Imaging the male body: Ads, aesthetics and representations of imagined masculinities.

摘要

This work explores the relationship between the imagined boundaries and make-up of masculinit(ies), and representations of the male body found within advertising culture. Images and text within ads are unpackaged in order to understand how masculinity gets etched onto the canvas of the male body. An analysis and discussion of different (and competing) masculinities illustrates how Masculinity is a myth. Certain bodily codes and signs are talked about in relation to each other, in order to show how masculinity is not the same in all contexts: 'being a man' is not a simple or easy undertaking. Indeed, 'being a man' is the product of numerous intertextual and complex efforts. Throughout all of this, the male body becomes visible. The male body, through imaged and textual representation becomes knowable. Within this work we see that the male body is a central part of 'being a man'. This goes against popular (reductionist) sentiments which claim that males in Western culture are beyond or above their bodies, and that men are not concerned with their own aesthetics. Males and male bodies are represented as aesthetic subjects and objects within certain pockets of advertising culture. This work enables us to better see and understand the gendered and sexed appearances that become built onto and into different bodies. As well, it helps us to understand how gendered bodies, and bodies themselves, come to mean different things in different contexts. Gender, and bodies, are dynamic and fluid.