Examine the ways in which magazines work to reproduce and represent „symbolic‟ identities and discuss how they operate in a post-modern society to help us make sense of who we are. Identity - we all have one. It is the thing that is unique to each of us and makes us all individuals, with varying characteristics, personalities and tastes. We are all different and as many have argued, it would be boring if we were all the same.
In this essay, I aim to explore the ways in which, shopping, clothing and consumption shape who we are; and how magazines such as Elle and Vogue, use their advertising and editorial content to reproduce and represent these „symbolic‟ personalities and the idea of the „feminine ideal‟.
We live in a Post-modern, consumer society. Post-modernism is the period of time that began after World War Two and continues today. It is a society obsessed with consumption. The idea that consuming or shopping can help people to create their own personal identities has made shopping, and clothing one of the most important aspects in our society. “The clothes we choose to wear can be expressive of identity, telling others something about our gender, class, status and so on; on the other, our clothes cannot always be „read‟, since they do not straightforwardly „speak‟ and can therefore be open to misinterpretation…This tension between clothes as revealing and clothes as concealing of identity runs through much of the literature on fashion” J Entwistle, pg 112
Over the years people began to realise that, whereas once, certain social classes had to dress a certain way, it was possible to create an identity based on the kind of person you wanted others to see you as.
“Character is immanent in appearance. The story shows how Dorian gray, a spectacularly handsome man, used his beauty to conceal from others his selfindulgent and murderous capabilities. The obvious moral of the tale is that appearances must be read as appearances or else they are mislead” J Finkelstein, pg 177
By putting on various types of clothing a person can become anyone they want to be:
“The clothing organization Burberry of London provides a specific example of these elite and aspirational associations via its construction of the British country gent as a recognizable identity” A Goodrum, pg 95
In today‟s post-modern society, people vary their dress/costume for different occasions. People, especially females, feel that they need to look a certain way, in order to achieve the ideal position in society and in life – The “Feminine Ideal”.
If you look at the cover of almost any mainstream fashion magazine or, “glossy” you will, almost certainly see a picture of a “beautiful, woman”. Magazines use these
women to make their reader‟s, aspire to achieve this “perfect” and therefore “happy” image and identity.
Women all want to feel confident and happy and look “great”. Not just to attract the opposite sex, but for other women to, on the one hand feel intimidated and on the other, to be socially accepted. Identity is a contradiction:
“Fashion articulates a tension between conformity and differentiation: it expresses the contradictory desires to fit in and stand out: „fashion is the imitation of a given example and satisfies the demand for social adaptation…at the same time it satisfies in no less degree the need of differentiation, the tendency towards dissimilarity, the desire for constant change and contrast (Simmel 1971:296)” J Entwistle, pg 117
A person‟s individual identity could be a façade or it could tell you an awful lot about a person, the only problem is judging whether you are reading them as they truly are, or who they want you to believe they are.
Fashion Magazines, exploit this idea of creating and feigning an identity in order to make women believe that they need clothes and they need to look a certain way in order to be socially accepted. Women are therefore forced by these magazines and these images to portray a character that may not be truly who they are. (1)
1. Throughout history, clothing was seen purely as a way of covering up and keeping warm. Initially, it was nothing to do with the idea of personality, identity or even modesty. It wasn‟t until the 16 th century and the beginning of Gothic that fashion as we know it today even came in to existence.
In the last five centuries the idea of clothing and identity has developed enormously. The fist form of identity created through clothes was the idea of a social hierarchy. Different classes have always worn varied clothing. A person‟s wardrobe was always a good tell of what class that person belonged to. This is not quite as simple in modern-day society. Although people wear Prada while others wear Primark, it is easy to mix-and-match designers and high street. It is much harder to tell what class a person belongs to because the idea of class is a lot more blurred than it used to be. Even celebrities, who earn millions of pounds a year, are more often than not pictured in high-street clothing, even though they could easily afford to wear nothing but designer. These blurred lines between the classes has made it easier for people to feign identities and create the image of someone they want to project to the outside world rather than being forced to wear attire deemed suitable to their particular social class. In a world wear Princes serve in the wars alongside people who have grown up with nothing, on benefits and maybe even from council estates it seems only natural that if the lines between classes has become blurred, if not erased completely then the lines between designer, high street and charity shops should follow suit. After all, Charity shopping is no longer called that; it is called Vintage.
