Category Archives: Essays

Filters

Author:
Category:
Essays, Feminist Critical Thinking, Representation
Leave a comment

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?

Most people believe gender is distinguished as just male and female however Butler says that it is played out and sometimes that causes misrepresentation like in the score advert women are sexualised and objectified however in the maybelline “boss up” advert there is a variety of identities. Butler is a gender theorist and says that gender is a performance where everyone is performing their own gender and that it’s a fluid of identity which David Gauntlett coined for his own. The use of identity isn’t based upon gender and I am going to discuss the representation of gender and identity in the Score and Maybelline adverts. 

In contrast to Butler, Laura Mulvey identifies the sexualisation of femininity and female characters compared to the male character that we identify with due to the lack of sexualisation and the addition of development and characteristics shown to deepen their character, in a lot of games and movies, Mulvey stated female characters are forced to identity with passive objects to be looked at and desired compared to men’s representation which is more focussed on how the characters body language reinforces the features they have- e.g. an assassin moving sneakily. She also has the idea that the majority of movie directors, game developers, big artists and key people in the media are men therefore we view media in a mans view hence the male gaze, an example would be in a film panning the camera on a sexualised female scene or in a media game exaggerations of female body parts overlooking how they’re actually meant to walk to show more depth to the character. This doesn’t mean male characters can’t be sexualised either- there’s just a stronger amount of female sexualisation- someone replaced popular oversexualised female poses with a boy doing it but that would still be viewing it in the male gaze. The male gaze supports the idea that a sexualised way of looking empowers men and sexualised women. 

The Score hair cream advert is an historical artefact from 1967, as such it can be examined productively by considering its historical, social and cultural contexts, particularly as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. 1967 can be seen as 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. The first wave of feminism can be described with a quotation ‘ sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female.  The Score advert can be similarly linked to this idea because we can see a total of five female figures holding up the male figure giving us the assumption that the male is superior to the females. 

In addition, the idea of fluidity of identity by Gauntlett Fluid of identity is having the choice to change the way you come across however you like. If you don’t want to look a certain way, fluidity of identity creates the meaning of being able to change that and change how you perceive yourself as a person. Not only that Fluid of identity also means having the fluidity to change the way you act to something favoured or to something which can be categorised as normal. Fluid of Identity is the freedom to change who you are as a person from how you look to how you act if you prefer to-do that.. For instance, gender is fluid, you can have the choice who to identify as. This supports Butler’s theory, who quotes “ Biological anatomies do not determine our gender”. She concludes that masculinity and femininity are not naturally given states, but instead  are maintained by individuals through everyday acts meaning that an individual is not born neither male nor female, however your gender defines you through your actions everyday. Gauntlett commented on the changing of representation of men and women in mainstream media. For example the depiction of the passive housewife throughout the twentieth century was being increasingly replaced by images of assertive women taking control of their lives, epitomised by the “girl power” endorsed by the Spice Girls. The representation of men being active and confident was giving way to a more introspective and emotionally aware version of masculinity. Despite the old binary representations still finding their way to the front covers of magazines, now there is a “great diversity of identities”. In this way, we do not always have a fixed identity because we are willing to adapt to new cultural norms. 

This theory is not implied in the score advert, however it can be seen in the more contemporary modern advert from Maybelline, this is because in the Maybelline “boss up” advert we can assume the representation of the female gender has adapted over time, we can make this assumption due to the reason that the gender roles are are suggested to be more equal. Within the advert you can see a homosexual male celebrity with what is thought to be feminine characteristics, also in the advert there is also a female character who is depicted up feel like a “boss” after using the product, this is found towards the end of the advert. This can dispute the idea that there are fixed gender roles and the historical idea that men are superior to women. The theory of raunch culture is also demonstrated in this advert due because the female character is not being sexualised in any way within the advert. “Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as high sexually available. 

The maybelline advert is seen to demonstrate the third and fourth wave of feminism. Third wave feminism was coined by Naomi Wolf as a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s, challenging and re-contextualsing some of the definitions of femininity that grew out.  It saw women’s lives as intersectional and demonstrated a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism. It can be described as the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists. This concept is demonstrated by the Maybelline advert because of the female representation within the advertisement is not being sexualised or objectified in any way meaning that she opposes the stereotype of what the first wave of feminism suggests what it means to be a ‘female’. 

