Advertising

“David Gauntlett’s theory of identity suggests that we are now living in a world where the meaning of gender is increasingly open.

To what extent do you agree with his hypothesis in relation to print advertisements in the UK?

David Gaunttlet’s theory states that a person’s identity can be affected by the media that they consume as the audience may learn something about themselves from the product itself.

I agree with the statement to a certain extent as in the past certain adverts used straightforward stereotypical representations of certain individuals mainly the genders such as the older Budweiser adverts (Figure 4)  where a woman is seen to be feeding the man food and beer showing her role to be almost subservient and the male to be dominant in society where as now in the modern society the media shows diverse complex representations of different members of the gender groups. In a variety of different adverts within a modern society for example the Diesel adverts (figure 9) features both a man and woman that are wearing the same outfit and having similar hair style etc which can suggest that the meaning of gender has become increasingly open as the consumers have become increasingly more androgynous in a sense.

 The majority of the adverts that have been featured from the 50s to the late 90s carry the old fashioned and “traditional” values of the past this includes showing Women to be subservient to the men which was common during the is time as the patriarchy was seen to be dominant at the time. Examples of this include figures 1 to 8. In figure 1 we see a stereotypical view of a woman in the house who enjoys doing the cleaning and the household chores which emphasises the idea of the stereotypical housewife which would help sell the product to both the men and women for some semblance of “Self-fulfilment”  for the product. Jumping to the sixties we see that the stereotypical view of woman being the housewife has not changed as in figure 4 we see that the woman has served the man with dinner and a beer which conform to the stereotypical roles for both genders. In the 90s although the gender roles start to become more relaxed we still see examples of women being placed in a subservient role this emphasised in figure 5 which shows an advert of woman wearing a distinct lack of clothing with the copy stating “Keep her where she belongs” this could be interpreted as seeing women as below men and on a similar level to that of animals as she “under the heel of men” as she is next to the shoes. In figure 6 we could interpret it as the roles being slightly reversed as the woman is higher up than the man however the woman is still seen to be wearing scantily clad clothing and adopting a sexualised pose.

In the latest adverts of the 2000s (Figures 7-8) and the 2010s we begin to see the complete role reversal of the gender stereotypes as this could be considered the height of change and diversity surrounding Gender and identity. However, there are still examples of where the “traditional” values of the genders are still present as in the Milk advert (figure 7) we see a woman wearing nothing but a skin tight milk suit adopting the pose of Marilyn Monroe of whom was an overly sexualised figure of Hollywood implying they need to over sexualise women in advertising in order to conform to the old fashioned conventions of advertising and media. In figure 8 we see an extreme case of sexism within the media as the advert suggest that women will be willing to give the sanctity of their body for men as long as they provide financial gain which could be seen as a stereotypical view for women. In figures 9 to 10 we see examples of where gender specifics have been excluded in order to appeal to people instead of specific genders and their stereotypes. In figure 9 this can be interpreted through the line of “This ad is gender neutral” showing they are appealing to all genders.

Therefore, I agree to certain extent that the meaning of gender has become increasingly open in terms of advertisements as there are an increasing number of ads that are becoming gender neutral and androgynous. However, there are still examples of adverts that still conform to the older conventions of the media and advertising.