Where are all the women?

A full page of the magazine was dedicated to this advertisement for the Massachusetts Media Expo.  What I noticed, off the bat, was that every person in the photograph was a white man playing with traditional forms of technology.  Exactly the opposite of what I had been hoping to find.

As I thought about the women that the men in this advertisement would be filming, I read a USA Today article about the role of women in film.  “An analysis of the 100 top-grossing movies of 2008 shows that men had 67% of the speaking roles; women had about half that, 33%.  Men also were far more likely to work behind the camera. For every five male directors, writers or producers, there was one female.” (Hellmich, 2011).  

When I transformed the Massachusetts Media Expo I decided to call it what the ad portrayed it as, the Massachusetts Men’s Expo.  In my revised version of the advertisement I also turned two of the men into women standing, scantily clad, in front of camera’s while men hiding behind screens and glasses looked on.

Transformation Project

For my transformation project, I chose to remix a Toyota Corolla ad that tells the story of a young woman named Stephanie Powell. (National Geographic, October, 2010)  The ad shows photos of a woman (who we can assume is “Stephanie”), her dog, and parts of her car.  Also included is a brief note describing her experience with Toyota to the reader.  There is nothing about this story that is particularly extraordinary, but the way it was written really grabbed my attention. The language that is used is extremely casual and conversational; “At twenty-six I kind of woke up and was like, ‘all right, time to go.’”; “It was like, I don’t know, I made it.  Like, I’m an adult.’”  I’m not saying that people don’t talk that way in day-to-day conversations.  As a matter a fact, I know I talk that way from time to time.  What put me off is this is an advertisement in a magazine that is read by millions of people, not a text exchange between friends.  I have no idea who this Stephanie person is; for all I know she could have been traveling to LA to pursue a degree in psychology.  I think the ad is trying to celebrate the new life she has made for herself; however, it’s almost as though the advertisers don’t want you to give her too much credit for the big step that she’s taken. When I remixed the image, I wanted to make Stephanie seem a little more intelligent and independent than the way she was originally introduced to us.  I changed the language of the note just slightly, removing “kind of” and every superfluous “like”.  Instead of driving to California with her dad, she drove out with an unidentified friend.  I wanted her to be travelling with someone who was her equal.  The sentences, “It’s my first brand new car that I bought on my own.  It was like, I don’t know, I made it.  Like, I’m an adult” were changed to “It’s my first brand new car.  It feels like I made it on my own”; this way, we don’t know if anyone ever helped her to purchase her previous cars, or if she even had a car before.  She’s making a proud statement and doesn't sound like an airhead. I also decided to change the random picture of the woman’s smile to a photo of a woman sitting confidently in the driver’s seat.  I find that there are not many car ads that actually depict a female driver, so I thought it was important to show “Stephanie” driving the new car that she purchased.

-Jamie

Stuck in a Time Warp

The original add visualizes that it's all about the man and that women should be subservient and are only good for serving a man sexually and domestically. It is a harsh reminder of what life was like for too many women in the 1950s.

In the original image the man seems to be content with gender roles as the woman looks on. In the remixed one he is struggling with societal expectations of 2013. He is focused on bringing in more money instead of pulling his fair share; he is still focused on being the breadwinner, instead focusing on working together as a couple. Even though he helps out around the house, he has made progress from 1950 but still feels that domestic work is below him. This remixed man is living in the wrong time period and will only cause more problems for society if he continues in this way.

The woman is holding an iron, depicted here as a technology for the domesticated housewife. Being naked gives the impression of meat, serving the purpose of supplying pleasure, physical substance. The remixed image depicts a struggling relationship and the all too familiar financial hardships of the present day.

Mike

Empowering Women through Image Transformation

“Whether intentionally or unintentionally, technologies are anything but neutral. As a part of a culture, they embody the values and biases of their designers” (Latterell, pg. 585).  The overbearing and domineering qualities elicited by men in positions of power are easily identifiable and quantifiable in their unfairness. But, then there are forms of sexism that occur covertly. The perfect example is found within this advertisement about Boston Singles. The Improper Bostonian (The Bachelor/Ette Issue: 2/13-26, 2013) implemented two visually appealing full-page photographs that chose fragmented portions of each gender as an opening to an article featuring Boston's most eligible singles. 

