Score
Male gaze – Clothing etc
Man above women both literally and figuratively
Gun – connotes violence – dominance and control – stock character – Propp – hero/princess – masculinity
This masculine representation alludes to men’s need to be desired – links to self esteem from uses and gratifications – Katz, Gurevich and Haas
The score advert was produced the same year as the decriminalisation of homosexuality and the representation conveyed here could be a product of the anxieties and grey areas created from the beginning of a transition towards a postmodern world.
Score & Maybelline : Revision
Intro
David Gauntlett believes that identity is fluid, and representation changes over time to accommodate for this. A great example of this is Score and Maybelline. Whilst both are an example of queer theory and present a eudemonia through their hyperreal (Jean Baudrillard) depictions of gender and sexuality, they are still essentially binary oppositions. Score depicts gender through the lense of old traditional binary definitions and ideals. Sexualising the women and placing them as subservient to the man (Jean Kilbourne). It is exclusively for heterosexual men, and more specifically, white heterosexual men, its lack of racial representation (it only includes white characters) is an example of Paul Gilroy’s post-colonial theory, as it fails to provide equal representation for black individuals. Maybelline on the other hand, puts an emphasis on inclusivity, representing multiple races, sexualities, and genders. Maybelline’s use of Manny MUA, a gay makeup artist / influencer, and Shayla Mitchell, a black makeup artist / influencer shows that their product is for everyone.
Eudemonia – happiness as the result of an active life governed by reason.
David Hesmondhalgh
believed companies involved in cultural industries were motivated by profit rather than a duty to public service broadcasting.
“Cultural industry technology realizes standardization and mass production by subtracting the two logical differences between social work and social system.” In order to make products attractive to consumers and occupy the market, producers “rationalize” according to consumers’ preferences.
- The constructed identity presented of the eras new prototypical masculinity representations and ideologies on ‘being a man’ during the time era of score, relates to the idea of toxic representation of masculinity being used as a tool to promote and sell products to its male audience rather than a duty to provide a quality product to its target market. Relating to Hasmondhalgh‘s idea on rationalisation with their consumers preferences by appealing to gender roles and norms of the time, this time being a representation of men as strong and having control over women, they were to attain to these societal roles otherwise they’d be discredited and not seen as a man.
- Specifically and more relating to, ‘Oh!’, a self-proclaimed feminist production with an aim to celebrate femininity and specific female individuals. These products have a clear juxtaposition to each other and represent advancements in how the media presents females, relating to the theorist Van Zoonen, who believes that ‘media portray images of stereotypical women and this behaviour reinforces societal views‘. So when applying this theory, it shows a shift in representations of women in media, and therefore a shift in societal views, which celebrates women more than the time era of score. Similarly, a reason for the increase in female related productions and products would be as a duty motivated by profit rather than a duty to appeal to new 3rd wave of feminism ideas and to rationalise that feminism is a new wave of consumers and there is a need to appeal to them.
Clay Shirky and the End of Audience
Old Passive Audience VS New Active Audience
Lazerfeld
SCORE AND MAYBELLINE RE-VISIT | DAY 5
Score Hair Cream:
Stereotype/Male Gaze: The stereotypical dominant man who conquers the passive and submissive woman. This is displayed by the woman holding the male on a pedestal wearing skimpy clothing for the males liking.
The male gaze can be supported by the Connoted glamour on the women’s body, tanned skin, luscious hair and short tied shirts across their chest which would barely be allowed by the advert regulators in the 1960s.
Hesmondhalgh, Company profit: Three women look up to the man in complete awe of him and his presence, in fact one of the 3 is quite literally trying to reach up and grab him, almost signifying she’s reaching higher above for something she years. The other 2 woman look at the consumer, as if to suggest, you too could have this power and dominance over woman if you buy and use the hair cream.
Valdimir Propp, Stock Characters: The “Hero” character can be seen within the ad through its props, costume and set. The jungle themes clothing like green cargos, skimpy tops to “cool off” and bushes in the foreground suggest the male has gone on a quest to find and save the girls with his amazing hair and shaven face. This is shown by how the male is represented above all the women literally but also being held as if he is a saviour.
