Two of My Favourite Things: Semiotics and Gender Issues

First of all, let me say that Shield and Heinecken's article "Signs of the Times: A Semiotics of Gender Ads" was of particular interest to me, besides reading Roland Barthes' "Rhetoric of the Image". Semiotics is a fascinating study in terms of rhetoric and English because it combines them in a sense to understand the basics of meaning. This is so important to the human condition, because it drives our actions, interactions and motives. What we value influences us most profoundly. To look at a series of semiotic codes, that is, "A system of associations governed by rules agreed upon...between members of a culture. The code unifies the different elements of the process of meaning construction" (67), is to look at the overall picture of how we derive meaning in life, which is so important to understanding why we do what we do.

With that said, it's interesting to see semiotic code in play in advertising because not only are we examining how an ad influences us, there is a code in play that tells us what kind of meaning and value we place on any given product, company, message or cause. The intersection between ideology and semiotic code is also important in looking at the dominant messages and ideologies communicated in ads concerning gender, particularly the female.

And so it is important to decode an advertisement based on the structural elements of semiotic theory such as the principles of Saussure to analyze it beyond its connotations and for its basic insight into the value systems placed and replaced when watching, reading or experiencing an advertisement. In light of the following analysis, I kept in mind this basic principle Shield and Heinecken articulate: "In order for this system of currency to have meaning for the viewer, he or she must be able to associate the image of the product with a value which is in turn based on his or her own cultural codes" (70)

Okay, here is the ad I chose to analyze in the light of gender and semiotic theory:



Cosmopolitan is easily the epitome of sexualisation of women in the form of a magazine. It’s messages are so blatant that it’s almost comical, and seeing them in line at the grocery store is always a joke because their covers are almost always the same: how to please your man, 6,000 new ways to have sex, how to get skinnier or how to have more beautiful [insert here hair, skin, body, you name it]. But upon closer inspection, analyzing this cover, essentially eight advertisements to buy the magazine on one page, the semiotic codes and years of historic and cultural values in place here are endless and complication. To decode this kind of series of messages, however deliberate, are none the less difficult to unpack entirely in one analysis. So I’ll try my best to cover a few of the basic semiotic implications of this kind of magazine cover as seen above.
The first thing I noticed in viewing the cover as an advertisement is the language comes across as an advice column. Here are the steps, tricks, counsel, secrets I can give you if you buy me. It’s interesting because it aims very specifically at a female audience; the women in the picture Whitney Port is surrounding by a few large print taglines: “Sex He Craves” and “Get Butt Naked”, both assumedly directed to a female heterosexual audience. Without analyzing the whole cover, I will look at these two messages in particular, as well as “Lose 5 lbs. In Just 7 Days” and how these three taglines interconnect to form an overarching semiotic code to project values onto the reader alongside the photograph. The visual image, a very photo shopped reality star from The Hills brings into play intertextality by alluding to the set of values that show exemplifies. Immediately we also have an image that exemplifies the kind of messages the taglines suggest: compare yourself to this women, if you find yourself inferior or wanting to become this image, look to these articles concerning your body image as a female to better yourself towards the semiotic code of the “ideal woman figure”. On a simple denotative basis, you have a female figure looking straight at the viewer, almost as if she is saying “Get Butt Naked”. It’s ironic because there is a definite false sense of self-esteem that comes with the vulnerability of being naked while simultaneously suggesting to their reader to lose five pounds in seven days. On the surface the magazine promotes individuality and self-confidence while suggesting a hundred different ways to change yourself...change yourself into what? There is that connotation that you need to become a better you, a more attractive you, a sexier you (sexier being their word choice, not mine.) In the end, the entire message of the magazine is in defining the semiotic code for what the article calls “ideal femininity”...and depicting the enduring definitions of this kind of ideal: thinness, flawlessness and youthfulness. The final thing I wanted to note was the use of the tagline “Sex He Craves” as an example of the female as a commodity to the male figure. It’s so interesting because it’s an obvious word-choice for this kind of perfection of oneself for the sake of the other, as the article defines it: “In this split-consciousness women are aware that they are seeing male-defined images of themselves, and yet still find themselves influenced by these images” (77) The female as a commodity directly plays into the idea that advertising can project a social code concerning the value systems we allow, create or believe in and then in turn communicate on that plain or within that semiotic code. Long story short, Cosmopolitan covers may seem ridiculous, but in many ways they epitomize the kind of values society uphold for the female body and role, but under a banner of sexuality as power rather than as a new way to communicate the objectification of the female form.