In conclusion, I believe that Butler’s description of gender as “ an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts ” helps people to comprehend how gender is represented to a more clear extent in the Maybelline advert in comparison to the score advert due to the fact that the score hair cream advert opposes the idea that gender is not determined by biological genders.

Essays, Feminist Critical Thinking, Maybelline, Score

CSP 3 + 4 Essay

Leave a comment

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 describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. This can link to the advertisement of Maybelline and Score. Identity is the the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. Identity comes in four forms such as fluidity, constructed, negotiated and collective identity. Fluidity of identity is the idea that people can change themselves through their appearance, their actions and the world. Constructed identity is the development of a complex process in which humans and people develop a clear sight of themselves and have a specific view on themselves. Negotiated identity is the process that people agree and perceive you as, and identify ‘who is who’ is their relationships. Lastly, collective identity is the sense of belonging to a group, having the same interests as the peers around you, however it does not mean you and another person are the same. They share the same ideas. These forms of identity were first proposed by David Gauntlet, which can link to Judith’s idea of identity performance. The reason for this is the element that connects both fluidity of identity to gender performance, thus via the concept that a persons identity / gender can be altered by the way a person pursue themselves.

Firstly, the quote “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”, demonstrates that the idea of men’s identification is due to their masculine repetitive actions such as sitting with their legs spread out or as it is called ‘man spreading’, where as, women cross their legs in a feminine, submissive manner. As well as, our physical appearance also contributes to our identity and our repetitive acts by the way each of us ‘do things’, women shave and men typically don’t, women dress with pink, purples and nude colour clothing where as men’s clothing is typically whites, blacks, blues, reds and greens. This is because we have constructed and built colours, products and objects to be aimed and specified for genders. Butler gives the sense that we live in a fabricated world, where everything is constructed and one thing is one thing, men are men, women are women.

Furthermore, the Maybelline advertisement have always presented their adverts through glamorous women and sexualised facial expressions since 1999, however this multimillion dollar global eyeliner company released a video advert on 30th May 2017, called ‘That Boss Life Pt 1’. The company decided to go out of the norm and have a male influencer, known as Manny Gutierrez Jr, who is part of the LGBTQQIAAP community, as well as the female influencer known as Shayla Mitchell as their presenters, both in which wore the eyeliner, in a way to make a statement, that men too can wear makeup if they want to, its a choice each of us have. As well, the video presents the idea that to show your true self, you don’t require hundreds of pounds to ‘perform’ your identity. Additionally, convincing the audience that they must perform to figure out who they are. This supports Judith Butlers work on gender performance because Maybelline have started to realise that the traditions of constructed identity is starting to fade. Maybelline knows that makeup is starting to shift from just a females use, to a neutral choice. Ideas globally are starting to see that there is no abnormal choice if a male decides to wear makeup. For example, Johnny Depp is a straight man, however he wears eyeliner, clearly stating there should be no constructed idea on clothes, cosmetic products and peoples actions to determine their gender.

In addition, we see the idea represented in the score printed advert “Score liquid hair groom” made in 1967, displays a recently shaven man who is being praised by five different women, who have been sexualised to be a submissive of the dominant signifier. The advert is manipulated to be desired as men wouldn’t be able to resist the sexualised appearance of the females in this advert, giving a sense of what the males can potentially ‘get’, these persuasive techniques of temptation of women gives men the curiosity of buying the product. The audiences opinion of this advert has changed due to the change in society and the way society views ideas. In 1967, when this advert was made, it was deemed normal for women to show skin and be the less dominant gender, and black men and women to not be in advertisement, however over the last few years, the change in society, diversity and the popular ideas have changed the way products are advertised. This is due to the recognition and understanding of sexism, racism and homophobia. The representational idea of different social groups in this photograph, is the idea that men are the dominant gender and women follow masculinity. As well, the idea of this product advertisement is to encourage men to purchase the product for the opportunity to have a swarm of women admiring them. Moreover, this male liquid hair groom links in to the idea of Judith’s Butlers quote “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” because the product is advertised and displayed for men’s use, typically expressing that women do not use shaving cream. However, women also use men’s products and proves that it is not solely a males action.

Overall, Maybelline and Score are both linked to Judith Butlers description of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”, by the way these companies advertise their products, targeting at specific audiences such as men or women.

Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Maybelline, Representation, Score

Essay

Leave a comment

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?

My aim for this essay is to present all the knowledge about wave feminism and the gender as performance such as Butler and the representation of the two other CSPs Score and Maybelline. I will argue that looking at the construction of being male and female is all about civil rights and should be talked more about femininity.

I would suggest that gender as Performance by Butler is “Our gendered identities are not naturally given but constructed through repetition and ritual.” where individuals change their identities over and over again through the act of others. Judith Butler discusses the ideas of gender representation such as gender is fluid, changeable, and plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space. I would also suggest that feminist critical thinking emphasis on the differences among women due to race, ethnicity, class, nationality, religion and fluid and multiple subject positions and identities, therefore it suggests that in the mid 90’s they have low recognisable characteristics.

I would like to explain how theoretical approaches around gender, feminism and representation can be linked to the CSP’s.

First and foremost Mulvey gives us the idea that the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts which refers back to the 3rd wave feminists. Mulvey says “It is said that analysing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it.” for instance the female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, with the male. Kilbourne also assumes the connection between the advertisements of women in public health issues which include violence , eating disorders and addiction. Woolf looks into the third wave feminism about the response of challenges and input about some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period.

To begin with the theoretical ideas of Score, it considers its historical, social and cultural contexts, as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. The Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. Butler believes that there can be no gender identity as it can produce a series of effects as well as Woolf’s point on femininity.

Maybelline afterwards touches on the issue of gender representation, ethnicity and lifestyle. The ad, like its 1960s counterpart, uses an aspirational image showing two friends who do not conform to masculine and feminine ideals but are nonetheless powerful: happy in their own skin, confident in their bodies and their sexuality. 

The historical knowledge about societal changes in 1967 as it relates to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. In 1967 it is believed to be a time of slow transformation in western cultures with legislation about changing women’s attitudes, along as men in society. This was a way to see the advert to be negotiated.

In the late 1960’s and between the early 1970’s, feminist critical thought became much more prominent where a greater acceptance of birth control and divorce, abortion and homosexuality was pronounced during the counter cultural movements.

I would like to announce the idea of the 2nd wave feminism to be approached by resulting in the term of second wave feminism which was directed by organisations.

Jonathon Dollimore gave the idea of ‘all this should not be seen as a straightforward displacement of dominant conservative attitudes‘, where in the early part of the 20th Century, the international alliance of women worked to get women the right to vote.

The Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. The reference to colonialist values can also be linked to social and cultural contexts of the ending of Empire.  I believe they use a mixture of indexical symbols as it relates to a jungle as they are dressed in safari clothing and there is a platform where the material is a leopard which could suggest they are in a forest as they also have the bushes or trees behind them as there background.

After the recent demise of gay icon George Michael, several gay men had paid tribute to the singer recalling how he was a huge inspiration when they were growing up and helped make their coming out easier, furthermore Judith Butler suggests that that’s why people behave different so they fit into society. I also believe that in the Maybelline advert the whole campaign suggesting is youthful and empowering such as the slogans like ‘let’s get bossed out’. The advert emphasises a lot on the product itself. When watching the advert they try to approach by using the colour gold which illustrates how they are trying to make the product sound like it will shine your world and make you look very satisfactory towards others.

Referring back to Maybelline, society in nowadays makes the attempt to understand what it means to be oppressed as a woman. This is where the experiences of white middle-class or to ignore the completely experiences the other women occurred. The development and articulation of intersectionality began to take place because of this cause.

My counter argument is about Maybelline as I believe that their product doesn’t give the impression to attract the audience to buy the product. This is because noticing them in a new York apartment with some mascara in a golden luggage doesn’t engage the audience enough to know if it is a good product or not. In other words putting on mascara doesn’t change your whole appearance, therefore there should be no need for the colour gold to be shown throughout the advert.

The score post is more contradictory as its audience is aimed at the male gander suggesting that it is quite decriminalisation of homosexuality and as such, the representation of heterosexuality could be read as signalling more anxiety than might first appear. The idea that you will get what you have always wished for suggests that the 3 women at the back suggest that the man are getting their attention from them and the 2 women at the front suggest that they could be showing off on their looks and how lucky the man is which could also explain that the advert is sexualising them.

