For my research investigation, I will be exploring into Women’s Fashion magazines. I have decided to focus on and investigate the generic sexual representation of females on indie and mainstream fashion magazine covers. My main choices of magazine covers are Rihanna’s Vogue May 2014 cover and Daria Werbowy’s ID cover, I will also be using Beyonce on The Gentlewoman cover and Miranda Kerr on the cover of ELLE as reference. Through my thorough examination of these covers I hope to gain a great understanding of the codes and conventions that are used to sexualize these women and how they differ. Through my study I would also like to reveal why women are represented differently in these genres. The main reason I chose these covers is to show …show more content…
The male gaze is used in most media industries, including print industry. The Models and celebrities gracing the covers of the most famous fashion magazines are usually dressed or positioned in a provocative way. The male gaze occurs when the camera puts the audience into the position of a man. This makes women feel the need to look at themselves through the eyes of a man as sexual objects in order to seem appealing. This has made women just as amenable to sexualized women as men, Miranda Kerr's ELLE cover is a great example of this. ELLE is a French fashion magazine established in 1945. Their success grew in the 1960's with the development of their new slogan, "Si elle lit, elle lit Elle", which translates to 'If she reads, she reads ELLE". The majority of ELLE readers are 25-49, with a total audience of nearly six million, 90% of which are women, ELLE creates a lifestyle that they want all their readers to live by. Everything about the magazine is made to target women, from the name of the magazine which translates to 'she' or 'her' and the masthead is big bold and written in bright pink font. The 2013 ELLE Japan cover has Victoria secret model, Miranda Kerr. The magazine targets a ABC1 …show more content…
The cover is not cluttered with a busy background and instead goes for a plain, white background which, again, pushes Miranda Kerr to the forefront. The hints of pink throughout the cover immediately stand out and has connotations of femininity and tenderness. This could also be seen as juxtaposition as the white background and her black shorts cause an interesting contrast along with the hints of pink. The direct mode of address creates a relationship with the reader by making them feel more involved which adds to the whole artistic taste of the cover making it more attractive and approachable. Miranda is wearing a cropped top and very short shorts that cling to her body in order to construct a sexually appealing image. Her compelling pose puts emphasis on her curvy body and further adds to the sex appeal by creating sexy yet young
By only focusing on the female body in Esquire’s illustrations, the magazine is taking away the idea that females have control of their body. Each woman featured in the magazine is pictured as described above, in doing so women are portrayed in an unrealistic sense and men expect real-life women to look like this skewed image of the female body. For this reason, women no longer feel confident in their body and feel the pressure of the male gaze to look like the images in magazines like Esquire. It was also said that these images were used to market to the straight-male consumer in order to reject any interest women might have in the magazine or any homosexual male. Esquire attempted to make all readers of their magazine think the same and this included making them all have the same idea of what makes a female attractive.
In her example, she speaks of how this advertisement reestablishes the idea of loving your body. Women have curves, they have hips, they have thighs. In the Nike advertisement it makes the [consumer] feel proud of their strong, athletic body (Haley pg 108). The woman in the Playtex display has the ideal body type of a runner. This model is strong, and she has the body of an athlete. Just like any runner, and most female athletes, her strengths are hidden. With lean muscle brought upon by playing sports, women often do not look as strong as they really are. Under those tights, she has “thunder thighs”. She has calves and shins of steel from keeping her toes up. She has a sculpted upper back from swinging her arms and keeping her shoulders relaxed. She has and unbelievably strong core from reaching her legs out in each stride, and holding her body
Although this advertises nothing threatening it shows something very sexual and very pornograpahic which is the woman. Advertising this can attract many young adults to thinking they can be like her or want her if they do what she does. So the public can find these pictures very attractive because it gets their attention. Kilbourne 's perspective towards this was that she said, “The poses and postures of advertising of advertising are often borrowed from pornography, as are many of the themes, such as bondage, sadomasochism, and the sexual exploitation of children.” 492 Kilbourne is explain that the poses you see everyday is basically borrowed from pornographic people and it attracts many young children to look at them. It sets them up to look unique and attractive but the bad part is that it is related to the sexual part of a woman. The woman in the picture has many attributes that attracts people. Like having no clothes and lying in a sexual position which gets a lot of people 's attention. It exposes women and it makes them look much less dominant to men because they are an easy target. My personal perspective is that ending this sort of pleasure towards men in particular will make them less seductive to women or the other way
This essay has compared and contrasted two magazines aimed at the female readership, and they are called Bitch Magazine and Cosmopolitan, with regards to their front pages, content and articles, their ideals of beauty, and feminism. Cosmopolitan is a magazine that gives harmful ideas to women about their sexuality, their health and happiness, and how it is supposedly dependent upon whether or not they fit into the unrealistic beauty standards that this magazine possesses. In divergence, Bitch Magazine teaches women to love themselves and to support each other no matter what. Bitch encourages women to understand that they are absolutely perfect just the way they are and that there is no need to change or suppress their given identities.
