Masculinity Portrayed Advertisements through the Male Gaze

Importance of Advertisements

Advertisements are designed to catch the attention of the general public. Their goal is to, within that short period of time, engage and to convince their audience to buy the product. This means that advertisements are excellent sources in which to investigate the perspectives of a society, for an advertisement risks not being understood if it attempts to convey a foreign concept. This article states that the frequent use of male gaze in many Western advertisements reflect the ideas of masculinity in the West. This is important because by these advertisements constantly reaffirming the concept of masculinity, it also by extension defines femininity, because masculinity and femininity are viewed as opposites.

Suit Supply Advertisement

The Male Gaze

The “Male Gaze” describes the practice in which where media is filtered through the lens of heterosexual men. In other words, the viewpoints of the heterosexual men is accepted as the norm, whereas the perspectives of all others are largely ignored. It increases objectification of women, which reduces women as objects of male sexual desire.

For example, in the picture of Suit Supply advertisement provided, there exists a strong power dynamic between the two subjects. The man is clearly in the position of power, looking directly between the woman's legs while pulling up the woman's dress. This advertisement embodies the male gaze through its sole focus on the heterosexual male perspective. Even though it looks like this interaction is consensual, it certainly suggests that the man is getting what he wants, because his posture, attitude and facial expression is that of power and control. The woman however is suggested to be much weaker, and is the inferior of the two. Given that this is a Suit Supply advertisement, this advertisement is attempting to portray that the suit will make the men who buy it feel powerful and superior. This idea is then closely linked with masculinity, since suits are the formal clothing traditionally associated with men. The text on the lower right corner, shameless, further embodies this. The woman is supposed to feel ashamed that a man is exposing her private area, yet because the man is so irresistible due to how good he looks, she can not control herself, no choice but to let him have his way. This advertisement simultaneously tells its audience what masculinity and femininity should be by contrasting the two through clear sexual and power dynamics; masculinity is defined as dominating, and superior and by extension, femininity is defined as weak and inferior.

This is problematic to society because firstly, it creates a gender dynamic in which men is place above women. Secondly, as the concept of male gaze is accepted and becomes the norm, it will only be reinforced more with repeated exposure to these kinds of advertisements, which will be made more frequently due to the society's familiarity with it. This creates a cycle in which hyper- sexualization and objectification of women becomes a norm and is used again and again.

Sexual Objectification

The sexual objectification of women refers to "a woman being viewed primarily as an object of male sexual desire, rather than as a whole person". It dehumanizes women, and places them under men in the gender hierarchy. In the Suit Supply advertisement above, the man is shown as a full person, while the woman is reduced to the something that the man can express his sexual desire and power upon. She is only valuable as a potential sexual partner. To extrapolate, masculinity is expressed as the actor, while femininity serves the role of the object which is acted upon. This aids in the rise of rape culture. Rape culture describes a social setting where the crime of rape is prevalent and normalized. Sexual objectification dehumanizes women, and turns them into objects with no desires of their own, and its only purpose to be acted upon; this enables rape culture to continually exists.

Nicki Minaj holding up a poster of herself

A point that must be made in regards to sexual objectification and the male gaze is that men do not necessarily need to make an appearance within the work. Women can willingly sexually objectify themselves, with no men, but it can still uphold the concepts of male gaze as well as sexual objectification. In the picture of Nicki Minaj, she is holding up a poster of herself in which she is wearing a bikini, looking up towards a camera with noticeable cleavage. This advertisement poster for Nicki Minaj's debut album "Pink Friday" embodies the male gaze by the way her breasts are accentuated, how she is hardly wearing any clothing, and she is also expressing a sexual image. This advertisement clearly assumes that the viewer is a heterosexual male and works from that perspective to gain attention from the general public.

Some individuals believes that sexual objectification can be used as a way to empower women. The argument is that if a woman willingly objectifies herself, she will, by the way of her sexuality, be able to wield power over men. However, this argument is problematic, because women are still becoming objectified, and in the process of being objectified, they turn into a thing which men project their desires upon. They do not become the actors, but rather the one that is acted upon. This does not give women power, but rather takes it away from them; they will always remain as the ones to be judged by men and will not be able to become equals. This forces masculinity to take the shape of the one who judges, a superior force which must subdue femininity in order to be executed properly. Therefore the performance and execution of masculinity introduces innate sexism to the society.