This photomontage is made up of
over 10 images from various sources, from photography to printed images on
magazine. They are placed together to form a sequence of images and going to be
explored in ideological approach, to critique the two major ideologies:
Gender Stereotype and Beauty Standard Discourse reproduced in adverts.
Gender Stereotype and Beauty Standard Discourse reproduced in adverts.
Notion
of staging images in combination to create particular effects or to construct
narratives is called montage. According to Jay and Dimenderg(1994), the
bourgeois conception of photomontage means that the artiest and craftsman are
replaced by the engineer. Pieces of photographs are pasted together the way
parts of machines are joined together with screws. At the same time, montage is
a work of art that offers completely new opportunities with regard to content. By
putting individual images together, their connotative meaning changes at the
same time. Barthes (1977) developed the idea of denotation and connotation, by
reading the montage with these two elements and the signs; this enables the
print to influence readers on a new ideological level.
Photomontage
is mainly practicable in two forms, political propaganda and commercial
advertising. The first one is the Dadaist, began from a point of view
incontestable for them: that the painting of the way period, post-futurist
expressionism, ect, member of Club Dada usually held more or less left-wing
political views, it was a kind of cultural criticism. This photomontage,
although it is not a political criticism but is about culture, therefore the
way and approach to analysis will be similar to that of Dadaist.
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To
begin with, since this montage acts as a tool to critique the gender
stereotype, there are lots of culturally classified as feminine images being
put together with men, like flower at the side, lipsticks, red lip emoji,
princess emoji, jewelleries, skinny tag and the purple colour toned background
of a salon. Nevertheless, there are two extracts from X-Men about same sex
marriage that communicates with the contradiction between gender expectations. By
combining images that seem contradict to each other can actually construct
narratives to increase people awareness to this ideology.
One
of ideologies expressed in the montage is the gender stereotype. Ideology is a
form of false consciousness, it is a mistaken worldview that served the
interest of the capitalist class, and we believe that these views are
universally true- natural and obvious. (Marx, 1972) By correlating lipsticks
with men, the denotation as literal images carry the connotation as symbolic
meaning of challenging the gender stereotype, as lipsticks are culturally
defined as feminine product and especially these images are taken from the
women magazine- Glamour but now they are applied on men. (Barthes 1977). The
combination of these images, although contradict with each other’s, they make
fun of the norm and catch readers’ attention. Through this contradiction, it
helps illustrating the idea that people cannot accept things out of the
mainstream, like ‘Drag queens’, men wearing women’s clothing, heavy makeup and
wigs, they are stereotypically viewed to be gay men. (Butler, 1990) What’s
more, by looking at the smile on the Kinda Kids, we see that it is not a problem
for men to put on makeup. That therefore the ideology of gender stereotype is a
false consciousness that is created by the society and waiting to be
enlightened.
In
like manner, beauty is also categorised by the stereotype. The sequence in the
middle of the montage that starts with the monkey to Ken, Barbie’s boyfriend symbolises
the evolution of human history, carrying connotation that beauty standard has
changed throughout the time. As we see the sculptures on top, the masculinity
is said to be the ideal body shape for men (Goffmen, 1990), especially those
with beard, however, looking at Ken, has no facial hair, flawless skin and
relatively skinny body, this means that stereotype of men’s appearances has
transform to another type.
Talking
into flawless skin, with the advance technology, more and more people would
perform plastic surgery to achieve what the society think is beauty. This
montage is trying to express that not only female would do plastic but also
men. There is a Botox vaccine on the third Kinda kid face and by following the
sequence, Ken can be said as the result of an ideal man. In real, there is
actually a man that has come forward saying he did 100 surgeries so that he
could become a living Ken doll to reach the goal of ‘ideal beauty’. (Dailymail,
2012) These signs imply that people nowadays become more open-minded on aesthetic
medical treatment and at the same time, the ultimate goal is to turn themselves
into ideal individuals in term of appearance under the gender stereotype.
