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Anna Townsend
CMC 100-2 Fall Semester 2010
Content Analysis:
Portrayal of Ideal Women for Certain Male Audiences
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In our society, there is no way around the construction of stereotypes; it is
our brains way of organizing information. One walk down the magazine isle of any
convenience store displays a wide variety of magazines aimed at certain audiences
of consumers. GQ, Vibe, Maxim, and Men’s Health, are four magazines aimed at
certain audiences of men. Through a content analysis of each by examining different
characteristics of the males in terms of class, age, appearance, product, and interest,
we can discover more about the types of women these men view as ideal.
A content analysis of the advertisements and the type of product being
advertised builds the male stereotype of the aimed audience. Through analysis of GQ
magazine, I discovered it is aimed at the generally young and metro, wealthy or
wealth aspirant, urban business class, white males. Vibe is aimed toward
predominantly black, young, wealth aspirant, males, with an emphasized interest in
music artists and some sports. Maxim targets an audience of the stereotypical white
manly-man, with no definite emphasis on wealth or class. Lastly, Men’s Health is
directed toward a wider range of age (the men in the ads appeared to vary between
20-50) and class (lower middle to upper class). It was also directed at a variety of
races (mostly black and white), and generally the active, health-aware, manly-man,
who strives for a toned body. Specific indicators are the product being sold, the
characteristics of the male, setting, and the activities or interests of the audiences
that are portrayed.
Many of the products in GQ are oriented with good hygiene. For instance,
14% of the ads fell under the category of men’s fragrance, deodorant, shampoo, or
body wash. Many of the men portrayed in these ads are clean-shaven and very far
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from rugged looking; most of the time even rather gender ambiguous or displayed
in a homoerotic manner. For example, the Jean Paul Gaultier ad displays a shirtless
male with a rather seductive look. It is rather homoerotic for a male to find this ad
appealing as opposed to the Curve fragrance ad with the seductive woman (figures
A and G).
Figure A:
Vibe on the other hand has only 4 hygienic ads out of the 27; two of which are
laundry detergents; one is wave control hair promade, and the last is a series of
bump control shaving products. Maxim had a few designer fragrances like those that
appeared in GQ, however, there were also the more affordable drugstore products
like Old Spice body wash, men’s Rogaine hair re-growth foam, and Schick razors and
shave gels. Men’s Health also contained the same products of different price variety,
as did Maxim. The prices of the product we buy tell a lot about wealth and the
constructed class status we like to uphold. Thus, GQ aims toward a wealthier class
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while Maxim and Men’s Health supports more range in class while Vibe has less
emphasis on hygiene.
Another common product is clothing. 34% of the ads in GQ are designer shoe
or clothing brands, and most of which are know as rather expensive like Ralph
Lauren, Prada, Burberry, and Gucci to name a few. The brands of the fragrance and
clothing, as well as the appearance of the men portrayed in these ads, are good
indicators of wealthy or wealth-aspirants as well as the middle-to-upper class males
that GQ aims for. Watches and cars took up 17% of the ads in GQ, and although men
appeared in these ads very few times, the brands of the watches and make of the
cars themselves told enough about the wealth of the aimed audience. Cadillac and
Volvo are two brands of car advertised in GQ, as opposed to the more affordable
Fords and Mazdas shown in Vibe, and the Jettas, Toyotas, and Hondas in Maxim.
While Maxim and Men’s Health also have their fair share of watch and car ads, GQ
far outnumbers them in this category.
The modern aesthetic of the ads is also and important characteristic to figure.
Many of the clothing brand ads in GQ portray this (like the gold reflective structure
in figure C), a characteristic which expresses a modern and upper class urban vibe.
For instance, modern and sleek are looks that may appear in the setting of middleto-upper class apartments in Manhattan. The settings of the ads in Vibe however,
are mostly very plain with no distinguishable sense of place. There were only 7 out
of 27 ads that had some mildly urban effect to it. Men’s Health has the most ads with
an outdoor and sometimes rural setting (18%). This also goes hand-in-hand to
support the emphasis on a more active and healthy life-style considering how
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running, biking, skiing, and snowboarding are best done outdoors. The John
Travolta/Breitling watch ad, as well as the two prescription ads, epitomizes the
older demographic of men’s health readers (figure B).
Figure B:
Travolta is portrayed as a rugged male with a passion for aviation: he has some
stubble and is wearing his blue jeans and bomber jacket. The setting is desolate and
mountainous while Travolta is in the foreground alone, leaning against his private
airplane, looking stoic. This is the manly-man, individualist, which is advertised in
Men’s Health.