“Until as recently as the early twentieth century, class was visible through the particular uniforms or styles of dress: butchers, bakers, milkmaids, coal miners, were clearly identifiable through dress” - J Entwistle, pg 115
Magazines, through their use of advertisements and fashion-spreads reproduce and represent the image that is the “feminine ideal”. They are filled from cover to cover with models and celebrities. They use airbrushing and they refuse to use women over
a certain dress size. Thus leading women to believe that to be over a size 10 is too big. They are fat - when this is in fact absurd. (2)
Decoding pictures is an in-depth, theoretical process. The idea that a picture speaks louder than words, and that a picture has many meanings comes from the idea of Semiotics. Semiotics, literally means, “The study of signs” and is a theory centred around the:
“Question of how images make meanings…It draws upon the work of several major theorists…Judith Williamson…Althusser, Barthes, Benjamin, Berger, Brecht, Foucault, Freud, Gramsci, Lacan, Levi-Strauss, Marx and Saussure” G Rose, Visual methodologies, pg 75
The study of Semiology uses a mix of science and Ideology to interpret meaning through images, for example, the idea that Galaxy is “as smooth as silk” and Estee Lauder‟s “White Cotton” both give connotative meanings. Both work in a way to stimulate the audience‟s minds and senses and give the impression, that they will not just be, in the case of Galaxy, enjoying a chocolate bar, but they will be enjoying luxury at its very best.
The only reason this works so well is because of the
connotative meanings associated with the fabric of Silk.
2. Where does this idea of beauty and success come from? Historically, people used to believe in the study of Physiognomy. This was a study that believed that one could tell another person‟s moral
character, not through the identity they had created themselves, but by the physical body that they had. Physiognomy is:
“The science or knowledge of the correspondence between the external and internal man, the visible superficies (sic) and the invisible contents… The moral life of the man, particularly, reveals itself in the lines, marks and transitions of the countenance. His moral powers and desires his irritability, sympathy, and antipathy; his facility of attracting or repelling the objects that surround him; these are all summed up in, and painted upon, his countenance when at rest” Lavater, J Finkelstein, pg 23
Therefore, if an, “ugly” person was seen as being a criminal or a nasty, cruel, untrustworthy person, it would only lead to, “beautiful” people being seen as, not only “nicer to look at” but full of much better characteristics. A “beautiful” person would be seen as kind and trustworthy and intelligent.
“Everyone was a physiognomist whether they knew it or not. After all, judging others by their outward appearance was a seemingly instinctual law of social life; everyone judged character from „those first impressions which are made by (the individual‟s) exterior‟ (1885:12)…. After all, if we are unwittingly using an ancient form of character analysis such as physiognomy in a modern world where the plasticity of appearance (made possible through the use of cosmetics, surgical treatments, bioengineering and so on) has been taken for granted, then we are implicitly endorsing the perspicacity of these old perspectives.” J Finkelstein, pg 29
Today, many people believe that if they make more effort over their appearance, and look more like the images in magazines, then they are more likely to succeed at work. This just shows how important image is in all aspects of life today.
“The connotations of silk are so well-known that it is almost impossible to advertise haircare and other cosmetic products without them. One series of advertisements for a brand of chocolate even manages to play off the connotations of cotton and silk against one another while showing the viewer a chocolate-coloured Dior dress.� M Barnard, pg 83
This advertising campaign consequently works very successfully as all people, especially women, want to enjoy luxury and elegance, and the richness associated with silk works with the smoothness of the chocolate to create this illusion, moreover making people feel that they are being treated to something rare, that not everyone can afford and therefore works to enforce the idea that by buying Galaxy chocolate you are in a higher class than people who buy, for example, Cadburyâ€&#x;s Dairy Milk.
If we then, associate this process with the image of Kate Beckinsale on the cover of the December issue of Elle magazine, we can find the connotative and dennotive meanings behind this image; moreover, what image is the magazine trying to represent and what impact is it hoping to have on the reader.
One starts by finding the dennotive meaning of the image. What is the picture in its most basic form? The image is a collage of pictures. Each image contains Kate Beckinsale, dressed in a black suit jacket, just long enough to be worn without tights or trousers. She has natural make-up and her brunette hairy, is wavy, relaxed and
draped over her shoulders. She wears extremely high, black, platformed wedges.
This is the image in its simple form. No interpretation, it is just black and white of what the image is. If we then look at this image from a more connotative perspective, we can say that this image is sexy. We can interpret from these images that Kate Beckinsale is a slim, sexy, successful alpha-female.
She appears powerful, in control, dominant, successful, happy and wealthy. In short, she appears to be the living “Feminine Ideal”. Elle magazine, by putting this image of Kate Beckinsale on the front cover ,wearing rather provocative attire, is trying to lead women in to believing that she is exactly what they should all be aspiring to become. The image alone represents this Ideology. However, partnered with the text – “It‟s great when you‟re Kate” the magazine, is leading women to believe that if they look like Kate, they will feel happier in themselves and lead a better quality of life. The image if Kate Beckinsale on the cover also works to attract women because most women know who she is as she is a very well known celebrity. She is also considered an “English Rose” and she epitomises how woman in today‟s society should be – beautiful, slim, rich, successful and a mother.
However, if you read the article, she talks about her anorexia as a teenager: “Beckinsale was anorexic at 15, though, whittling down to just five stone, existing on little more than cigarettes and angst. She puts this down to what she calls „my Sylvia Plath period. We‟re all miserable in our teenage years, aren‟t we‟ she says
with a wry smile.” British Elle, pg 236 -239
This doesn‟t sound like the perfect, successful female ideal, it is, instead a direct result of the media pressuring women and young girls to look a certain way to fit an ideal. Surely, anorexia is a sign that a person is not happy.
