So what exactly is masculinity? In the terms of these advertisements it seems that there are several things that could encompass masculinity. These things encompass dominance for instance the ad that shows the man grabbing the woman's neck and chin quite tightly. Also the ad where the man is higher than the woman on the bed. These adds also portray that men are sexual beings, which is a half truth. What I think that the ads are trying to tell us about masculinity is that men are focused on sex and also with this sex comes sort of a sense of dominance.
I picked some seemingly random ads but not without purpose. The alcohol ad says "Guys never change, neither do we". In a sense I think they have it right but on the flip side man isn't really changing but the perception of a man is changing. There are some aspects of men that will never for instance, as long as the media keeps putting it out there that guys should be obsessed with sex, even if they don't there will be a lot of guys that will still be obsessed with sex. However, things in this world are changing so quickly it seems that the advertising business has issues keeping up. I want to point out my last ad showing a women riding on top of a man. This ad I believe shows the change, of instead of men being the dominant ones women are. Also an idea is that maybe(in general/advertising) women have taken advantage of the idea that men never change and the guys weakness to things of sexual nature. These are just observations and I would love to talk more about the idea of masculinity within advertising.
Very interesting, I like the way that you take the words in one ad and hold it up as the kind of logic that underlies the others. A few things that I noticed
ReplyDelete1. Make sure you have a good idea of where the images come from and their product context. The first, for example, is a "subvertisement" from adbusters, a spoof ad in other words. Does that change your argument or not? You could go either way
2. The Naomi Klein chapter "Patriarchy gets Funky" gets at a lot of the risque reversals that happen in some of these ads.
3. Also interesting the way that these advertisements work a commodity into their webs of masculine imagery-where are the men positioned in relation to the product, brand? How do the explicit and implicit signifiers link to the products that are being sold/spoofed. Etc.
I think that you did a fantastic job in selecting ads with "masculinity". Society sees masculinity as tough, rigid, strong, muscular, emotionless. The ad that caught my eye is the Under Armor ad. Perfect example of a masculine man. With a perfect body, muscular, chest puffed, in his boxers. And there is a woman on his bed in the background indicating that he is masculine therefore he gets women.
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