Masculinity In Advertising

Since the emergence of advertising in American culture one thing that has remained constant is the visible truth that men and women are portrayed differently. In consideration to the evolution of man kind gender roles have evolved immensely throughout time, although advertisements have not kept up with this process of evolution. Companies to this day use their tactics and skills to reach out to specific genders such as pretty fonts with a stylish message, while advertisements towards men portray the character as strong and intimidating. The typical viewer can easily spot the difference in the portrayal of genders. Men are portrayed this way because the viewers look up to these characters, they want to be

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be for a certain age, race, and sometimes even a certain gender. Pop culture has influenced the minority groups and shed light to women 's rights or so it was thought. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards a particular gender. What is interesting is it shows a false image of the opposite sex to the audience being portrayed toward their preferences. It is the image the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell their products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows commercials brings gender norms that produce the ideas of what a man’s man and a woman’s woman which is why he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

Contemporary visual media contributes to the social construction of gender in that the way that men and women are portrayed in advertising is vastly different.

What is it that drives commercials towards their target audience? Commercials can be aimed toward certain age, race, along with certain gender groups. Pop culture has influenced minority groups and shed light on women 's rights or so it may seem. Lisa Shaffer a fellow student feels otherwise and believes that Pop culture has only defended traditional values and does little to challenge those who already have power . Commercials bring in gender norms and in Steve Craig’s article, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” he speaks on four particular TV ads directed towards male and female audiences. Interestingly enough these tv ads deliver a false image of the opposite sex to the audience catering to their preferences. It is the image of what the audience wants to see that appeals to them. This is all in an attempt to sell products and take advantage of our desires and anxieties. Craig shows how commercials bring gender norms that produce the stigmas of a man’s man and a woman’s woman, which makes it apparent that he would agree with Shaffer because it promotes an old way of thinking.

In the short article by Steve Craig, Men’s Men and Women’s Womens, the author gives an important special to how television commercials portray gender to different audiences. He describes how an advertisers creates their attractive advertisement to appeal either male or females consumers.An advertisement that targets a specific gender to give interest to the gender to consume their product. Secondly, specific advertisement are played at select times to be seen by a specific set of people. But most importantly television programming is gendered by creating advertisements with considering their target audience needs and to give pleasure to their fantasies. I agree with this type of method to attract society to make money.

Steve Craig, in his article Men’s Men and Women’s Women especially define how different sexes in advertisement can influence a particular audience towards a product; one stereotypical method he describes is “Men’s Women” (Craig).One such ad using sex appeal, and a basic structure of “Men’s Women” to bring in customer was made by BMW in 2008 to sell their used cars. BMW, which is a world-renowned company known for its performance heavy automobiles, targets a male audience by comparing a gorgeous woman to their cars.This ad by BMW, who no doubt make amazing cars, degrade women through its message, and it enforces Steve Craig’s “Men’s women” tactic, but this ad also goes a step further and displays the ever-present patriarchy in advertisement overtly.

Advertisers have been using masculinity and femininity to sell since the early 1900’s and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. This is a controversial topic and has been heavily discussed within recent years.

In Craig's article, the author explores how advertising views men and women as separate consumer markets and appeals to both of them at separate times. Gender roles are heavily influential when creating commericials for each respective market. Craig details this through an analysis of beer ads

Throughout the years, advertisements have influenced and supported the cultural myth of gender roles to society. Advertisements that demonstrate men and women in their traditional roles can affect an individual’s perception. First, they might focus their products on individuals that still believe in traditional gender roles. Second, they might have society talking about the modern approach that the product is being advertised. Various cultures have made men and women believe what roles they should be doing. Unfortunately, many advertisements still show the idea that men are the providers and women are the housewives. However, since today we are gradually adapting and beginning to live in a modern world, the gender role myth is starting to slowly change in advertisements as men are beginning to take on traditional female roles that are considered less masculine and women have adopted male roles. The Le Creuset advertisement supports and rejects the traditional female gender role myth by demonstrating a father and a daughter both taking the position of a traditional female.

Recognizing a person as being female or male is an essential part in our ability in the ways we associate with man or woman. Goffman’s theory, I absolutely believe it is still active in today’s society. Advertisements are everywhere, whether it being in magazines, commercials, billboard signs and many other places something is trying to be sold in order for the public to see and sell their product. The way advertisements portray models give the impression of what femininity and masculinity should be.

Advertisements are dominant facets in societies globally; consequently, millions of individuals subconsciously consume the messages of corporations, which further allow them to construct aspects of their culture. Represented within these advertisements are often messages or ideologies, which exist independent of the product it is advertising. The beer brand, Primus, is no exception. The recent ad campaign for Primus encourages a masculinist ideology through images of male independence and misogyny. This essay will examine two distinct readings of this ad and how each can be seen to promote a masculinist ideology.

Hyper- masculinity (HM) is a societal perception used in advertising to target men. It is an overstated gender based idea on how a man should act. Hyper-masculinity ideas strongly link to aggressive behaviour of sex and violence to women and men as a way to gain superiority over someone else. Similar to the societal pressure of women to be magazine perfect. Men face problems relating to social and health, such as violence with women and risky driving. Behaviour like this all come from the expectation of men who feel they have to be violence to be accepted as manly or dangerous activities to be seen as exciting, even inappropriate acts with women (Zaitchik & Mosher 1993). Evidence suggest advertising is the foundation of these assembled ideas of

Picture this: There are three beach chairs on a beach and occupying each seat is a male college student. One guy has no shirt on and is wearing a hat. With a smile on his face, he looks to his right. The two guys sitting to his left are each reading a magazine. All three men seem to be enjoying the hot weather and the one looking to his right is enjoying a beer. Coming up on his right are three beautiful girls in bikinis. One girl is blonde, very well developed, and as she walks by you can see her breasts move back and forth with every step she takes. She smiles as she walks by, and by the expression on the guy's face he seems to be enjoying what he is seeing. Her two friends, who are brunettes, also have

In the marketer’s eyes, in order to attract people’s attention on what they want is to first segregate the commercial in to which type of person the product is going to be sold to, then break it down in an obvious way – showing major differences in the general public’s interests, sorting ‘the consumer’ down to a more focused group of people; as if one were looking past a continuous stream of red squares, then notice’s a blue square, he or she will notice the blue square standing out from the red squares; the blue square being the advertisement that fits to that person’s personality. For example if there was a commercial for a truck produced by a typical American organization, the advertisement shows masculinity and manliness in extensive ways, with mud, heavy weights, and other things. With a Victoria’s Secret advertisement, the milieu is very sensual and scandalous, showing light colors such as pink or white, all while having a soft, fluffy tone to it. There is no escape in gender roles and profiling when it comes to marketing; people who want to sell their product will use the most effective means necessary, no matter if it is morally sound or not . If companies were to have general broadened commercials, then summarize a product and ends up not narrowing down to specific consumer needs, then in most cases it would not interest the customer and could quite possibly render the purpose utterly useless.

The roles of males and females in society have significantly changed, as opposed to the predominant roles in our history. In the modern culture of today, women have begun to break out of the mold that which society has placed her in. This much can’t be said when it comes to modern gender representation in mass media advertising. It can be safe to state that woman are seen as sexual, fragile, exotic—whereas men are portrayed as tough, in control, and aggressive. This trend can be one seen as an inhibitor to the advancement of our culture, because especially for women, it is hard to pull away from the stereotypes that are continuously represented. As examples of the given trend, the following