In terms of applying queer theory to feminist critical thought, Judith Butler, among others expressed doubt over the reductionist, essentialist, approach towards the binary oppositions presented in terms of the male and female gender.

Exploring the notion of intersectionality, it gives us the response that feminism is not universal, singular or homogeneous as it is a reductionist and essentialist way of seeing the world itself. Bell Hook shows us the way of exploring the ideas of the world by highlighting the concepts such as ‘female’, ‘feminist’, ‘feminine’, which approaches sexuality, class, age, education, religion and ability.

In conclusion, I was able to identify and explain the connections and representation about Score and Maybelline and its link towards Judith Butler and how feminism is shown.

Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

judith butler

Leave a comment

Judith Pamela Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where they have served, beginning in 1998, as the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. They are also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School.

Butler is best known for their books Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), in which they challenge conventional notions of gender and develop their theory of gender performativity. This theory has had a major influence on feminist and queer scholarship. Their work is often studied and debated in film studies courses emphasizing gender studies and performativity in discourse.

Butler has supported lesbian and gay rights movements, and they have spoken out on many contemporary political issues, including criticism of Israeli politics.

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity was first published in 1990, selling over 100,000 copies internationally, in multiple languages. Gender Trouble discusses the works of Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan, Luce Irigaray, Monique Wittig, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault.

Butler offers a critique of the terms gender and sex as they have been used by feminists. Butler argues that feminism made a mistake in trying to make “women” a discrete, ahistorical group with common characteristics. Butler writes that this approach reinforces the binary view of gender relations. Butler believes that feminists should not try to define “women” and they also believe that feminists should “focus on providing an account of how power functions and shapes our understandings of womanhood not only in the society at large but also within the feminist movement.” Finally, Butler aims to break the supposed links between sex and gender so that gender and desire can be “flexible, free floating and not caused by other stable factors”. The idea of identity as free and flexible and gender as a performance, not an essence, is one of the foundations of queer theory.

See the source image
Judith butlers book ‘Gender Trouble’

Essays, Exam Prep, Feminist Critical Thinking, Notes

third wave feminism

Leave a comment

Third-wave feminism is an iteration of the feminist movement. It began in the United States in the early 1990s and continued until the rise of the fourth wave in the 2010s. Born in the 1960s and 1970s as members of Generation X and grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, third-wave feminists embraced individualism in women and diversity and sought to redefine what it meant to be a feminist. The third wave saw the emergence of new feminist currents and theories, such as intersectionality, sex positivity, vegetarian ecofeminism, transfeminism, and postmodern feminism. According to feminist scholar Elizabeth Evans, the “confusion surrounding what constitutes third-wave feminism is in some respects its defining feature.”

The third wave is traced to the emergence of the riot girl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington, in the early 1990s, and to Anita Hill’s televised testimony in 1991—to an all-male, all-white Senate Judiciary Committee—that African-American judge Clarence Thomas, nominated for and eventually confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, had sexually harassed her. The term third wave is credited to Rebecca Walker, who responded to Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court with an article in Ms. magazine, “Becoming the Third Wave” (1992). She wrote:

“So I write this as a plea to all women, especially women of my generation: Let Thomas’ confirmation serve to remind you, as it did me, that the fight is far from over. Let this dismissal of a woman’s experience move you to anger. Turn that outrage into political power. Do not vote for them unless they work for us. Do not have sex with them, do not break bread with them, do not nurture them if they don’t prioritize our freedom to control our bodies and our lives. I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave.”

The rights and programs gained by feminists of the second wave served as a foundation for the third wave. The gains included Title IX (equal access to education), public discussion about the abuse of women, access to contraception and other reproductive services (including the legalization of abortion), the creation and enforcement of sexual-harassment policies for women in the workplace, the creation of domestic-abuse shelters for women and children, child-care services, educational funding for young women, and women’s studies programs.

Feminist leaders rooted in the second wave such as Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Cherríe Moraga, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, and other feminists of color, sought to negotiate a space within feminist thought for consideration of race. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa had published the anthology This Bridge Called My Back (1981), which, along with All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave (1982), edited by Akasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith, argued that second-wave feminism had focused primarily on the problems of white women. The emphasis on the intersection between race and gender became increasingly prominent.

