Fourth-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began around 2012 and is characterized by a focus on the empowerment of women, the use of internet tools, and intersectionality. The fourth wave seeks greater gender equality by focusing on gendered norms and marginalization of women in society. Its main focus’ was on sexual harassment, body shaming, and rape culture, among other issues. A key component was the use of social media to highlight and address these concerns.

In this scene I can see that there is a man sitting down on a platform dressed in safari clothes with a shotgun in his arms, he is well groomed and smiling and looking pleased with himself. In addition there are five ladies wearing safari clothing too but they are less covered up than the man, their chests, midriffs, arms and necks are on display and they have big hair styles and makeup. The ladies are looking up to the man, as if they are admiring and worshipping him, they are holding some kind of cheetah or leopard skin and one of the ladies is reaching up as if to stroke the man and another is holding onto his cowboy boot. The women are at a lower level than the man. There also some plants in the background to create the illusion that the people in the advert are in the jungle.

The dominant signifier is the man, as he is the ‘masculine’ person and he is showing what effect the liquid hair product will have on women. There is anchorage where there is an image of the product and a description of what it will do for the potential customer. There is a strapline ‘Get what you’ve always wanted’ to show to the customers that by purchasing this product the consumer can get what they have always desired.

In this advert there is no representation, as there are only white males and females. The idea being represented is that by purchasing this product men will be superior to women, that is to state thut women will admire and worship the man that is using the product to amplify his hair.. At the era when this advert was created, women’s rights were given more rights such as a right to birth control and there was the decriminalisation of abortion (in some countries) so why are they still stooping down to what could be seen as following patriarchy?

Manny Gutirrez is a very well known youtuber as a popular makeup artist and beauty blogger, and more specifically he was the first man Maybelline had posted.

Persuasion is used by exaggerating the place the apartment is shot at ‘This place is everything!’ And the Bell Boy being dressed up in what would would typically be seen as someone who one would see in a 5 star hotel, it makes the audience believe that anyone can attain that, and so anyone can attain luxury by purchasing this makeup product.

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I intend to create a print advert that is both historical and radical, for the purposes of advertising a brand of mascara. My focus is to create one radical and one reactionary product to display different representation. I intend to use iconic signifiers of the products and a dominant signifier of the model’s face, in addition to indexical signs and a strapline to emphasise the product.

The radical advert is set in the 1950s era. My style model is a Maybelline advert from the 1950s, which I aim to replicate. The strapline is ‘Eye makeup smart women prefer’ which is an entirely different and commendable attitude toward how woman were usually perceived in the 1950s. Women’s occupations were to be housewives and stay at home cleaning and cooking for their husbands’ and looking after their children. However, this particular advert has a very different approach, it is a counterstereotype of the typical 1950s women, it presents as women who are intelligent and the model on the advert is dressed as though she works at an office with her neat hair and polished makeup. This shows that the model is not adhering to this negative stereotype and is opposing to the patriarchy as it implies that she goes to work, creating a more positive stereotype for women of that era.

The model in the advert I replicated for the radical advert is wearing a dark coloured outfit to exude an air of sophistication and place emphasis on the strapline that states “the intelligent way to make up your future” to imply to the wider audience that the model and user of this particular brand of mascara are of an ‘upper class society’, have an excellent educational background and an individual that is highly sought after in the employment market. The name of the product is ‘Infinite mascara’ as it indicates that women are capable and intelligent enough to achieve an infinite amount of things.

The type of audience that would be drawn to this advert are women who work in an office between the ages of (approximately) 30-45 years, as they would have most likely been to university and attained their qualifications and have had experience at work so they would be able to relate to the strapline and the dominant signifier of the advert.

The kind of company that would make my product would be a kind of brand that is timeless and classy, for instance Chanel, that women who work in an office would be able to afford.

For the contemporary advert a reactionary approach is used. I use a female model as the dominant signifier whose photo displays someone who is happy and gregarious and who is not afraid to show their fun side modelling with a blow up ‘hot pink’ flamingo, sporting a flower garland as indexical signs and wearing her hair in a plait style. This contrasts the former advert as it shows femininity can be fun and expressive too. The strapline ‘Fantastically fun lashes!’ reinforces this idea.

The style model for this advert was an advert for a makeup brand called Too Faced, which I took inspiration from for my contemporary advert as it shows a girl who appears to be very carefree and fun loving as she is posing smiling and and is in a relaxed as well as being on the telephone and has her hair down.

This advert represents itself as a reactionary advert as it it follows how females would be typically as happy go lucky and expressive. At the same time, it is a positive stereotype of femininity as it is a counter stereotype of how many females are portrayed in adverts such as mascara, mainly to appeal to the male gaze and that is what is considered feminine. Although in this advert, it does not. It depicts that whilst still being feminine, though self expression and being fun loving it does not need to follow this negative stereotype of makeup being worn to please men but that women can wear makeup for themselves to make them happy and express their individuality whilst doing so without trying to impress anyone else.

The kind of audience that would consume this product would be a younger age group of 19-30 year olds who are able to afford this product which can be purchased from a number of high street beauty stores, which would be in the category of ‘The Mainstreamer’.

The type of company that would produce this product would be a high street brand such as Revlon or Maybelline as their adverts tend to be expressive and their price range would appeal to a younger audience as well.

David Gauntlet:

“Far reaching social changes current affecting western society”

The ideology behind this is that the opinion of all individuals, irrespective of their gender, race, culture or upbringing, have had a significant affect on individuals throughout the world.

“Front covers of magazines scubas Vogue and Men’s health are shop windows to amore sexier more successful future self for their readerships”

the ideology behind this translates to what has been portrayed within the media rather than individuals.

“Linked to family expectations and right social codes”

The ideology relates to ones gender/sexuality and to abide by the correct acceptance of conformity by society in general.

Judith Butler:

“Our bodies or sex do to define our gendered identities”

There is no need to conform to what is expected from the demands of today’s society – it is for the individual to decide.

“Our genders are culturally rather naturally formed”

Is depended on the societal influences in which an individual is raised from birth and are perhaps bodied when mixing with individuals from other cultures over a period of time.

“30 second glimpses of who we might become”

The ideology indicates that our identities could modify over a period of time.

“Myths reinforce male power as the norm because males are the more naturally dominant gender”

The idea is that a male is the dominant sex compared to a female.