To represent men we can see the torso of a man in a suit.  Noticeably so thanks to the masculine features of the chin, neck, and broad shoulders. A suit represents power and dominance, standing upright and successful. However, the woman is featured upside down, in a skirt and heels, with legs positioned in a sensualized manner. Her feet are not firmly standing on the ground, she is instead suspended in air, with the same stronghold or power of the suit. The advertisement was possibly attempting to stray away from using a woman’s torso for the obvious over-usage of breasts as a sexualized representation of women.

In order to transform the photographs into something that is more representative of women's strengths I made the male torso become an extension of the woman. I added a woman’s face and made the legs stand upright in order to show that women can be just as powerful as a man.  So, it went from being two people to becoming one with the message that any woman can wear a suit just as well as a man. Furthermore, I utilized powerful words to exemplify that advertisements can use another vocabulary to reshape the traditional images of women. 

African Queen

Original Image 

 

In a recent article in Numero Magazine, they had a 16 year old girl from North Carolina pose as an African Queen.  Maybe this wouldn’t have been such an issue if they hadn’t painted her face black to give her that “African vibe” they so needed.  People who saw the photographs were outraged.  They couldn’t believe that the photographer couldn’t simply have given this job opportunity to a black model, rather than a white one.  In a world where the media tells us that true beauty is a white woman, especially in high fashion, this would have been the perfect place to show that all women are beautiful.

That is why I remixed the photo shoot with a picture that I took in Kenya this past summer.  In the Masai tribe, women do virtually of the daily duties.  That is why I thought this woman was more suited to be an African queen. There ARE also white women in Africa, so they could have chosen a white woman for this photo shoot.  However, they should have actually portrayed her as a white person rather than a white woman looking like a black woman.  This is why I chose to redo the photo shoot in two different ways.  I found a beautiful model by the name of Gina Athans, a woman known not only for her stunning looks but for her charitable causes.  Gina could easily be called an African queen considering that she is from South Africa.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/numero-magazine-blackface-apology-african-queen_n_2772670.html

Remix 1

"Gina Athans" (30 of 55). (n.d.).iPhotoScrap mobile. Retrieved March 12, 2013, from http://m.iphotoscrap.com/m.scrap.view.php?q=Gina+Athans&ap=29&df=55

Remix 2

Females & Fragrance in the Media

As Catherine Latterell (2006) states at the beginning of her article, “When most people hear the word “technology” they typically think of computers, cell phones, or cars.  Yet an object does not have to contain a motor or a computer chip to qualify as technology”.  The advertisement I chose to focus on was that of the company Chanel.  Perfume is a form of technology that we have customized to meet our needs and wants as a culture, as Latterell (2006) phrases it.  Individuals in the U.S., especially females, are encouraged to not only to spend time on our looks and our bodies, but also to smell of fresh flowers or sweet fruits. The original ad shows a completely naked woman with flowers wrapped around her body, sitting, and embracing an oversized bottle of Chanel’s perfume “Chance”.  She looks very peaceful and content.  This advertisement stands out because of the pink colors and flowers, as well as the beauty of the female posing.  The flowers and the nakedness of the female make the perfume look very natural and coveted by the woman.  For my remix of the photo, I substituted the perfume bottle with a photo of the earth - not how we typically picture our planet, but an earth that is being destroyed by pollutants.  I chose this photo mainly because the development of perfume is actually harmful to the environment, and it is opposite of the "natural" they are trying to portray in the ad.  The overall message of my remix is twofold.  First, “Sometimes technologies have unexpected consequences” (Latterell, 2006, p. 581).  Technology is not always positive – it is not always negative either, but I think we truly do not realize how much of an impact it has on our everyday lives.  In the case of perfume and technologies such as that, instead of moving forward with reliance on chemical processes we should look to more natural ways. Our earth has been severely affected by the technologies that have been created by the humans living here – some positive changes, but many negative. The second message is that we as women and humans have much more of a purpose than “smelling” nice or looking a certain way.  After remixing this image it changes the purpose of being a woman seeking a certain image to a woman looking at the big picture, looking at the demise of our planet.  A sub-message here is to embrace earth, and to try and “save” our planet, because there is no Planet B.

Rachael