In the interlude of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the feminist sex wars arose as a reaction against the radical feminism of the second wave and its views on sexuality, therein countering with a concept of “sex-positivity” and heralding the third wave.

Rebecca Walker in 2003. The term third wave is credited to Walker’s 1992 article

Essays, Maybelline, Representation, Score

ESSAY

Leave a comment

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?

To start this essay I want to quote Judith Butler who wrote: “Gender does not exist inside the body” – this implies that the biology of someone’s gender does not determine the way they see themselves and the way they want others to. Indeed, Judith Butler describes gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance. It is saying that there really is no gender and that its all actions that where constantly repeated and created a normal for that gender to do in the old days these repetitive acts made it normal for the woman to not work and just clean and cook and for the male to make the money and work

In the past men were regarded greater at creating literally pieces and writings then woman were. Virginia Woolf stating that simply if women were not stereotyped and given equal opportunities to men originally, then more literacy pieces would have been made. These opportunities being not regarded as worse or beneath men and given the correct education and same rights as men.

In contrast, more recently, “Me Too” was initially used in this context on social media in 2006, on Myspace, by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke.[4] Harvard University published a case study on Burke, called “Leading with Empathy: Tarana Burke and the Making of the Me Too Movement”.[5]

Similar to other social justice and empowerment movements based upon breaking silence, the purpose of “Me Too”, as initially voiced by Burke as well as those who later adopted the tactic, is to empower sexually assaulted individuals through empathy and solidarity through strength in numbers, especially young and vulnerable women, by visibly demonstrating how many have survived sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace

If we consider David Gauntlett and the theory of Fluid of identity is having the choice to change the way you come across however you like. If you don’t want to look a certain way fluid of identity creates the meaning of being able to change that and change how you perceive yourself as a person. Not only that Fluid of identity also means having the fluidity to change the way you act to something favoured or to something which can be categorised as normal. Fluid of Identity is the freedom to change who you are as a person from how you look to how you act if you prefer to-do that.

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.

In addition, we see the idea represented in the score printed advert “Score liquid hair groom” made in 1967, displays a recently shaven man who is being praised by five different women, who have been sexualised to be a submissive of the dominant signifier. The advert is manipulated to be desired as men wouldn’t be able to resist the sexualised appearance of the females in this advert, giving a sense of what the males can potentially ‘get’, these persuasive techniques of temptation of women gives men the curiosity of buying the product. The audiences opinion of this advert has changed due to the change in society and the way society views ideas. In 1967, when this advert was made, it was deemed normal for women to show skin and be the less dominant gender, and black men and women to not be in advertisement, however over the last few years, the change in society, diversity and the popular ideas have changed the way products are advertised. This is due to the recognition and understanding of sexism, racism and homophobia. The representational idea of different social groups in this photograph, is the idea that men are the dominant gender and women follow masculinity. As well, the idea of this product advertisement is to encourage men to purchase the product for the opportunity to have a swarm of women admiring them. Moreover, this male liquid hair groom links in to the idea of Judith’s Butlers quote “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” because the product is advertised and displayed for men’s use, typically expressing that women do not use shaving cream. However, women also use men’s products and proves that it is not solely a males action.

Overall, Maybelline and Score are both linked to Judith Butlers description of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”, by the way these companies advertise their products, targeting at specific audiences such as men or women.

Essays

ESSAY

Leave a comment

Question: 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?

Score Hair Cream Analysis | Close Study Product (CSP) (media-studies.com)

That Boss Life Analysis | Close Study Product (CSP) (media-studies.com)

Response:

