Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. How useful is this idea in understanding how gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns?
Judith Butler presents many different ideas about gender, suggesting that it is “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In this essay I am going to make numerous arguments around this idea, linking it to numerous critical approaches, such as gender as performance and waves of feminism. I will also compare these approaches to the two CSPs being Score and Maybelline.
First and foremost, one critical approach which I aim to consider is Butler’s idea that gender has nothing to do with physical biology, but is something which is performed by people in society. “The historical meaning of gender can change as its norms are re-enacted, refused or recreated” as stated by Judith Butler suggests that gender is never fixed and is ever changing, based on how we as a society act towards the normal behaviours of certain genders. We can even create trends towards genders which become ever prevalent as time goes on, which is a very realistic possibility when ideas like the two step flow model as depicted by Lasarfelt and using famous and influential people as advertising to encourage certain beliefs around gender are considered. From this, many people may follow the influential stars used in advertising and in turn this provides creators of adverts with a lot of influence and power over the impressionable public, which can change our attitudes towards gender. This backs up the idea that gender is ever changing. When these ideas described above are compared to the Score advert, I see little to no correlation between them. For example, the women are clearly below the dominant signifier, being the man, both literally and figuratively. This links to the idea of the “Male Gaze” as described by Laura Mulvey, and shows no change in the idea of the female gender from a long time ago, with women stereotypically seen as historically “weaker” and less dominant in society compared to the stronger, more able gender of males. This links to the idea of hegemony in that men were by far the dominant gender. In addition, the body types on the females in the CSP show that back when it was produced, there was a common negotiated identity that women were supposed to fulfil and had to be like in order to have a chance of succeeding in the patriarchal society of the 1970s (when the CSP was produced). The 1970s was a period of slow transformation in western cultures with legislation about and changing attitudes to the role of women and men in society, something that the advert can be seen to negotiate. Similarly, feminist critical thought became much more prominent and pronounced during the counter cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which heralded, among other changes a greater acceptance of birth control and divorce, abortion and homosexuality. On the other hand, in the Maybelline advert, male models have been featured, such as Manny Gutierrez. This is the first time males have been associated with makeup products in this way, and it tells us that makeup is not just for women, but for men as well. This is important because after decades of only making makeup products and depicting them as things that should be worn by women, impressionable men are being given role models to look up to who can reinforce their thinking that they can wear makeup too, encouraging the idea that gender is ever changing over time. This also links to the ideas about gender not being a term around biology, but that gender is fluid, changeable and plural – further suggesting we have multiple identities we perform to different people in different settings in that there are multiple identities present in the advert between the different people.
Secondly, I would like to present the idea of second wave feminism and show how it supports Butler’s idea of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. Second wave feminism took place around the 1960s/70s and it was societal counteraction towards previous feminist ideas. This positive change sparked a feminist cultural movement that began to shift societies views on abortion, homosexuality, birth control and divorce, and it primarily involved middle class, white feminists. The fact that society’s tight grip on ideas of concepts such as abortion, homosexuality and birth control being stereotypically unaccepted was loosening indicates that gender was beginning to be questioned, and the old belief that you are only either male or female from birth was becoming less prudent. This supports the idea that gender is not set in stone, but is “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” as stated by Butler. When these ideas are compared to the Score CSP, I see little to no relation. One example of why this is so is the fact that the advert has a sexual outlook, and connotations of voyeurism are created. This is because the man is fully clothed whereas the women are wearing little. This implies that men should naturally be attracted to women, which takes away from the changes in society generated by second wave feminism. On the other hand, when compared to the Maybelline CSP, I see many similarities between the idea of gender not being fixed as supported by second wave feminism and the advert. One example of this is that both the man and the woman share equal roles in the advert, and they are both “allowed” to use the makeup, which was something typically only associated with women. This creates a blur between men and women and they could no longer be considered binary opposites. In today’s world, the consensus around gender is much different compared to times of old, and gender is much more understood with non-binary concepts being properly considered. In addition, people are no longer required to fit into certain binary categories, allowing for intersectionality, which is the interconnected nature of social categorisations.
On the other hand, one could argue that the idea of Raunch Culture goes against the idea of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. This is because it is is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available. This implies that all women should consider sex a part of their daily lives, and provides the impressionable public with role models who see the gender of female as one which regularly constitutes sexual appeal. This affects everyone who would call themselves a female, and categorises them into being related to these ideas. When this is compared to the Score CSP, I can see a big relation in that the sexual dynamic of the advert ties into the idea of the “male gaze” and the women present look confident about it. This gives connotations that they are highly sexually available, and that they are pleased about this as well. On the other hand, in the Maybelline CSP, there is little to no relation between it and the idea of Raunch Culture. I think this because there are minimal sexual undertones in the advert, and it does its best to remove the tie between the use of makeup and the female gender.
To conclude, I think that Judith Butler’s description of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” is useful in understanding how gender is represented in both the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns. One reason for this is taking into consideration the idea that gender has no biological roots, but is something which is performed by people in society. “The historical meaning of gender can change as its norms are re-enacted, refused or recreated” as stated by Butler suggests this, and also reveals that gender is ever changing as time goes on and does not have a set definition. When these ideas are compared to the Score advert, I see little to no correlation between them, because the women are clearly below the dominant signifier, being the man, both literally and figuratively. However, I think that the Maybelline CSP does use these ideas in a positive light, as the use of male models in the advert tells us that makeup is not just for women, but for men as well, which deters from typical constraints around gender. Moreover, second wave feminism supports Butler’s idea in that it began to shift societies views on abortion, homosexuality, birth control and divorce, and it primarily involved middle class, white feminists, meaning that it affected a lot of people. I can see similarities between this idea and the Maybelline CSP, however the same can not be said for the Score CSP. Finally, the idea of Raunch Culture goes against the idea of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” because it revolves around women constantly carrying out sexual performances, which then categorises all women into the same stereotype. I can see that this relates to the score CSP in that the women are being belittled, however the Maybelline advert very much goes against this as the man and women both share key roles which are not of a sexual nature.
