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.