In this essay I am going to talk about understanding gender through the advertising campaigns Score and Maybelline and how identity is instituted through a stylized repetition of acts. Butler suggests that gender is not fixed and reinforced consistently through behaviour and performance. “An identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. In other words, (e.g. a man sitting in a certain way would make him a man/male) this is seen in the advertisement for Score as the male protagonist is asserted his male dominance by sitting with his legs crossed in a man-like posture, this was common for the time as it was set in 1967 which at the time the society was very patriarchal this is also linked with the “male gaze”, something that sexualises women by empowering men and objectifying women. In the “male gaze” the women is objectified to fit the wants of the heterosexual male which links to voyeurism. “What it means to be a woman does not remain the same from decade to decade” as stated by Judith Butler indicates that the general society’s ideas and expectations around women are constantly changing as time goes on. For example, a long time ago, women were generally expected to not leave the house very much and focus on cleaning up after the man, and not work very strenuous jobs. While this view is still relevant to some degree today, it is far less prevalent, with women having no general “expectations” and they are allowed and not confined to particular jobs and hobbies as seen with the Maybelline advertisement, with her expressing her freedom as a women. Butler also examines the work of Sigmund Freud, who similarly explains same-sex affection as a form of melancholia. This means that Sigmund Freud explained same-sex affection to be caused by a feeling of deep sadness. “In social structures in which tradition dominates, the notion of who we are is heavily determined by long-standing social forces” This means that we don’t get much choice as these long-standing social forces have been here for much longer and therefore the tradition dominates. However this is becoming far less of a reality as seen with Maybelline, the protagonist in it (Manny G) goes against all social traditions and is a complete counter type. You could also say that the advert creates a syntagm in the fact that all the objects in the video are gold which creates a ideology that gold luxury. Gender is not solely determined by primary experiences during childhood” This means that your gender is defined by your childhood experiences as also seen with Manny G, he states that his childhood was not great but he still did not let his childhood experiences define him. “Men are expected to assume stereotypically masculine identities, to adopt the role of the primary earner, while women are expected to look after the children and clean the family home.” These are all typical social ideals and beliefs of a patriarchal society.” Paul lazarsfeld started off by saying that audiences are active, they control the representations they want to engage with and can actively reject those that do not appeal.” This means that the consumer decides what pieces of media he wants to consume and what he doesn’t want to consume. Arial levy said ‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’ Bell hooks work focuses upon the intersectionality of race, capitalism and gender. Intersectionality seeks to identify a system of oppression that moves beyond our traditional understanding of oppression. Intersectionality focuses upon how various biological, social, religious and cultural factors interact on multiple levels. This enables us to recognise the multidimensional basis of injustice within society. You cannot ‘understand Black women’s experiences of discrimination by thinking separately about sex discrimination and race discrimination’ This could have been the case with Shayla in Maybelline, as she is a woman and she is black, yet she still manages to feature in a advertisement. John Berger and his book “ways of seeing” says in it that women from their earliest childhood have always had to survey themselves constantly. She is told that is it crucial on how she appears to men as it determines how successful she is in life. This message is quite clear in the advert Score as the women are holding up the guy and looks into the game to say if you want to get him or be like him then you have to look like me. However, this is all a myth in today’s society as social traditions are changing all the time. As if someone were to see the Score advert today people would see it as radical whereas people at the time would give a reactionary view. This is quite similar with Maybelline the majority of people today would give a reactionary view; however, they would give a radical view with Score. Score was created at the start of second wave feminism where things like birth control, divorce and the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality. Score was trying to oppose this second wave of feminism and try to direct women back to first wave feminism by having them hold up a man as to say his is the one and he is most important. First wave feminism explained by Virginia Woolf (1929) “A room of one’s own” was focused on women realising they wanted votes and freedom from the patriarchal society. Now third wave feminism is around emerging in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, was a big jump from the second wave feminism focused on seeing women’s lives as intersectional. In this essay I presented how gender is fluid and social ideals are not fixed and things are always changing by using Score made in 1967 as a demonstration of the 1960s and Maybelline made in 2018 as a demonstration of todays society. I also talked about feminism.

Essays, Maybelline, Score

essay

Leave a comment

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?Introduce the overall aim and argument that you are going to make

In this essay I am going to talk about understanding gender through the advertising campaigns of Score and Maybelline and also how identity is instituted through a stylized repetition of acts. Judith Butler suggests that gender is reinforced consistently through behaviour and performance, “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. She also states “What it means to be a woman does not remain the same from decade to decade” meaning that the general society’s thoughts and expectations around women are constantly changing as time goes on. It is believed by many that gender is a concept strictly for male and female, however Judith Butler’s theory opposes this idea.

