Transcript Watered-down Gender

Watered-down Gender?
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portraying men and women in
Japanese television
advertisements
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Todd Joseph Miles Holden
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The Study of Social Structure
and Change
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Graduate School of Information
Sciences
Tohoku University
Sendai, Japan
[email protected]
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In A Nutshell
This paper concerns a communication
riddle--a confluence of signs that
appears again and again in television
advertising in Japan. The association
is between:
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
women and water, primarily; and
men against water, derivatively
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“Genderism”: Goffman
(1967)
a
gender-based
presentation of women
and
men--that
is
continually encoded in
and transmitted to
society's members via
television advertising.
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First Signs
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Reading the Signs
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The Logic of Semiology
rippling
water:
signifies
naturalism;
a favorite
theme in
ads
woman standing
"inside" the kanji:
conflates 2 signs
Sumi:
traditional
style of
calligraphy
white dress:
central cultural
value of purity; a
frequent
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convention in ads
The Semiological
Connection
In ads, color, lighting,
expression, pose, fashion,
address, language (and the
like) serve as “signs”
objects that
possess
meaning
with elements which can
be read and decoded in
specifiable, systematic
ways
Such that they shed light on the
underlying structure of society
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From Saussure…
Signifier (Physical embodiment)
Sign
(object/concept)
Signification
Signified (Mental Concept)
“reality”)
(External
…To Barthes
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… And Beyond
Baudrillard:
Simulation
a thing may (or may not)
begin as a
representation of an
actual thing
The meaning of the
simulation
“implodes” toward
that of the original
yet gains an independent
existence from the thing it
represented
the ontological status of each
distinct part becomes equivalent.
Though different, the “copy” is
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no less real than the previous
“reality”
Semiotics and the Ad
The aim is to move
from denotation to
connotation… from
datum to cultural
“myth”
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Semiotics and the Ad
The way in which cultural nationalism is communicated
in Japanese ads via continual reference to nature and the
invocation of natural colors (1999b)
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Semiotics and the Ad
The increasing globalization of Japan via the
wide-spread import (or "resignification") of
exo-cultural symbols (2000b)
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Semiotics and the Ad
The transformation of Japanese identity (what I call
"adentity"), toward greater expressions of self and
assertions of individuality and difference (1999c)
The difference in advertising formats--and,
hence, communication styles--employed in
Japan and Malaysia and the inference this leads
to about the relative socio-economic
development of the two societies (1999a)
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Semiotics and the Ad
The inference suggested by such
formatic differences (and their
concomitant treatment of symbolic
content) about the semiotic literacy
(sign processing capacity) of the
respective national audiences
(1999a)
The "selling" of racial harmony, urbanism,
national achievement, family and middle class
lifestyle in Malaysia (forthcoming a,b);
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Semiotics and the Ad
The ubiquitous gendering of advertising text in
contemporary Japan (2000a)
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Gender Advertisements,
Japan: relative size
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Gender Advertisements,
Japan: ritualized
subordination
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Gender Advertisements,
Japan: functional ranking
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Gender Advertisements,
Japan: licensed
withdrawal
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Gender Advertisements,
Japan: feminine touch
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Gender Advertisements,
Japan: family
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Gender, by Water
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Direct Comparison
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Structural analysis:
Presence/Absence
in defining gender
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Mixing like… men and water
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Men and Water
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Men and Water
In advertising men treat water as:
- a rival
- an obstacle to be overcome
- a site of test or challenge
- an element to be controlled
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Product
Vitamin
drink
Setting
Action
Match race Swimming
Pool
Watch
Open sea
Vitamin
drink
Vitamin
drink
Rocky
shoreline
Canalled
city
Interpretation
Water: milieu
of challenge,
success,
failure
Yacht
Test of : skill,
Race
courage, power
Escape Water as threat
waves
to safety
avoid
In water lurks
crocodiles
danger
Table 1: Examples of Male Encounters with
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Water
Observation Points:
(1) the scant number of ads depicting
men in relation to water;
(2) Proportionately, far less than in the
case of women;
(3) when compared to other natural
environments--such
as
forests,
mountains or deserts--water is an
infrequent site of male activity;
(4) In fact, most male activities
(achievements, challenges and leisure)
transpire on land;
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(5) generally, on developed land.
The Male Version 1:
Water, the Challenger
Water is a dynamic foe
that challenges men,
forcing them to call
upon their inner
resources to succeed
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The Male Version 2:
Water, the Dangerous
Lurking within it are
animals threatening
dismemberment.
