Andrew Bevan: Codes of Gender - The Identity and Performance in Pop Culture

[A response to this video]

andrewbevan:

Codes of Gender - The Identity and Performance in Pop Culture

When hearing Professor Sut Jhally’s views on gender roles in pop culture, it was hard to disagree. It made me realise that whilst females may regard this as sexist, pop culture may influence them subconciously. For example, Prof. Jhally states that females in advertising are often shown with one bent leg to show illustrate vulnerability; this is something that females in real life situations now do when taking photos (just look at any 20 year old girl’s Facebook). Could it be due to them subconsciously attempting to imitate female models in advertisements?

Another topic that sparked interest was when he discussed homosexual representation in advertising. It reminded me of an article that I’d previously read about “pinkvertising”. The article discussed homosexuals as an untargeted demographic and debated whether it was ethical to target individuals based on their sexuality. Now after seeing how heterosexual men and women are targeted on so many subconscious levels, it seems inappropriate to even consider ethics when looking to target homosexual men. If ethics were to be considered for them, but not for heterosexuals then it could be seen as a sort of reverse prejudice.