On similarity I found across all magazines was that there is at least some
degree of sexualized women or products for sex. In my method for discovering the
ideal women, I pay attention to the female/male ratios, the mise-en-scene,
interaction of the different genders in the ads, how sexualized the women are, and
their appearance.
In GQ, 37% of the ads with people contain women. But they are also only
mostly shown along with men because of the 57 ads with people, only 8 contain just
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women and no men. Mise-en-scene is also an important aspect here. For instance,
13 of the 21 ads containing women place them behind the men or portray them as
clinging onto them. Most all the ads sexualize the woman as well, although not as
aggressively as in Maxim. Figure C is one example of this. The woman
Figure C:
appears scantly clad, with much of her leg and arm showing, and her position is very
sexualized. She is also wearing heels; a point that I find has been constructed to
reinforces the sexualized woman stereotype. The woman is also placed behind the
man, and off to the side, which undermines her identity in the scene. The man, on
the other hand, is in a position of dominance with his open-leg stance and the way
the camera seems to be looking up at him. The Tom Ford ad is another that displays
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Figure D:
the ideal woman as sexualized. It also demonstrates the gender ambiguity that is
characteristic of the homoerotic ads that appear in GQ (figure D). The man has the
same pout as the woman and his features are just as feminine as the woman’s (for
instance the similar jaw lines). He is also wearing a velvet blazer and neck scarf;
clothing that you surely will not find in any of the other magazines. The woman is
sexualized because of her pout and lack of clothing; she is wearing only a scarf and
part of her breast is showing. Despite this, the women in GQ are usually more slyly
sexualized as opposed to the aggressive displays of scantly clad women in Maxim.
The women in the Prada ad fit the GQ type well. They are not overly sexualized or
aggressive but are still clingy in the way they latch on to the men. Their style of
dress is more sophisticated, with a modern edge, than it is revealing. Through this
analysis I figured that the ideal woman for the constructed GQ male is slyly
seductive, skinny, and conservative, with a modern edge in dress and hairstyle.
In Vibe, the only ads with women appeared to be directed at a female
audience, no matter how small that fraction on Vibe readers may be. Of the 17 ads
with people, 6 had women and they were all black. Interestingly enough, one of the
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laundry detergent ads contained two women in the 30-40 range of age. This
contrasts greatly with the two makeup ads with Queen Latifah and the sexualized
Beyonce perfume ad (figures E and F).
Figures E and F:
The Beyonce ad is very sexualized with her seductive look, and the slit in her
already-short dress shows a lot of skin. Her top is so low cut it shows all her
cleavage and the copy is also written across it, drawing the reader to focus there.
Queen Latifah is not sexualized at all; the emphasis is on the beauty of her face. This
revalation, that there is no definite female type for the Vibe male demographic, is
very interesting because it is a magazine aimed at music fans. Many music videos in
the media contain very sexualized women degraded by explicit lyrics. However this
would not be obvious from a look at the ads in Vibe.
Although Men’s Health also has very limited female prescene, the few ads it
does contain are similar to the sexualized ones in Maxim. The Curve fragrance ad
Figure G:
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actually appeared in all the magazines but Vibe. The woman is sexualize with her
tousled hair, bustier, and seductive, lip-bite look (figure G). The Durex condom ad;
which showed a tangle of male and fmale limbs, also appeared in both Maxim and
Men’s health. When compared, of all the ads with people in each magazine, Maxim
had 71% with women while Men’s Health only had 23%. Although this is a drastic
difference in statistic, the two magazines generally portrayed the same, ultrsexualized, scantly clad, and well-endowed women with longs hair. If this isnt
apparent enough in the few ads in Men’s Health, then the model spreads that appear
every once in awhile make up for it.
By discovering the aimed male audiences for each magazine, I discovered
their ideal female and their importance in advertisement. Philosophically speaking,
Men’s Health and Vibe tend to place woman in a back seat role. From this lack of
female presence, it is difficult to conclude a certain type. This is especially
interesting for Vibe because the Hip-Hop, R n’ B, and Rap style of music it advertises
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are the types in media that tend to always contain sexualize women. Maxim is the
other extreme of this: women play a paramount role in the ads to sell products. In
fact, the women in the ads are key in constructing the type of male audience. GQ, on
the other hand, follows a structure in which the men are accessories that aid in the
construction of the certain male demographic. From these observations and
conclusions I found the trend of certain male stereotypes and their ideal women.