When
considering gender expectations, gay marriage and homosexual have always been
the first to be discussed. The two X-Men images of same sex marriage are put in
the montage to emphasise the denial of gender expectation. By choosing X-Men’s,
it empowers the effect, as Marvel is one of the most popular entertainment
companies nowadays who is targeting all age groups and all gender. The two
homosexual characters appear to be getting married here represent a huge
acceptance of public toward same sex marriage. The ‘:o’ emoji put on the bottom
resembles the public reaction when they first received the news. The signs are
to remind readers that the society should not be limited by the gender
expectation; everyone has the right to be with the one they love.
On
the other hand, beauty standard is strongly shaped by discourse and this
ideology is reproduced mainly in adverts. In the montage, there is a 30% less
fat text and the reason for that to be there is to critique how advert plays an
important role in proceeding what is beauty to the public. They define beauty
as slim and having a healthy image, in order to achieve these, consumer should
purchase the commodities they are selling like the fat free yogurt, skimmed
milk, organic food, etc. This 30% fat free tag also communicates with the toned
and fat free body shape of Ken to emphasise the influence of discourse.
By
putting the Botox vaccine and Ken in the montage, it reflects the ideal face
ratio. Given the discourse of what classified as beauty, the golden face ratio of
1: 1.618 and perfect skin are another major requirements. (Meisner, 2013) These
are mostly being reproduced in magazine like Glamour or Elle, by telling
readers what is beauty; they are indirectly pushing them to do plastic surgery
or other similar kind of treatments in order to fit in the group.
At
the end, according Hall(1999), ‘things in themselves rarely if ever have any
more single, fixed and unchanging meaning, It is by our use of things, and what
we say, think and feel about them, how we represent them that we give them a
meaning. In part, we give objects, people and events meaning by the framework
or interpretation, which we bring them. In part we give things meaning by how
we represent them’. In this case, I represent the images as form of
photomontage that form a sequences and combination, producing different
denotation and connotation, including different signs and codes that critique
the ideology, ‘they are nothing more but the ways of representing, hence,
shaping the world’ (Sobocincki, 2001), this enable the criticism to influence
readers on a whole new ideological level.
However, readers may have different interpretation on the montage with
the producer, both may come along with strong arguments and references, no one
can any longer tell which meaning is the correct one.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Bibliography:
Barthes, R. and Heath, S. (1977). Image, music, text.
New York: Hill and Wang.
Butler, J. (1999). Gender trouble. New York:
Routledge.
Evans, J. and Hall, S. (1999). Visual culture. London:
SAGE Publications in association with the Open University.
Goffman, E. (1971). The Presentation of Self in
everyday Life. London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press.
Kaes, A., Jay, M. and Dimendberg, E. (1994). The
Weimar Republic Sourcebook. 2nd ed. California: University of California
Press, pp.652-653.
Mail Online, (2012). Man spends $100,000 on nearly
100 plastic surgery operations to become 'real life Ken doll'. [online]
Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2249213/Real-life-Ken-doll-Justin-Jedlica-spends-100k-nearly-100-plastic-surgery-operations.html
[Accessed 16 Feb. 2015].
Marx, K., Engels, F., Arthur, C. and Marx, K. (1972). The
German ideology. New York: International Publishers.
Meisner, G. (2013). Facial Beauty and the “New”
Golden Ratio (or is it just 1.618?). [online] Phi 1.618: The Golden Number.
Available at: http://www.goldennumber.net/facial-beauty-new-golden-ratio/
[Accessed 16 Feb. 2015].
Sobocinski, M. (2001). Ideology in Images- We are
being framed. 1st ed. [ebook] pp.23-29. Available at:
https://www.academia.edu/191707/Ideology_in_Images_-_We_Are_Being_Framed_Analysis_of_Press_Photography_Films_Posters_and_WW2_Propaganda_Posters_
[Accessed 16 Feb. 2015].