In opposition to Judith Butler’s theory, Laura Mulvey developed the theory of the male gaze, male gaze refers to the sexualized interpretation of the gaze in a way that sexualizes and objectifies women and empowers men, this supports the idea of negotiated identity which means the idea in which you come to an agreement of ‘who is who’. In terms of the idea of the male gaze, the Score advert could be similarly compared, this is due to the positioning of the female representation within the advert. The females are wearing minimal clothing and are all positioned in a way to suggest that they are praising the male character in order to indicate that their sole purpose is to pleasure the man. This can support the theory that gender roles were fixed around the 1970’s, as it indicates that women were confined to what they were allowed to do and how they were allowed to act. Jean Kilbourne researched and wrote a book on how females were seen in adverts, the idea of abuse and how institutional behaviour stems from sexualised female adverts. The book implied that the advertising industry continues to reinforce, and glamorize femininity. Femininity meaning  a set of culturally defined characteristics. We can also link the Score advert to Jean Kilbourne, this is due to the idea that within the advert we can notice that the females are advertised in very specific way in order to ‘glamorise’ their femininity which is the exact concept Jean Kilbourne wrote about in her book ‘Killing us Softly’. They do this by making the females look ‘flawless’ and like the society’s definition of ‘beautiful’.

Additionally, the Score hair cream advert is a historical artefact from 1967, as such it can relate to gender roles, sexuality and the historical context of advertising techniques. 1967 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. The first wave of feminism can be described with the quote ‘sexism was coined by analogy with the term racism in the American civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Defined simply, sexism refers to the systematic ways in which men and women are brought up to view each other antagonistically, on the assumption that the male is always superior to the female’. The Score advert can be similarly linked to this idea because we can see a total of five female figures holding up the male figure giving us the assumption that the male is superior to the females.

On the other hand, the idea of fluidity of identity is a more modern and up-to-date concept, this means the ability to change how you identify yourself. For example, gender is fluid, you can choose who to identify as. This supports Judith Butlers theory, who quotes  “Biological anatomies do not determine our gender”. She concludes that “masculinity and femininity are not naturally given states, but instead are maintained by individuals through everyday acts” meaning that an individual is not born male or female, but your gender defines you through your actions every day.  She also indicates that the general society’s thoughts and expectations around women are constantly changing as time goes on.

This theory is not suggested in the score advert, however, it can be represented in the more modern advert of Maybelline, this is because in the Maybelline advert we can assume that the tole of the female gender has changed over time. We make this assumption due to the fact that the gender roles are suggested to be more equal. Within the advert, we can see a homosexual male character with what is thought to be ‘feminine’ qualities and also a female character who is suggested to feel like a ‘boss’ towards the end of the advert. This can oppose the idea that gender roles are fixed and that men are superior to women. The theory of raunch culture is also demonstrated in this advert due to the fact that the female character is not being sexualised within the advert. ‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’

The Maybelline advert is seen to demonstrate the third and fourth wave of feminism. The third wave of feminism was coined by Naomi Wolf as a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out. It saw women’s lives as intersectional and demonstrated a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism. It can be described as the ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ This idea is demonstrated by the Maybelline advert by the fact that the female representation within the advertisement is not being sexualised or objectified meaning that she opposes the stereotype of what the first wave of feminism suggests what it means to be a ‘female’.

Overall, I think that Judith Butler’s description of gender as “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts” helps us to understand how gender is represented more in the Maybelline advert than the score advert due to the fact that the Score hair cream advert opposes the idea that gender isn’t determined by biological anatomies.

Essays, Maybelline, Representation, Score

Essay

Leave a comment

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?

In this essay I am going to establish Butler’s views on gender – how they are relevant to a contemporary advertisement and then the contrasting classic advertisement.

Judith Butler’s famous work on Gender was Performative Acts and Gender Constitution. This work entails the distinctions between performing and acting. On page 519 Butler states that ‘social agents constitute to social reality through language, gesture, and all manner of symbolic social sign’ The reader may interpret this as one may act differently which then defines their character and how they are socially. For example, the gestures that one female makes can be the complete opposite of how another female’s gestures are – both their genders are female though. Just because they are both female does not necessarily mean that they will look and act the same. This is what Judith Butler believes in.

Toril Moi’s (1987) crucial set of distinctions between: ‘feminist’, ‘female’ and ‘feminine’. Feminist = a political position, Female = a matter of biology, Feminine = a set of culturally defined characteristics.

