Thursday, May 3, 2007

Gender Roles in the Media

Caitlyn and I have been looking at portrayals of men and women in the media. The subtext of violence and power that occurs in so many media images is just staggering. We both agree that the fashion design company "Dolce and Gabbana" (D&G) has got to have some of the worst portrayals of men and women in fashion magazines today. The messages that their ads are sending are disturbing at best, and highly destructive at worst. Here are a few that we think are particularly disturbing:


In the top ad, which has recently come from their winter 2006 campaign, beauty and fashion is being linked to repeated portrayals of women who appear to have been murdered or killed. Another ad in this recent campaign included the scene of a man who had been shot in the head, and a naked women surrounded by other menacing-looking men. The other ads are very suggestive of scenes of gang rape.

2 comments:

ChaCha said...

Complaints thus far for these types of ads don't seem to identify violence/victimization as the problem: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a93ehJ7vdMgg&refer=uk

ChaCha said...

Ooops! Here's a better link:
http://tinyurl.com/2klev4