Media Essay Autumn Term 1

How media language is used in the construction of gender in two print advertisements for fragrances

By Nicholas Baptiste

Everybody in Mostly Economic Developed Countries has come across media languages (a way of media text being portrayed to the audience) according to people's gender. So many people get confused with the terms of gender and sex; that they both mean the same thing.  A person’s sex is their biological form and a person’s gender is their social roles that are based on that person’s sex. It is because of society that people have to come across sex separation like patriarchy (the male sex being superior to females) and objectification. An example of this is the male gaze which is men objectifying women, they are the look-outs and women are the look-at. To portray this aspect, I will be focussing on two fragrances that are both presented by the same company; Hugo Boss. The titles of the adverts are “BOSS THE SCENT for Her” and “BOSS the scent for Him”.

The first advert focuses on the fragrance for women to attract men which are the opposite sex. The advert has a close-up shot of the fragrance for women to show the audience their product early. After that shot, there is a mid-shot of the woman looking depressed because she is lonely and she needs someone to be by her side. Furthermore, there is a long shot of a city to fast forward the time of day to night. Then a mid-shot of her using the fragrance while looking outside to the city that she is in. The next shot shows her being approached by a man after she has used the fragrance. This instantly connotes that the fragrance attracts the male sex to the female sex. Further mid-shots are used after that shot to show to the audience the two sexes actions. In the final shots of the advert, the advert shows close up shots of the two sexes showing off their sexual actions. In the final shot of the advert, there is a zoom out shot of the fragrance being displayed with the caption “The scent”. This implies that “the scent” of the fragrance is a sex appeal for women to get men to not be lonely and have sex with. The music that was playing in the advert is a romantic music named “High for This” by The Weekend. This advert is blatantly a stereotype for both men and women because it shows the man walking to the woman and according to his social role, this is what he must do; he needs to look for women and objectify her.

On the other hand, the second advert focus on the fragrance for men to attract women. This advert also starts with the close-up shot of the fragrance made for men to clearly portray the product. Then there is a mid-shot of the man looking sad while he is sitting down on a chair. After that, it shows the same city as the woman fast forwarding time to when the city is dark. The shot after is the close-up shot of the man applying the fragrance on his neck then there is a close-up shot of the man’s face. The two next shots are important. The next shot is a mid-shot of the women sitting on the bed waiting for the man to objectify her. Next shot is another mid-shot however it is the man walking to the woman and as he is walking, he is also sexually looking at her. This is clearly a demonstration of the male gaze because the male was looking at the women because it is his role in society to do so. The following shots are the same close-up shots of the man and women showing their sexual appeal to one another with the same zoom out shot at the end of the advert with the same caption “The scent” but it shows the male fragrance instead of the female. The same romantic music is played from the female advert to the male advert. I think Hugo Boss has deliberately used the same music with the same endings as well as both adverts being practically the same because it wants to establish men and women’s equality if they used the fragrance from Hugo Boss. Whichever fragrance the audience uses, they will automatically get the opposite sex that they have always hoped for. This advert, as well as the first advert, is obviously objectifying women because of the male’s demeaning look to the woman as he walks to her.

I have learnt from the two advert is that patriarchy is still present today. Gender stereotypes are just slyly embedded into the adverts so that they are less punishing and it will hypnotise the audience into buying their product because of the message that the adverts produce. This advertisement will disappear in the future because the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) is going to ban all forms of gender stereotypes in 2018 so men wouldn’t be seen as more superior than men, for example, men doing DIY on the other hand, women are cleaning around the house.