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debate. Monet, Cassatt, kruger and Hoch, to name a few, present visual discourse
female artists have tried to challenge this discourse of the male viewing the female
and dedicated their work to re-establishing the female nude in a strong and proud
context. Artists like Yoko Ono, Cindy Sherman and Sherrie Levine, question sexuality
and the depiction of women in the media and challenge traditional gender roles
striving to reclaim the female body as not just a form of opthmalogical masturbation
curious that no argument has been formally organized to discuss the depiction of the
male representation in Art and popular media. The neglect to address the depiction
men have been evident throughout Art history dating as far back as the Seventh
Century statues of Pharaohs and the Greek Kouroi.2 This visual history has sculpted
1
An analytical deconstruction of the photographic and plastic arts; in that the plastic arts
have a vast history of gender bias depictions of women in sexually compromising positions /
situations which are perhaps not conducive to the actual sexual, and there fore physical
presence of ‘real’ women. By real women I mean living breathing, non-patricized (This is yet
another fabricated word by myself (its up there with the “Rauchenbergianization”) I simply
am implying that these women as ‘real’ women, living in male dominated societies,
personally, internally are not direct products of patriarchy, they themselves have
independent thoughts…I reside in a male dominated society yet I still have my own thoughts,
desires and ways of representing my self).
2
See Attached Photographs on pages
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the way we view men in antiquity, thus trapping them in a pseudo-vicious cycle of
learnt masculinity.
Why is the idealization of the male nude, especially in contemporary mass media,
rarely discussed? It seems the refusal of empathy regarding this issue is due to
role of what it means to be “masculine” and they also continue to keep women in a
subservient aesthetic role3. Perhaps this cycle is perpetuated, by the general gender
roles placed upon women. If women were more free to satisfy and openly express
their own sexual desires, these images of men would be placed under harsh scrutiny.
The question then arises as to why women are presumed to be less likely to look at
photographs or images of the male nude with the same lustful eyes as men with the
Pickard, she reiterates studies conducted in the Seventies regarding the responses
of male and female panels to erotic visual stimuli. Interestingly enough the results
conveyed: that contrary to the cliché idea that women are less sexually driven then
men, they in fact discovered that explicit sex was equally stimulating to both the
male and female subjects. Pickard claims that the general discrepancy lies in a
3
Visually subservient; As long as men are expected to be aroused by and interested in seeing
women in compromising images (compromising to their dignity; in the viewer vs subject
context) women will be placed in those roles. This is the patriarchal cycle that the media and
society have trapped most men of our age.
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material.4 In this same concept it is evident that men are more willing to express
The basic route of the issue is not placed in gender per se, or in sexuality; it is rooted
simply in the archaic expectations placed upon men, thousands of years ago,
indoctrined into western traditions and still echoing into our current society6. The
male. While this new image is at least more realistic, it is equally, if not more
unhealthy. Men are now encouraged to share the same anorexic fate as women do
in the media and fashion industry. In favor of an optimistic argument: at least men
Androgeny is sexy
4
Christine Picard, “A Perspective on Female Responses to Sexual Material,” in The Influence
of Pornography on Behavior, ed. Maurice Yaffé and Edward C. Nelson (New York: Academic
Press, 1982), 107
5
Besides the obvious physical evidence, aka erection
6
This indoctrination would be accredited by me to the Constantinian establishment of
christian virtues; The chaste woman and man made in the image of god; intended to live and
succeed in his 'virtuous' image.
7
“Modern enlightened, sort of Renaissance man. Secure and confident, capable and cool,
typically well educated and stylish. Heterosexual with a twist, not gay by any means, but he
probably has a few gay friends, and can easily be mistaken for gay by rednecks and jock
types. The only straight guy in a fabric store or antique shop who is not being dragged there
by a woman.” http://www.urbandictionary.com/ 1999-2008
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Sex Sells
Idealistic images have been used extensively as a capitalist means of profit and
target selling since the revolution of 'cool' in the Sixties.8 Every time a sub-culture
try and pull away from the mainstream capitalist market. The “conquest of Cool”9.
This bureaucratic conquest is the exact epidemic that plagues pre-teen confidence
8
“The Reconquest of Cool,” Adbusters Canadian Edition, March/April 2008 #76,
9
“The Reconquest of Cool,” 2008, 8
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Corporately financed images are then force-fed to the public in attempt to reach the
that keeps the cycle of gender-discriminatory images pulsing through the internet,
television, and in the magazines. This exponentially perpetuates the cycle of envy
and keeps the population buying into the corporate aesthetic; Specific to the male
natural...body that... is an idealized and fetishized image of the male body... A body
requiring no work (does no work?). The ‘gentleman’ body personifies the strength
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and virility of the white middle (upper) class man. The white man ‘exists’ naturally
The above Calvin Klein example is certainly directed to a male audience, in that it is
evident that men are culturaly conditioned “against appreciating the beauty of male
bodies.”12 This draws into question the validity of the advertisment: Why would a
10
C. Bakers Anthropological Body, “Construction of the Ideal Man,”
http://anthofthebody.blogspot.com/2007/08/construction-of-ideal-man.html
11
Fantastically cliché, and hideously passé
12
Picard, 109
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company use an idealized image of man to promote a product for men, when
proven that men are not drawn by images of their own sex. This advertisment is a
blatent device used by the media, utterly pointless, simply perpetuating the learnt
its female viewers.13 In opposition to the Calvin Klein advertisment, its targeted
media falslely personifies men as archaic and built for simple physical dominance. It
is arguably more detrimental to the abolishment of the male gender stereotype than
rid the media of images featuring women in subordinate roles, is due to the
13
“Women, on the other hand, are not taught to reject images of their own sex...a woman
can enjoy looking at a beautiful woman and can find the experience a genuinely erotic one
without it threatening her own femininity.” Picard, 109
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Illustration 6: Adbusters.org
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Bibliography
http://anthofthebody.blogspot.com/2007/08/construction-of-ideal-man.html
Photo's Shamelessly ripped off the internet, all photo's with proper copyright