Debates in Feminist Research – Week 5 (Monday 4th February)

This series of posts relate to a course I am currently taking as part of my Women's Studies degree. The aim of the course is to explore the key issues and debates in women's studies research.

For my assessment as part of this course, I am producing a critical journal, detailing my assumptions and realisations about women's studies research and about myself as a researcher. It will include some preparation work for classes and reflections on this preparation, as I discover new ways of researching.

NOTE: Please feel free to read this blog and comment freely. I am not presenting facts, this is a record of my thoughts and processes. However I will ask, given that this will form part of my assessed degree course, that you please seek my permission before citing any of this material yourself.

Interpreting Visual Cultures

This week we were learning about how to interpret and use visual culture in research. We did this through analysing two advertisements. I will outline the comments I initially made on the adverts, then the varying methods and techniques introduced through reading and during the class for analysing visual culture, then I will reflect on what I have gained from this session and my responses to the ideas which came out of the session.

Advert 1

Look at the landscape and the buildings. What messages is the ad trying to convey about the advantages of golfing in Kenya?

It seems, particularly the building on the left, that the style is emulating European stately style, often seen at prestigious British golf courses. Having said this I am not sure if these are indeed typical buildings in Kenya. However from a British perspective, these buildings are not unfamiliar and could be interpreted as presenting a 'home away from home', just with the benefits of great climate and lots of space.

What is the ad trying to tell us about the two men in the foreground? What is significant about their dress?

Given the traditional 'western' views of golfing attire, the white man is dressed more appropriately (although still quite informally for some golf clubs). However this only serves to highlight the dress of the Kenyan man more - although this is Kenyan attire and is arguably more appropriate in Kenya, because this is a golf course in a traditional western style, with western buildings and undoubtedly a western clientele, the western man looks more at ease.

I would also like to highlight the fact that they are both men: golf is notoriously exclusionary towards women and the choice of using a male Kenyan here instead of a female Kenyan (indeed all the women in the background - maybe two - can be said to be partnering men on the course as neither have gold bags of their own and there is no woman in Kenyan dress). Therefore the Kenyan woman becomes particularly invisible in this advert as the male Kenyan becomes the cultural representative.

How can we decode the masculinities of the two men? Is one more masculine than the other? How can we tell?

This is going to be very much a culturally specific interpretation, as body language and its meanings vary hugely from culture to culture. From a western point of view, I would argue that the Kenyan man is presented as much more effeminate than the western man. The Kenyan man is wearing a sarong-type garment, interpreted by the west as a feminine clothing item, he is wearing jewellery, has sandals, earrings, and is much slimmer than the western man, which are all markers of femininity in the west (whether they should be or not is another question).

Contrarily, the western man is stocky and plump, implying wealth; is wearing a corporate logo on his hat and labelled clothing (on his left sleeve). He is standing almost straight on to the camera, in a 'confident' stance (why do we think it is a confident stance?) and is teaching the Kenyan man, in a parallel of male intellectual superiority over women. Therefore this western man conforms to western ideals of the affluent, influential man.

However it would be interesting to see if other cultures would characterise this relationship differently? For example would the distinction between their builds mean something different in Kenya or elsewhere? Is teaching always a superior to inferior process?

The ad is also trying to convey something about cultural exchange. Is this an equal exchange?

I would argue no, this is not an equal exchange. The only aspect of Kenyan culture which is accepted by the western man is the spear, which he is holding loosely and casually, implying he does not place that much value on it. He is much more interested in the golf club (the object of the west) which he is directing the Kenyan man how to use. Furthermore, the Kenyan is presented as being much less at ease using a golf club than the western male is holding the spear - he may be holding it casually, but he does not look ill at ease.

I have already mentioned above too, that the kind of people who are likely to use the club will be affluent westerners, given the landscaping and buildings - that grass will need a lot of water! I would imagine that the relationships between westerners and Kenyans here are likely to be customer (master)/ servant relationships.

How can we use post-colonial theory to shed a critical light on the central message and values of this ad?

[It was suggested by other students that the Kenyan man is being presented as 'other' to the white western male]. would take this idea of the Kenyan man as other further and suggest that the western man, whilst not particularly the ideal of an attractive western man (according to the media), is presented as masculine and affluent in opposition to the Kenyan. Thus the Kenyan acts as a foil, representing everything that the western man is not.

This postcolonial idea of the native 'other' can be elaborated to show the extent to which western and native ideologies and constructions of power collide to eliminate women. Many western golf courses restrict women's access and women are often the most disadvantaged in many world societies and cultures (though I don't know the specifics of Kenyan society). Therefore both the western man's patriarchy and the Kenyan man's patriarchy work together to make sure woman is elided.

The Kenyan is furthermore shown as not belonging - directly behind him is a castle-like building. Going on the old adage 'an Englishman's home is his castle', even though this is in Kenya, the Kenyan is made to look out of place and thus ridiculous.

Advert 2

Again, begin by considering the landscape. Where is the ad set (identify the landmarks) and what has happened?

I think the mermaid is lying on the Arc de Triomphe so maybe this is flooded Paris? Although the background seems to be artificial: a theatre backdrop of the set for a photoshot perhaps, implying that we shouldn't take this literally as flooded Paris, but we should extract certain assumptions and associations that the author wishes us to make between the images and Paris - love, lust, sensuality, glamour.

Are they floating in perfume? Has she flooded Paris with her scent?

Why is the woman in the centre of the ad a mermaid? And what is she doing?