The tabloids and gossip magazines are constantly splashing over the pages celebrities who have gained or lost weight. They are constantly running real-life features on eating-disorders and depression.
“One way of viewing these magazines is to see them as offering advice on what to communicate and how to communicate it. These magazines and articles construct garments, ensembles and collections as meaningful and communicative by writing about them” M Barnard, pg 91
The message of symbolic identities that magazines, such as Elle and Vogue, and Hello constantly represent is a message that fitting this ideal will make you happy. I think the evidence shows otherwise. More and more young girls are developing eating disorders and depression. This, to me, isn‟t the result of happy and successful women; this is the result of the media pushing an impossible image and identity for most women to ever achieve. On top of this, most of the images in the magazines
have been airbrushed, as of course, even celebrity women want to look their best and they think, 'what harm can a little air-brushing do'? Women are forever pushing for this “Feminine Ideal” and the amount of airbrushing and other technological advances used just make this ideal even more impossible, because even the women splashed over the magazines that supposedly look like that – don‟t look like that.
“The constant demand to live out the appropriate images and role demands of the everyday does not provide any real sustenance for the self. Instead, it leads to a self-fabricated from an image which will collapse or implode under the weight of the never-satisfied desired which are pressed upon individuals from the consumer culture” J Finkelstein, pg 191
Moreover, an excellent example of this is advertising campaigns for mascara. These adverts make the lashes look beautiful and long and curved, however, after mass complaints from consumers they now have to put, in small-print, “Filmed with lash extensions” similarly with hair adverts such as L‟Oreal, they now have to put “Model wears hair extensions”. Hence not even these products and these women actually look like the way they are represents on screen or in magazines. If these people can‟t even achieve the “ideal” then how are other people in society supposed to achieve it?
Roland Barthes and the theory of semiotics use the idea of the myth.
“Barthes (1973:117) says that „myth‟ is not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message” G Rose, pg 96
The only myth in our post-modern consumer driven society today is the myth of the “Feminine Ideal”. If celebrities with more money than sense can‟t even achieve it, then in my opinion no-one can, and if it is unattainable, it doesn‟t really exist. When magazines stop using air-brushing and people stop feeling the need for cosmetic surgery and when advertisers realise that people can‟t achieve with “natural lashes” what they achieve with “fake lashes” a new “feminine ideal” will emerge. An “ideal” that is actually possible to achieve.
I think in today‟s post-modern society, the word identity needs definition:
“Britain‟s identity, both in sartorial and political terms, is in flux” A Goodrum, pg 85
I think that due to media influences and the celebrity culture that seems ever-more popular, people are completely losing sense of who they are. People shop and they buy to make themselves feel happy and confident and secure and they are aware that people judge them by what they look like.
However, by being aware of the
connotations that your clothes represent it is making it ever harder for women to create their own, true identities without the worry that they will be judged. A person
can choose what they are going to wear and in their own minds, they can have an idea of the identity they want to create and the image they want to portray. However, interpretation is varied, depending on the person who is interpreting.
Different
people, from different backgrounds will interpret things in different ways.
So
although you could get dressed thinking that you look very sexy and chic, while another may interpret this outfit the same way, someone else could interpret this as „slutty‟ or „trampy‟.
“If there is no natural connection between signifier and signified, then meaning cannot be simply a product of the garment or ensemble. And if the relation is not a
matter of individual choice, then meaning is not simply an expression of what is in a designer‟s or wearer‟s head” M Barnard, pg 85
Identity today is a lie. I think now, more than ever throughout history, people are less sure of who they are and this causes the mass-consumer culture that we live in today – shopping is used to try and fill a void. The void trying to be filled is of course, your inner core, your true identity. Until the media and the magazines, start to represent the way “real women” look, then people are going to continue, creating this fake identities, such as Dorian Grey, to make themselves feel happy and feel that they fit
in: that they are socially accepted. Until the media recognises this need in society, I doubt that we will never know who we truly are. We will never have an identity that is completely us, because human beings, need to fit in, they need to be accepted.
“Thus, the icons constantly displayed before us in the mass media of happy, successful, active people who have a sense of their own destiny, are frequently misread as realistic depictions of human character. We are cajoled to emulate the sporting hero, the owner of the American Express credit card, the energetic members of the Pepsi generation, but these images are insubstantial. The pursuit of identity represented as desirable by these images is both hectoring and misleading, and were the individual to adopt these postures fully, s/he would become socially naĂŻve and inept.â€? J Finkelstein, pg 191
Bibliography:
The Fashioned Body – Joanne Entwistle
Visual Methodologies – Gillian Rose
The Fashioned Self – Joanne Finkelstein
Dressed to Impress – Alison Goodrum
Fashion as Communication – Malcolm Barnard
British Elle – December 2008 Edition.