Judith Butler, Gender Performance:
Judith Butler states that your genders stereotype is decided by a repitition of acts by that gender, in this case the typical acts are being represented through the idolised view of males from the female side of things, whereas on the male side of things they are typically being dominant and held high in society.
Maybelline:
Hesmondhalgh, Company Profit/Risk: Manny was the first male to become an ambassador for Maybelline, this advertisement shift allows a wider range of audience to be interested, engaging more sales.
David Gauntlett, Fluidity of Identity, Countertypes: Fluidity of identity is said to “Break down binary gender definitions”, the typical “housewife” female representation is broken in “That Boss Life” due to the woman being represented with gold clothes, eyeliner and gold jewellery, not to mention the title “that boss life” implying that the actors are in complete control of their lives, being the “boss” of them. Gold being a rare and expensive metal, signifies that the woman is rare and worth time as she is precious. This is a countertype.
Opposition of Judith Butlers, Gender Performance:
This text might help the audience to rethink their views on masculinity. This is re-enforced by how Manny (A male youtuber) has facial hair and identifies as a man, wears mascara in the advert and poses femininely.
Score and Boss Life – CSP Revision
Key Words/Ideas:
- Diversity
- Identity (David Gauntlet)
- Gender Performance (Judith Butler)
- Detonation (Barthes)
- Intersectionality
- Queer Theory
- Jean Kilbourne
- Bel Hooks
- Hegemony
- Hybridity – Genre (Steve Neale)
- Semiotics
- Transformation of the Public Sphere (Habermas)
Opening Para:
David Gauntlet states we construct our own identities through different influences such as people/experience/interests which may not be the traditional cultural norm. Similarly, Judith Butler expresses the idea that gender identity is changeable and fluid as we ‘perform’. That boss life, is an advert focusing on contemporary representation and construction of identities. Meaning it is much more progressive and provocative then ‘Score’ as it includes different representations of age, race, gender and sexuality.
Men’s health : Revision
Roland Barthes
Commodification
Preferred Reading
Binary Opposition
- Lazarfeld Opinion leaders/Chomsky Opinion leader 5 filters
- Hesmondhalgh risk/profit
- Gauntlett Constructed Identity/Propp stock characters
- James Curran and Jean Seaton
Score + Maybelline: Advertisements
Intro
David Gauntlett believes that identity is fluid, and representation changes over time to accommodate for this. A great example of this is Score and Maybelline. Whilst both present a eudemonia through their hyperreal (Jean Baudrillard) depictions of gender and sexuality, they are still essentially binary oppositions. Score depicts gender through the lense of old traditional binary definitions and ideals. Sexualising the women and placing them as subservient to the man (Jean Kilbourne). Through Stuart Hall’s reception theory we can see Score is encoding messages which are exclusively designed to be decoded by heterosexual men, and more specifically, white heterosexual men. Its lack of racial representation (it only includes white characters) is an example of Paul Gilroy’s post-colonial theory, as it fails to provide equal representation for black individuals. Maybelline on the other hand, puts an emphasis on inclusivity, representing multiple races, sexualities, and genders. Maybelline uses opinion leaders such as Manny MUA, a gay makeup artist / influencer, and Shayla Mitchell, a black makeup artist / influencer to gain access to a wider audience.
Revision – Television
Witnesses – French tv program. BBC program. Dead bodies appear in houses that are for sale
The missing – a woman reappears after being missing. BBC program
Potentially a question about audience? Or representation.
Witnesses is aimed at a young adult audience with mature themes within the program itself
The missing is also aimed at a young adult audience with mature themes and scenes within the program.
Language Of both tv programs
Genre – Crime, Drama
Narrative of moving image – propp – character development through out the story/moving the story along and steve neale -genre theory
Witnesses – propp – lead detective develops through out the progrsam as he is under attack for a start and as he uncovers more he discovers more about himself and the place he is in.
The missing – propp- the girl who was missing readjusts to the normal life moving the story along and developing her characteristics into normal life.