[Examples were given by others of the traditional ‘siren’ image of mermaids.] However I thought it was significant that she is wearing an officer's hat and is using a megaphone to call. This implies she perhaps has more agency and control over the situation than we would traditionally ascibe. Or perhaps this is playing on the fear that mermaids sank ships in order to get at the sailors.

What can we infer about the men in the water? What has happened to them? What are they doing and where are they looking? Can we tell anything about their identities?

Both men are attractive (according to western media) thus can be seen as suitable love/lust partners/objects for the mermaid. Interestingly, both are wearing hats which are usually worn by lower status sailors than the hat she is wearing, implying she may be the one in control.

[During the class, some people suggested that the sailors are reminiscent of gay identity and contribute to queer the advert. I found this a very interesting aspect of the analysis.]

What about the bottle of perfume? Why is it dressed in a metal-looking corset? What do we know about the history of corsets? Who is well known for wearing a corset like this one and how does that affect out interpretation of it?

Wikipedia says:

'A corset is a garment worn to mold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes (either for the duration of wearing it, or with a more lasting effect).'

Usually historically worn by women to appear fashionable, interestingly Wikipedia also highlights the corset's place as contemporary fetish wear:

'Aside from fashion and medical uses, corsets are also used in sexual fetishism, most notably in BDSM activities. In BDSM, a submissive can be forced to wear a corset which would be laced very tight and give some degree of restriction to the wearer. A dominant can also wear a corset, but for entirely different reasons such as aesthetics.'

A corset gives a traditional, feminine shape, historically desirous to men. Thus this implies to a consumer that if you wear this perfume, men will find you sexually attractive.

I think perhaps this question might be hinting at Madonna: the conical breasts designed for her by Jean Paul Gaultier, the creator of this perfume). Whilst to some extent this image is now a comical one (you can buy plastic imitation breasts in some nightclubs), it still has a status of representing a powerful and attractive woman (Madonna was found recently to be the richest female musician).

What is the overall message of the ad? Could this ad be described as ‘Feminist?’

Is this advert presenting the mermaid as powerful? To answer this, I would combine the signifiers of the hat and megaphone together with the sailors' hats and the fact that she is physically higher up than them on dry land which is where they need to be. For me, all these combine to indicate that she is in a position of power. However I do agree that even if this does imply more power, this advert is massively heteronormative and the only power she is allowed is in her influence over men who are swimming in her scent (so to speak).

Methods

We read an article by Don Slater "Analysing cultural objects: content analysis and semiotics" to identify the main methods of visual analysis: content analysis and semiotics.

Content analysis ‘at bottom...measures frequency, and typical research questions might be: ‘how prevalent in soap opera are sexist images of women?’ (Slater, 235). ‘A content analysis is rather like a social survey of a sample of images, rather than of people, using a tightly structured and closed questionnaire’ (235). However the drawback of content analysis is that it cannot explore nuanced meanings of visual analysis.

Semiotic analysis might be more suited to nuanced meanings as it is more open-ended in it aims and investigations. Semiotic analysis derives from Saussure’s theory of structural linguistics.

A crucial step in understanding semiotic analysis is the step between denotation and connotation. ‘Denotation...is the perceptual, ‘first-order’ level of signification, the level at which we might talk about what the picture is literally a picture of’ (Slater, 240). However the image will also connote a ‘range of higher-level ideological meanings’, thus semiotics is ‘not simply the description of sign systems, but the analysis of this process of ‘mythologisation’ whereby conventional social systems of meaning come to appear natural’ (241).

Adverts use these codes (cultural codes) to make people buy products by encoding messages which connote certain things for them. Thus, for example, the perfume advert above connotes glamour, gay identity, sensuality.

However all signs are polysemic, thus there is a possibility for misunderstanding and resistant readings. Furthermore, a signifier has different levels of meaning: in class the example of the word ‘cow’ was given. This word can be multiply used to signify both an animal and an insult.


Stuart Hall created a model for this encoding and decoding, concluding that the encoding and decoding must match in order to get the identity or message that we want to read. (Image from <http://www.aber.ac.uk/ media/Documents/S4B/
sem08c.html> [accessed 4 Feb 2008]) If the technical infrastructure (means), relations of production (class) and frameworks of knowledge of the creaters do not match those of the consumers then there is a distinct possibility of misunderstanding. There is a need for a common language, a need to match class, means and knowledge. In order for the technical infrastructure of the consumer to match that of the creator, the consumer needs to have a TV!

We all have a certain amount of cultural capital (knowledge we have in order to understand certain connotations), however some will have more than others. The more cultural capital you have, the easier it will be to decode connotations.

This can be closely linked with the distinction between high and low culture - low culture interests (such as soap operas and romance novels) have often been aligned with women's interests. Thus we all bring certain assumptions about high and low culture to our readings and understandings.

Reflections

I found this class really interesting and drew some particular questions/ideas which I would like to explore further out of this class:

• To what extent is visual data real/fake? Are people's real selves being portrayed or is this a performance. [Some class members drew upon the theatre style backdrop of the perfume advert to suggest that the roles being played out in this advert were performative, referencing Judith Butler's theory of 'gender performativity' perhaps].

• I found it quite challenging at first to draw distinctions between the methods of visual analysis, however following the class I would be very interested to using both methods either separately or perhaps simultaneously to see the advantages and disadvantages of each method in practice.

• From our reading, I was particularly interested in ideas around the gaze in advertising (Zoonen, Liesbet van, 'Spectatorship and the Gaze', Feminist Media Studies) and I would be interested in following this further with specific examples in visual culture.

Overall I really enjoyed this class and I am pleased at the skills and knowledge that I have been able to draw from it. Hopefully I will get a chance to use them!