Other aspects strengthen the advertisement design's sexual appeal. The foreground woman's strapless swimming suit, highlighted in red, is the most notable example. Her chest prominently resides above horizontal boxes in both th...
Compared to everyone else, who are all wearing black tops, she is the only one wearing a white top. This colour contrast stands out even more as you see the darker colours of the man behind her, making you see her first. As well as the fact that her arms
Women celebrities often remark that the media negatively displays women and sexually objectifies them through many mediums such as film, TV, video games, and advertisements. However, there are many female stars that are willing to pose provocatively for a wide variety of men’s magazines such as Maxim, a European magazine targeted at men. Their hypocrisy in shooting the pictures invalidates the argument that men exploit female sexuality, as they are likewise eager to take those pictures. These women are so quick to jump at an opportunity to pose seductively for the camera, a...
Merskin, D (2004) Reviving Lolita? : A Media Literacy Examination of Sexual Portrayals of Girls in Fashion Advertising. In American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 48: pp.119-129. London: Sage Publications.
Images that eroticism is implied tend to represent the availability of the women’s bodies, in the implication that they are objects of eroticism (Sturken and Cartwright 2009: 116), consequently affecting the way society views women such as illustrated in Figure
In her novel “Beauty Myth”, Naomi Wolf argues that the beauty and fashion industry are to blame for using false images to portray what beautiful woman is. She believes the magazines are to blame for women hating their bodies. Wolf states, “When they discuss [their bodies], women lean forward, their voices lower. They tell their terrible secret. It’s my breast, they say. My hips. It’s my thighs. I hate my stomach.” (Wolf, 451) She is focusing on how w...
This advertisement appears in the Seventeen magazines, whose readers range in age between thirteen and twenty-five. The visual shows a young, blonde, Caucasian female who is attracting the readers to the COVERGIRL™ product. Placing this sort of ad in the Seventeen magazines is appealing to most young women due to the beautiful celebrity, Taylor Swift, who uses the same product. Also, the colors used, such as the pastel pinks, draws in the reader since they are very feminine colors. Finally, the product itself is appealing to the audience of Seventeen because younger women like to look their best, and to do that, lip-gloss is a handy accessory.
Most photos and titles draw in the male gaze, with female bodies half-naked paired with ‘Ladies love this!’. Pairing these particular items together creates an atmosphere which reinforces male expectations and norms to their audience. GQ, while appearing as a harmless fashion magazine, sends out a number of subconscious messages to their viewers of what it means to be a well-respected, successful male in today’s world. Gentlemen Quarterly, like many other magazines, implements the gender binary into its readers through its advertisements and articles.
this magazine is aimed at women in their late 20’s as the woman on the
While stating in text the lipstick is truer and crisper from their rich pigments and creamier and more sumptuous feel from their nourishing honey nectar. The consumer can actually read those objectives off the advertisement. For a visual aspect you can physically see a flower dripping nectar onto the lipstick, as the lipstick glistens. In addition, the consumer can also see a beautiful model wearing one of the shades of pink to see how rich the lipstick really is. CoverGirl uses both verbal and visual messaging to accomplish the advertiser’s marketing objectives. CoverGirl is pulling their consumer in by offering them rich, satisfying color and lip butters, while also stating what shade is on the model. Since the model is wearing Yummy Pink, the brand decided to add a visual aspect of an ice cream. The brand emphasizes the shade of pink is just as yummy as an ice cream
American culture idolizes beautiful women, and Playboy has helped with this in many industries whether it be in magazines, in television shows, the fashion industry, or even in the entertainment world. Playboy is a prime example of how American culture idolizes beautiful women. The magazine is mainly known for displaying nude o...