TELEVISION LANGUAGE –
Character types
Todorov
Propp
Steave Neale
Genres of order
Representation (very unlikely to get in tv question) –
Syntagym
Hall
INDUSTRY –
psb – public service broadcasting
BBC
conglomerate – surviving as a multinational conglomerate (tv)
transformation of the public sphere
the public sphere
James Curran
AUDIENCE
Stuart hall
Encoding/decoding
Hyperreality (if applied correctly)
social needs
uses and gratifications
McQuail, Blumer & Brown
KEY FACTS
The missing
season 2 had 8.06 million viewers whereas season 1 only had 7.37 million – social needs,
an average rating of 8.4/10 out of 28 reviews. – psb
The daily telegraph described it as “supremely compelling” – transformation of the public sphere , psb
second series has earned a “Certified Fresh” score of 100%, with an average rating of 8.55/10 out of 15 reviews. – psb, social needs , public sphere
production – new pictures
Witnesses
production company – cineteve
Not popular – public sphere
around 1 million people watched season 1 and season 1 – social needs, public sphere
its difficult to find things about it online suggesting its not known – psb
Men’s Health
Roland Barthes
Commodification
Preferred Reading
Binary Opposition
Although the media form of magazines are on the decline with Iceberg Press going bankrupt in the COVID pandemic, Men’s Health/Oh Comely feature a variety of strategies to appeal to audiences and in turn stay afloat, such as using enigma and proairetic code conceptualised by Barthes to make their products reactionary to the target audiences, allowing a dominant reading to e more easily formed. This has potential to encourage sales by generating interest in the products, leading to a process of commodification to mitigate the risks associated with the magazine media form. In this essay I will explore these concepts in depth and display how they appeal and can be applied to the relevant CSPs.
Mens Health & Oh! Comely Re-Visit | Day 4
Mens Health CSP, Links, theories and examples:
Lazarfeld Opinion leaders/Chomsky Opinion leader 5 filters: By utilising Vin diesel on the front page and Gerald Butler on page 7, the Men’s Health magazine looks to boost sales and create an interest through their popularity.
Hesmondhalgh risk/profit: By using these different opinion leaders, Men’s health look to increase the sales of their magazine by attracting fans of vin diesel, not only that but on page 7, Gerald Butler is used to boost sales of the Boss Aftershave, this is due to his popularity.
Gauntlett Constructed Identity/Propp stock characters: Page 68 identifies 3 different types of men with 3 different titles. Vin diesel as the “Strong man”, “True Grit” as the “old man” in the middle of the page and the “cool man” next to the “old man”.
James Curran and Jean Seaton: Mens health is owned by “Hearst” which is a conglomerate which also owns popular pages like “Vanity Fair” and “GQ”, Seaton and Curran talk about how conglomerates dominate the media scene.
Oh! CPS, Links, Theories and examples:
Countertypes: Oh! opposes the typical representation of women within the media. On the front page we can see a low shot of a woman’s head, chest and shoulders. These typically oversexualised areas are covered up and hidden as well as the woman being shown with short hair, and a dominate position with her arms flailed up.
Bel Hooks Intersectionality: Within page 7 of “Oh!” we can see a British Arab woman who talks about the health of the vaginal area of a woman, not only does this oppose the typical content you would see in a newspaper, but it displays the double consciousness of the woman used in the page.
Exam starter:
Mens Health is a personal needs magazine which identifies and targets men who want to better themselves and change their attitude. Being owned by “Hearst”, Mens Health is part of a “Media Conglomerate”, James Curran and Jean Seaton talk about how conglomerates dominate the global media scene. Furthermore, we have “Oh!” which is a niche magazine which displays the countertypes of the typical representation of women within the Media. On the other hand, within “Mens Health”, the stereotypical “stock characters” from “Propp” are identified and shown within page 68 in the editors note, this also doubles down as the “constructed identity”
mens health and oh
mens health:
- 75% of products sold have been in print form and 25% being digital copies
- Mens health is owned by Hearst who are an American mass media conglomerate
- Hearst own a magazine similar to Mens health but for women called Womens health which also uses stereotypes such as colours with Womens health being mainly pink
- half of mens health demographic is women
oh:
- left wing
- average age of reader is 27
- owned by iceberg press
- launched in 2010
In modern day magazines have been over taken by the digital world seeing a large decline in sales. I will be analysing our CSPs Oh Comely and Mens Health in order to capture the masculine and feminine stereotypes created by society. To do this I will look at theorists such as Laura Mulvey, Stuart Hall and David Hesmondhalgh. Our CSP Oh Comely is a niche lifestyle magazine owned by a multi media conglomerate, Hearst.