David Gauntlett

David Gauntlett’s theory of identity suggests that we are now living in a world where the meaning of gender is increasingly open. 

To what extent do you agree with this hypothesis in relation to print advertisements in the UK?

Advertising in the modern day, while having views of gender roles move in a better direction, have not strayed far from the stereotypical gender roles perceived by society. Although men are no longer expected to be tough, masculine money earners, and women to be weak, pretty house-wives, these gender roles can be subtly connoted within modern advertisements.

Advertisements in the past would be plastered with ideas about promoting being skinny, pretty, and looking perfect. These old advertisements consisted of women playing the role of the ‘house-wife’ and being undeniably gorgeous, with men fawning over them. The older advertisements also heavily promoted the concept of being skinny through the use of the two advertisements shown below. The first one, showing three images of a woman putting on jeans connotates the idea that her body is the only acceptable type, and anything else is deemed to be unflattering. The words that are used, ‘You can do it. We can help.’, also connotate ideas that if you look like anything other than the woman shown, you are not accepted by society. The second advertisement shown here also implies the idea that Pepsi wants to decrease the population of people who don’t fit into their ideal body type, by using the words ‘Help reduce the population.’ Furthermore, Pepsi’s use of ‘There’s only one calorie in a can.’ at the bottom of each advert suggests that this is what they should be drinking to lose weight and look like the skinny girls they are promoting, as the fact that there is ‘only one calorie in a can’ makes it seem healthier. These adverts help Pepsi to establish an idea that drinking Diet Pepsi will help you to lose weight and look more desirable to the male eye. 

Modern day advertisements, although more open to blurring the stereotypical gender roles, still connote ideas about the perfect looking woman. These advertisements tend to use images of scantily-clad women as both sex appeal and role models for other women. One advertisement in particular, promoting ‘the new skinny can’ presents a young, tanned, pretty woman, drinking this Diet Pepsi. The skinny can is centred directly in front of her, indicating the idea that the skinny can represents her body, which further connotes an ideal of society’s most acceptable body type and her being skinny. Similarly, this Coca-Cola advert has also not strayed away from the familiar womanizing stereotype, by showing another young woman as the focus rather than the product. Both of these advertisements present young, pretty women as the main focus of the advert, accentuating their best features to make them look gorgeous and skinny, and appealing both as role models and the male gaze.

Although these modern advertisements are much subtler than the older ones, the same intention is presented within each different one. I believe that although the world has become a place where gender has become more open, it still hasn’t gotten to a place where women are no longer sexualised or put down for not being society’s acceptable weight.

Roland Barthes: Semiotics

Roland Barthes was one of the earliest theorists of culture. His work was the first ideas of structure and signification that supports the cultural studies and critical theory today. Semiotics is the study of signs; these signs often refer to something which conveys a meaning. 

Barthes mainly followed Saussure’s approach, which was the study of signs and sign using behaviour. Barthes’ most important theme was avoiding the confusion of culture with nature, as well as being careful with how he used words and other signs. A common trait of Bathes' style, is the systematisation of his work, in which he draws up schemes to categorise the different signs and codes. With this approach, the distinction between the signifier and the signified is crucial. The signifier is the signs physical form, while the signified is the meaning that the sign expresses. However, Barthes does not mechanically apply Saussure’s theory, and largely replaces Saussure’s term ‘arbitrary’ with the term ‘motivated’. Most signs have strong enough connotations to be partly ‘motivated’, and when they are used, they refer back to previous conventional uses. 

The Hermeneutic code refers to an element of a text that is not fully explained, and becomes a mystery to the reader, while the Proairetic code builds up tension through referring to an action or event that indicates something else is going to happen, working as a pair to develop the story’s tension and to keep the reader interested. The Semantic code refers to connotations within the story that give an additional meaning over the basic detonative meaning of the word. The Symbolic code acts as a wider level of the Sematic code, by organising semantic meanings into a broader and deeper set of meanings. The Cultural code refers to an external body of knowledge, such as scientific, historical, and cultural knowledge.