Dominant hegemonic notions of gender in Adbusters

P.E.A

I would say that this image on the front cover of Adbusters conforms to the dominant hegemonic notions of gender because of the fact that it portrays a man in an aggressive pose and shouting. The reason why I would say that this conforms to dominant hegemonic notions of gender is because the stereotype of males is that they are the more powerful and aggressive sex. The aggression is portrayed though him shouting making him seem more dominant.

I would say that this advertisement from the Adbusters magazine subverts from the dominant hegemonic notions of gender because the gender of the person is not explicitly shown in the image so you can not actually tell whether they are male or female.
This is because there is a mid shot of the person's feet meaning that there is no identifying features that would tell us what gender they are. This is effective because it could be showing us that it doesn't matter what gender you are because when you are living in poverty it effects everybody regardless of gender. This means that it subverts from the general conventions of gender in magazines because they are not being shown in a sexual way meaning that the image is very under-sexualised. The creators of this advert could have done this to challenge what us as the audience feel about our lifestyle because in our society we often fetishise many products such as shoes. Rather than shoes being a product used for the basic purpose of protecting our feet we have attached added meaning to the shoes so we buy footwear that is overly expensive for no real reason. The advert challenges this because from what we can see of the mise-en-scene in the image the person is wearing make-shift shoes from materials that they have recycled. This makes us as the audience feel guilty because we are spending excessive amounts on shoes when people can barley protect their feet. This means that by subverting from the general connotations of gender they can create a challenging ideology that makes the audience question their own lives.




Additionally, the advert in Adbusters that presents coloured people trapped behind barbed wire and trying to escape, directly contrasted to the legs of what appears to be a women could, in some ways, conform to the dominant hegemonic notions of gender. This is because of the fact that the legs of the woman in the bottom picture is similar to the ideas of the female gender because she is wearing what appears to be an expensive dress which demonstrates wealth. However, I would say that, overall, the advert subverts from the dominant hegemonic notions if gender because although we can clearly identify the gender of the people behind barbed wire they still subvert from the dominant hegemonic notions of gender because of the fact that the top half of the advert makes it seem as if it doesn't matter what gender you are in that situation because you are all effected the same. This is because the mise-en-scene in the top photograph is that everybody is wearing the same type of clothing regardless of what gender they are but they are still trapped behind the barbed wire. (The wire could be representing how everyone, regardless of gender, is trapped in that lifestyle and cannot get out). The reason that Adbusters decided to subvert from the hegemonic notions of gender could have been because they wanted to make their product stand out and make a point. This is also because the topics that they cover are not what you would generally find in most magazines


Again, in this advert, Adbusters subverts from the dominant hegemonic notions of gender because of the fact that the gender of the person in the bath is unidentifiable as you can not see any distinguishing features that would allow you to interpret the gender of the person. The image is a mid shot of a person crouching in a bath where most of the persons body is out of the frame apart from their legs, arms and part of their face. This, therefore, hides the features that would point to weather of not this person is male of female. This clearly subverts from the dominant hegemonic notions of gender because most adverts where a person is in a bath would be heavily sexualised and it would likely be obvious that the person featured is female. However, probably because of the fact that the advert is addressing a serious topic, Adbusters have decided to subvert from the dominant hegemonic notions of gender that women are mainly present in images to be viewed as sexual objects and, therefore, objectified.