Misrepresentation of gender roles in the media?

Negative representation of gender roles is an issue most commonly associated with the misrepresentation of women being perceived as sexual objects or as second class citizens. However what is often overlooked is the negative representations of men where the same inequality is being demonstrated.

A prime example of this would be the film Magic Mike, 2012 Steven Soderbergh. When the subject of stripping is highlighted audiences often make the assumption that it is women doing the stripping and the men come as paying customers however, as shown in the film Magic Mike, the role reversal does take place and can result in the same negative consequences.

In Magic Mike the lead Adam, played by Alex Pettyfer, is exposed to a variety of different corruptions such as drugs and alcohol as well as being exploited as he is young and naïve by the older characters such as Dallas, played by Matthew Mconaughey and Magic Mike, played by Channing Tatum.

Despite this clear negative representation and insight into the lives of characters who are more often forgotten about in society the franchise of Magic Mike is seen as a positive sexual objectification of men with the advertising campaign consisting solely of half nude men to the extent of the not-so-subtle phallic reference in the title of the sequel 'Magic Mike XXL'. If the same film had been made about the opposite sex with the same approach to advertising the entire campaign would be slandered as pornographic and inappropriate.

 

 

Similarly, as far as the concept of body image and sexual objectification is concerned the focus is usually around women and example being the campaigns against features such as page 3 modelling. The normalisation of a sexualised image of the female body has caused the same to happen to men, with equally high body standards these ad campaigns of both men and women have equal exposure but the exploitation and the effect on the everyday man is rarely discussed.

 

 

 

 

When I typed in a google search of Men's Health magazine cover the majority came up with covers like the ones pictured above, with lines such as 'Get back into shape' and 'Strip away fat' encouraging the same obsession with body image as in stereotypical tabloid magazines however it is not criticised in the same way. Additionally, the same applies to the nudity as many protest about the constant representation of women in the media without any clothes on yet here, the sexualisation of these men is normalised due to their high levels of fitness and attractiveness.