MOCK QUESTION REVIEW
How are representations of masculinity shaped by cultural and historical contexts?
Your answers should refer to the Patek Phillipe advert (Figure 1 – published 2014) and your Close Study Product, the Score hair cream advert (Figure 2 – published 1967).
- In the score advert, we see a man with a gun on his back. In terms of Barthes theory of semiotics, the gun suggests that the man has power and that he is strong. The jungle background has an intertextual links to the Vietnam war and men were involved in the jungle warfare, this advert could be a use of propaganda as men in the 1960s would feel that if they go to war they would gain a sense of power and masculinity, that when they come back from war they can 'get what [they have] always wanted' which is women and power. This is showing the man which suggests that hewn through war to gain women attention.
- In terms of Stuart Halls encoding and decoding, the encoded reading is that the hair cream product gives men the confidence to attract women and gain power.
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