The Codes of Gender (2010)
Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.
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Admirable film.
A different way of telling a story
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
11/29/17. An interesting documentary about gender roles and how they are represented in media and advertising. It is amazing how what we watch constantly on any medium, whether in print or on the screen, insidiously display what roles we should be playing. This is especially true for women, in which they are constantly feminized to reduce the threat that men may feel when faced with women who come off as being masculine or too male-like. And, gay men are displayed in what are considered feminine positions because they share the same audience with women. Worth catching.