Toril Moi has the three concepts <Feminist<>Female<>Feminine> which shows her awareness in the differentiation of gender. Which is what Judith Butler strongly believes in. This supports Butler in which Gender is on a whole spectrum. Moi suggests that there is great difference between <Feminist<>Female<>Feminine> which shows that if you are female biologically you don’t necessarily have to be feminine nor a feminist. Toril Moi’s three concepts can apply to CSP4:Maybelline. In the Maybelline advertisement, one of the beauty guru’s used as a dominant signifier who is part of the face of the campaign, is a male and is gay and is also rather feminine. That is what the audience will gather from watching the advertisement. This correlates with Toril Moi because the beauty guru: MannyMUA goes against the age old stereotype of being a male and the need to be masculine and against feminism.

Laura Mulvey developed the theory of the male gaze. This theory indicates that all throughout film and the media and even real life the male gaze has been very prominent. This is the idea that women are viewed as objects by men. This also supports the ancient ideology of patriarchy in society; men being above all. In accordance to Laura Mulvey’s theory of the gaze, CSP3:Score depicts clearly men to be superior in a way against women. The man in the Score advert is being lifted by the 5 women which links to the idea of patriarchy. He has a proud look on his face which is symbolic as it can represent a poacher stood in front of his prey that he’s just poached. This creates a negative outlook on woman because it portrays them as objects that men can do as they like to them.

There is the Gender performativity theory which is the theory that gender and gender roles are elaborate social performances that one puts on in day-to-day life, the hegemonic versions of which underlay popular conceptions of “man”/”masculine” and “woman”/feminine”.

Feminist critical thought became much more prominent during the cultural movements of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, which brought on, other changes such as acceptance of birth control and divorce, abortion and homosexuality.

However, the Score advert was produced in the year of decriminalisation of homosexuality and so the advert can be seen as negative and a “step backwards” since the reader might see the Score advert and sense that the world isn’t as accepting of homosexuality. This is because the Score advert does not show any awareness or acceptance of homosexuality, rather the opposite. The man is lifted up and above the women signifying his precedence over them. The 5 women are all made to seem as though they are “swooning” over him and showing their interest and admiration. One blonde woman is even reaching out to grab the man as if he is some special artefact that is wanted by all. That is what Score wants men to believe if they use their product. They mention their product countless times in the copy in their advert with numerous photos of the product.

Although the women’s movement was not the start of feminism. In other words, the issue of women’s inequality goes as far back as before the 1960s. ‘the feminist literary criticism of today is the product of the women’s movement of the 1960’s’ (Barry 2017:123) This quote means that during the second wave of feminism, many opportunities and greater personal freedom for women came about. Due to that, we have many written things to take from that such as, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Women also took over the means of production by setting up feminist printing houses such as Virago Press.

Third-wave feminism began in the early 1990s, coined by Naomi Wolf, it was a response to the generation gap between the feminist movement of the 1960’s and ’70’s, challenging and re-contextualising some of the definitions of femininity that grew out of that earlier period. In particular, the third-wave sees women’s lives as intersectional, demonstrating a pluralism towards race, ethnicity, class, religion, gender and nationality when discussing feminism. ‘rebellion of younger women against what was perceived as the prescriptive, pushy and ‘sex negative’ approach of older feminists.’ (344)Barker and Jane (2016 p. 344) This quote means that women that were trying to get on with their lives and do as they please but older feminists were seeing them as if they were acting out and judging them as of course this type of behaviour was new and unexpected for everyone. Maybelline shows the freedom of individuals that these women during the third wave of feminism were trying to achieve peacefully. This can be further supported by Raunch culture. ‘Raunch culture is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as highly sexually available, where its performers believe they are powerful owners of their own sexuality’ Hendry & Stephenson (2018:50)

However, 4th wave feminism also looked to explore these contradictory arguments and further sought to recognise and use the emancipatory tools of new social platforms to connect, share and develop new perspectives, experiences and responses to oppression, ‘tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online‘ (Cochrane, 2013). This encouraged things like the radical stance of #MeToo to the Free the Nipple campaign, which Miley Cyrus endorsed and supported, the use of new media technologies has been very helpful and progressive for broadening out the discussion and arguments that are played out in this timeline of femininity

In conclusion , I believe in Judith Butler’s belief that gender and that Maybelline and Score adverts have contrasting representations of gender and their take on feminsm.

Essays, Maybelline, Representation, Score

Representation Essay – Score and Maybelline

Leave a comment

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.