Planning
Our piece of
content is focussed on the representation of gender through the mode of a magazine
advertisement series. This is portrayed within the creation of our uni-sex
fragrance brand “Slick” which allows the wearer to represent which ever gender role
they choose. As gender is a controversial issue, we are representing the
traditional and not so traditional portrayals of the stereotypical male and female,
in the form of a parody. Therefore, visual analysis is a focus, as we
incorporated specific choices of direct address, colour and body language, to
challenge our target audience’s preconceptions of traditional gender standards.
Advertisement Series 1/2:
In this
advertisement we chose to present two sexes portraying an identical
stereotypical role of a male. We purposely used direct address of the two
models to achieve dominance as a confident male figure after using the slick
fragrance. The costuming of a business top and waist coat portrays a classy
male and the red tie signifies passion and power, as it is the most emotionally
intense colour. The body language is specifically chosen to represent a relaxed
state, which juxtaposes against piercing eye contact to the audience, to
establish the idea that the male gaze can have a strong control as a habitual
behaviour. The language that we used encourages gender equality as the term
“everyone” adds to the choice of using a female model on the right imitating
the male on the left. The salient feature of this advertisement is forced into
the centre by using white framing, where the audience automatically switches
their focus between the two models, to connect the idea of them being equal
gender roles. The red bottle ties the image together through colours and adds
to a second salience of an exaggerated brand, to follow typical conventions of
a fragrance advertisement.
Advertisement
two captures a more intense gender role swap, but with the same concept of a
contrast by presenting two images on top of each other. The salient feature of
this advertisement focusses on the two faces, as the smaller square framing and
centering draws the eye to these areas. The red lips and nails enhance the red
colours as previously discussed, which also establishes connotations of power,
to challenge that female roles can also achieve dominance. The direct address
of this advertisement is achieved more by the eyes rather than the angle of the
head in advertisement 1; the faces are now slightly tilted to portray a stereotypical
sexual nature of females as opposed to being positioned front on, but the
seductive stare regains an intense control. The hand gesture placed softly by
the neck ties with the relaxed yet more dominant hand gesture in advertisement one, to emphasise that male and female
roles don’t have to be positioned as a hierarchy, but can overlap
characteristics. Rather than having two distinctly separate images of the same
positioning but a different sex, merging the two together creates a more
parodic representation which is not often presented in advertisements. Although
this is a gender parody, our conventions of direct address and language
features allow the advertisement to sustain elegance. Instead of overdoing the
parody by using intense sexual differences such as focussing on muscles or
breasts, our costuming achieves poise while challenging the stereotypical role
society would expect from a male and female. This expectation is captured by
intense red lips, especially for the “male” model imitating the “female” model.
By placing the male model above the female model, this also reveals the
traditional dominance of males over females, but merging the bodies offers a
new idea that blurs these standards.
Advertisement Series 2/2
This advertisement
is to show the standard stereotypes of male and female gender. We have the male
in the suit sitting, as this would be typical in for a sophisticated man to sit.
He is shown using direct address as this emphasises the point of the male gaze
as we discussed earlier. The female in the image is laying down, as a way to
seem exposed, and much more seductive as compared to the male. She is also
touches her arm, and this is used to emphasize the seduction of the female, and
also used because it is a common feature when females are used in advertisement.
This image discusses how men are supposed to dress and look masculine and sophisticated,
whereas females are supposed to be feminine and submissive. This is shown by
the man is seated higher than the girl laying down, as to imply that men hold
more power in society and women are to be submissive.
This image
was created to look like a typical magazine advertisement, since it is showing the
typical gender representation of western society. We created this image to be a
point of reference to show the standard tropes of gender, which we used in the following
image.
In this
image, we did a complete role reversal of the male and female to show a different
representation of each gender. The female is now dressed to portray the role of
a male, thus being dressed in the waistcoat. This is to show she has gained
more power as the outfit she is wearing is tied to masculinity. This is also exaggerated
by her using a strong forceful pose and direct address. As we are reversing the
roles, the male is now laying down and wearing the female outfit. He is also
laying down like the previous image, making him more exposed to imitate the role
of a seductive woman. The lighting in this image is at more of an angle from
the camera, to the man’s face in less light than the woman’s, because the female
is not closer to the light to accept the role of a protector.
As already
discussed, our previous image was used as a benchmark for a magazine advertisement.
This image was created with the intentions to provoke a discussion, as the
first one was just a guy and a girl in a classy situation, but typical for
their genders. Now that the roles are reversed, we can still say the same thing
how the female dressed as a male still holds all the power. This is used to
imply that there are certain characteristics and appearances that are tied to
their own gender, for example, the dress is held by the female gender.
Individual contributions
Mitchell
On the day I was a model, so I was being directed be the
others while I was on camera. I was also in charge of organising the male
costume and giving input on the other female costume that we needed. While I wasn’t on camera, I was also helping to set up the lighting for shots, and also
giving opinions on the camera shots taken.
I was also in charge of setting up and managing the blog,
and arranging everyone’s writing together and publishing onto the blog, as well as placing the images on a PowerPoint for our presentation.
Kayla
Brianna and I discussed earlier in class that we would like
to do a magazine ad or a commercial, and we decided to do the magazine ad as it
was easier and we would save time. I arranged and brought outfits on the day of
shooting, and gave insight into how the models were positioned for the photos.
I also contributed in deciding what photos will be used for the final project.
We discussed on Facebook what images we like after they had
been photo shopped and what ones we will use for our final piece. We then wrote
our contribution paragraphs and analysis of the photos for the blog. I will
present my share on the day or presenting. I also was the other planner for the blog, and the visual part of the blog; like choice of colour and order and position of the images, and edited our analysis.
Brianna
I was involved in the drafting process of our
representation, suggesting the focus of gender role reversal and drawing a few
ideas of how the magazine advertisement could be layed out. I assisted the
photography process by meeting with the rest of the group and being the female
model. During this, I contributed to costuming, hair and makeup decisions and
styled the models. Through Facebook I offered insight into our final decisions
of the photos and how they could be changed to achieve our final
advertisements. After this, I met with Kayla and Mitchell to create the blog
and I typed the visual analysis, by putting all of our ideas into sentences. I
will be presenting a section of our project on the day of presentation.
Te Ami
I had organised the hire of the professional lights and
camera to try and get the most sophisticated looking photos as possible. I also
was the photographer on the day and gave input into the costuming and makeup of
the models. Once the photos were taken I edited the shots we got during the day
and using Photoshop and Illustrator over the following three days I edited the
photographs to look like an advertisement as we discussed as a group as well as
uploading the edits to Facebook for the rest of the group to critique so I
could make the appropriate changes. I also helped develop the accompanying blog
and on the day I will contribute by presenting my share.
