Vogue - representation

Cover

• Sophia Loren - was very famous in the 1960’s for her exotic beauty

• Glamorous and exotic - the exotic nature of her image may reflect Hall’s ideas about the use of Middle Eastern stereotypes. Representing ethnic minorities as “other”

• Represented as rich and wealthy, wearing jewels and beautiful clothes

• The close up makes her seem like an important, powerful role model

The financial article

• Features countertypical representations of women

• Features an interview with a working female expert on finance, Sheila Black, which would have been unusual in the 1960’s. She is represented as being in a position of power, she talks about women wanting to be independent with their money and make investments.

• An article about women making financial investments and having financial power challenges the historical context when women were often financially controlled by their husbands, despite the influx of 2nd wave feminism and views on gender beginning to shift

• The choice to represent women as having financial power might reflect the class and wealth of the typical Vogue reader. Readers tend to be wealthy and were therefore more likely than other women to have their own finances

• The inclusion of an article that gives basic definitions of financial terms may suggest that women, at the time, didn’t understand economics and investments, due to women’s finances previously being controlled by their fathers and husbands

Representations of women

• Most pages offer conventional representations of women for the 1960’s, often showing them as domestic or sexualised, Van Zoonen

Cutex advert

• Denotes a woman with bare shoulders which suggests nudity

• “bare essentials”, “birthday suit”, “barely decent”, suggest nudity

• “Are you woman enough to wear them?” - rhetorical question suggests that femininity is linked to nakedness and sexual appeal

• Very reflective of the way women were, and still are, represented in the media

Revlon advert

• Women referred to as ‘alluring’ and ‘beguiling’, connoting that a women’s role is to attract others visually

Imperial leather advert

• The image clearly reflects the stereotype that women are maternal and domestic

• Her body language and facial expression represent women as emotional, caring and loving

• The ad emphasises the softness of the soap, signifies women as needing to be ‘soft’ which may mean delicate or weak

Picnic article

• Women are represented as domestic

• They’re holding, nurturing and feeding children

• They’re lounging and not doing anything, women represented as passive in this article as well as in the fashion articles

Historical representations - passivity

• The passivity of the women in many articles fails to reflect the growing power of some women in the 60s eg feminists. Only the financial page reflects this change

• This may also reflect that the richer women, who were the target audience of Vogue, were under less financial pressure to go out and work, so many of them lead lives more centred around leisure and family life

The use of images of women with children

• The use of images of young women as mothers reflects the historical context as women in the 60s were typically expected to marry young and start families

• Modern women’s magazines aimed at those age 20-35 often choose not to feature content about children, as many women now are able to have careers first, and have children in their 30s or later

Class representations

• The upper class are represented in the magazine much more than the lower classes

• Complex language used

• Picnic article, formal clothing and discussion of lords and ladies and Queen Victoria. These upper class people are featured as a utopia, idealised and being aspirational role models

• This reflects that Vogue readers tend to be from the middle/upper classes or aspire to be this. The magazine is expensive as are the brands it promotes

Ethnicity representations

• White models in the magazine are pictured in jewels and luxury clothing, representing them as high status

• White ethnic appearance is normalised, with darker ethnicities being under represented in the range of “nude toned” Cutex products. The colour ranges of lipstick are clearly catered towards lighter skin tones and neglect darker ones

• The lack of minority models, and make up aimed at darker skinned readers, reflects the less inclusive nature of 1960s Britain and its lack of diversity

• Black Egyptian men are featured in an article image however they are marginalised. They are in the background of the image and appear to be the woman’s staff, working and doing deals, whilst the woman dances and enjoys leisure time. They are represented as poorer, having to work, whilst the white models in the magazine are rich enough to enjoy leisure time - postcolonial representation of ethnicity. The black men are marginalised by being blurred and in the background

• The white man on the boat is writing and in a suit, appears professional. Suggests a Westernised view of ‘professionalism’

Holiday article

• Direct adress, power

• Voyeurism, sexist

• Going on holiday on her own, female independence