Feminization or Homoeroticism: The Double Standard of Male Body

Sharmila Adhikari

doi:10.24113/ijellh.v8i3.10484

Abstract

The representation of human body in popular culture has always been a matter of controversy. This controversy applied and still applies in women's body, particularly in commercials. The feminist critics accuse that women are objectified in the popular culture. The feminist movement of 1960’s did not only raise the issues of female rights upon their own body; however, it brought change in the meaning of men's body as well. The meaning of men's body came in equal manner in-line with female body in social landscape. The objectification of male body in popular culture remains crucial. The male's body has become a matter of gaze, which is not only a female gaze but voyeuristic gaze of males themselves. The sexually overloaded images of males in fashion magazines, newspapers, commercials have changed the way we see the males' body as brave, strong, and tough. The male's body, however, has been feminized as an erotic body along with masculine adjectives in Paco Rabanne's perfume commercials.

Highlights

Feminization or Homoeroticism: The Double Standard of Male Body Human body embodiment in the mainstream media appears after the rapid growth of different types of media technology
This paper explores that how Paco Rabanne's Invictus and Pure XS perfume commercials show sexual objectification of male bodies
"Given late capitalism's tendency to commodify everything, the increasing prominence of women and women's issues has served merely to offer a further opportunity for commodification, in this particular instance, of male body, produced by the media as "desire-worthy" by women: The assumption seems to be that women desire in the same way as men" (Buchbinder 221)

Summary

Introduction

Feminization or Homoeroticism: The Double Standard of Male Body Human body embodiment in the mainstream media appears after the rapid growth of different types of media technology. The half-naked, sometimes naked, images of men in media attract both male and female audience. The men in media, on the one hand, provides some feminine representation where they have become a fashion accessory for male and female audience simultaneously.

Results

Conclusion