It also houses an
unreasoning, unforgiving
force.
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Table 2: Signs and
Significations involving Men
and Water
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The Male Version 3: Distance
and Control :
Water Kept at a Safe Remove.
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Controlling Women…
… Is one way for men to control water
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Table 2: Signs and Significations involving
Men and Water
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The Landed Discourse of
Power
Most often, the expression of male
potency is manifested in locales that
come wrapped in a prior
hermeneutic of power: artificiallyconstructed environments that they
have already been molded and
rendered subservient to their control.
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The Constructed Realms of
Male Power
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“Keep me on solid
ground…”
Thus, men are seen
more
often
in
offices
and
boardrooms,
cutting
pathways
through
urban
concrete; and, when
in nature, as far
from
water
as
possible.
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Women and Water
Compared to men, women are more
frequently involved with, represented by
and depicted in conjunction with water.
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The Sexist Drink of Water
water provides an excellent excuse to
show skin.
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The Mythologizing Tendency
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Woman… Superhero:
Capable of
Repelling
Water in a
Single
Breath
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Stasis: Women and Water
Together
Unlike their male counterparts, not one
example can be located in which women
are inconvenienced--or, worse, threatened-45
by water
Water: Site of Peace, Play,
Performance, Perspicuity
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Water as Seat of Action
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Water as Liberator of
Emotions
The experience of
freedom and emotional
release often occurs
when women come into
contact with water
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Identity through the
Fishbowl
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Psycho
-sexual
Releas
e at the
Beach
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Power Revisited:
Female Sexuality
women appear most
comfortable, assertive
and in control when in
the presence of water.
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Power Revisited:
Sexuality as Control
It is in the shower or bath
where women chose to
express their will confidence,
and exert strength and
sexuality
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Power Revisited:
Woman as Predator
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Power Revisited:
Woman as Seductress
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Power Revisited:
Physical Prowess
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Power Revisited: Impervious
In many ads women are depicted as
oblivious to water—such as rain. They
often sit through it, step into it to manage
a crisis or accomplish a chore. Never is
there the suggestion that they are
troubled by exposing themselves to a
few stray droplets of moisture.
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Power Revisited:
Oblivious of sexual power
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Power Revisited: Defying
Natural Laws
Female power may be
unfathomable to most
workaday mortals.
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Power Revisited: Life-Giver
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In Sum:
women in television
commercials are clearly
powerful in and around
water--certainly more so
than their male counterparts.
It
is
a
mixed
conclusion as to
whether
female
protagonists
are
willful exploiters or
relative innocents of
this physical-psychic
power.
commercial representations tend to
couch female power in the rhetoric of
sexuality--though, not exclusively so.
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Evidence from
other contexts
suggest that
the same general
associations
concerning men,
women and
water may exist
in other
cultures.
On Watereddown Gender
in Foreign
Advertising
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American Mediations 1:
Woman, Ocean, Strip-tease…
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… Fulfillment
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American Mediations 2:
Woman, Man, Ocean…
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… Seduction
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Analysis:
both American ads highlight certain
themes prominent in Japanese
advertising:,
Men trying to insulate
themselves from the water's
natural power
women expressing
liberation and/or
emotional release at
the seashore
men seeking to
control the ocean's
force by
manipulating
machines
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Malaysian Mediations
1:
Women and
Water...
… Men
and Cities
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Malaysian Mediations
2:
Contrasting Men/land
with Women/water
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Conclusions
It may not only be in Japan that men
and women are gendered in relation to
water.
 At the same time, in Japan, in television
commercials, such gendering is
widespread.
 More, the genderisms relative to water
are extremely consistent.
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Table 4. Gender Differences Emergent in Water-
Connected Advertising
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Table 5. Watered-Down
Gender: Global
Comparisons of Men and
Women
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Questioning Status
To the degree that women are associated with the
natural world and the natural world is less a part
of our everyday lifeworld, then women's status is
less prominent; their efficacy--based on a
particular geo-ideational position--can be
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derogated; their power delegitimized.
Questioning Status
Women are
continually
placed in
nature…
And juxtaposed with water at every turn
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Triangulating the Association
Evidence from elsewhere:
R
a
n
m
a
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Resolved:
Whatever the cultural
explanation, watereddown gender is an
actual phenomenon in
Japan
Women and water (and, inversely) men and land
are confluences that play extensively, in
systematic, relatively uniform ways in
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contemporary Japanese commercial culture.