The Gendered Rhetoric of Slick Magazines

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The Gendered Rhetoric of Slick Magazines

• A brief look at mens and womens magazines from
  the summer of 1999

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Two Covers from June Magazines
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Who is the audience for these magazines?

• Both capitalize on popularity of Austin Powers
  movies
• How are models dressed?
• Michael Myers in pinstripes
• Heather Graham in bra
• What do magazines promise?
• Mirth, Merriment, and Abject Hilarity
• Guys and Sex What they think about foreplay,
  experienced women and lust vs. love

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The Importance of a Magazine Cover

• In 1980, Ms. won a journalism award for a story
  providing an intimate view of Soviet womens
  lives. Because the Soviet women on the cover
  were not wearing makeup, the article undid years
  of effort to get an ad schedule from Revlon.

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Maxim

• This recent addition to the rack is worse than
  pornography. It insults mens intelligence with
  immature gags and remote-control user guides. It
  degrades women as possession-obsessed sex kittens
  who are tricked into bed and like it. Know what?
  Its selling like mad in Middle Tennessee. One
  distributor says he can barely keep it in stock
  in Green Hills.
• --from Pictures AND words Mens magazines come
  of age by Mike Kilen in the Aug. 26, 1998 issue
  of The Tennessean

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Alcohol ad from Maxim
Adding Grand Marnier to a margarita is also
quite enticing. Grand Marnier It Changes
Everything Tiny Text in Upper Left
Corner Drink with style. Drink responsibly.
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Alcohol ad from Cosmopolitan

• Women and men like different things.
• Seagrams Coolers. Its what women like.
• Nothing more at stake here than whether toilet
  lid is up or down.

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Evian ad from Seventeen

• Uses sex to sell water
• Appeals to teenage girls desire to be grown up
  by drinking
• Two bottles to indicate mixed drink

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Kelloggs Ad from Maxim
Aggressive face--primal scream? Unruly
hair Surreal use of color.
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A Kelloggs Ad from Cosmopolitan

• Complex carbs
• Essential vitamins
• Key minerals
• Great taste
• Perfect Cereal
• Bare calves and low heels

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A Sony Ad from Maxim
Re-recordable a million times, which is just
about how often you change your mind about your
mixes. Alyssas Mix (marked out) Christines
Mix (marked out) Amys Mix Trouble making
decisions? No problem. Sony Portable Music
Let Your Mind Play.
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A Sony Ad from Cosmopolitan

• Same campaign--Sony Portable Music Let Your Mind
  Play
• Make Waves
• Products are designed to play music, not to
  compose or record.

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Agonic/Hedonic Dichotomy

• Agonic power is link to the male gender role is
  equated with doing roles and is obtained
  through achievement, action, independence,
  aggression, strength, and expertise.
• Hedonic power is associated with the female
  gender role, is analogous to being roles and is
  derived from indirect or covert means such as
  display and adornment of the physical self or
  dependency on others.
• From Jennifer L. Paff and Hilda Buckley Lakner,
  Dress and the Female Gender Role...

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An SUV ad in Maxim
Cars like pavement. Thats why we dont make
cars. . . . at Isuzu, we dont think nature
should give in to cars with low clearance or
low thresholds for pain. Isuzu Go farther.
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An SUV ad in Cosmopolitan

• Sophisticated City Scene
• Enough Cargo Space to Max Out Your Credit Card.
• Fine Print Buckle Up! Do it for those who love
  you.

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Images of women improving?
From June issue of Glamour Part of outstanding
ad campaign that accompanied the Womens World
Cup You pass on more to your children and your
grandchildren than your eye color, . . . You
provide the living example that they can become
more than they ever thought they could. Because
you did. Just do it.
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From School Zone Spread in July Seventeen

• Weve been on the soccer team for the past three
  years. Our girlfriends always come out to watch
  us play. --Curt

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Ellen Goodman The GIRLS and why we get a KICK
out of them

• For every Mia Hamm, there are still dozens of
  supermodels. For every message of
  self-confidence, there are still a stunning
  number of folks investing in feel-bad visuals.
• The 274 pages of Seventeen were full of nail
  polish and bad hair days and models who would
  wilt by halftime. There was one page on
  softball, including a tip on how to wear your
  hair under a batting helmet.

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A Strong Woman in Seventeen
Tattoo Tampax was there
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An advertisement from Seventeen

• The only ad for a soap in any magazine I looked
  at
• Obviously geared to sell sex to a young audience
• Series premieres during summer vacation

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Catherine Fitzpatrick, Sugar and Spicy

• A recent study published in Journal of
  Communication found that magazines that
  counseled girls in the years of their emerging
  and maturing sexuality were urging them to be
  enthusiastic consumers in pursuit of
  perfection--perfect hair, perfect complexions,
  perfect wardrobes were holding up thinner and
  thinner models as the ideal and were serving as
  field guides for haphazard sexual indulgence.

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Complementary Copy
Page 66 Page 67
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Two Quotations

• When womens magazines from Seventeen to Lear
  praise beauty products in general and credit
  Revlon in particular to get ads, its just
  business as usual.
• --from Gloria Steinem, Sex, Lies, and
  Advertising
• The day the copy had to rag around a chicken leg
  was not a happy one.
• --Ellen Levine, editor-in-chief of Womans Day

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The Photo Spread

• From Maxim
• Flat-front wool trousers, 95, by Perry Ellis.
  Vest by Perry Ellis, shirt by Perry Ellis
  Portfolio.
• Doesnt say where to buy the bed.

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Conclusions

• What I found is consistent with the body of
  research which says that advertising generally
  portrays women as
• dependent on or subservient to men
• primarily in the home or domestic settings
• preoccupied with physical attractiveness
• sex objects
• decorations for men
• product users/demonstrators

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Web Page dedicated to Top Ten Offenders

• http//www.about-face.org/gallery/newten/one.html