Beauty Re(Discovers) the Male Body: Men on Display, Essay Example

Introduction

In her “Beauty Re(discovers) the Male Body: Men on Display,” Susan Bordo explores an issue seemingly straightforward, but one that is actually highly complex, as well as touching upon fundamental cultural ideologies.  The simplicity lies in the precise subject matter, that of the modern emphasis in media on male beauty and bodies.  Simply and irrefutably, modern culture, and particularly in advertising venues, has embraced a displaying of male physicality in a way unknown only decades ago, and sexually provocative images of men are as widespread as those of women.  Less evident are both the repercussions and underlying motivations of this trend.  On an overt level, it may be argued that the new idolatry of male beauty merely indicates a long-awaited equality of expressions of desire.  Clearly, such images work to sell, or they would not be employed, just as a truly repressive culture would not permit their prevalence.  At the same time, and as at least indicated by Bordo, multiple and somewhat unsettling questions arise from the practice, and in ways reflecting issues of sexual orientation, female disempowerment, and a prevailing masculine authority.  It may be argued, ultimately, that women can enjoy media images celebrating male sexuality primarily because men are responsible for them, no matter the commercial or cultural motivations.  Similarly, there is strong reason to believe that, no matter how man half-naked men adorn ad campaigns or strut through films, woman are only obliquely the beneficiaries of the evolution.  To be examined, then, is: if male beauty has indeed “come out of the closet,” whether or not gender equality in expression of desire is enhanced, or if significant and largely unforeseeable effects on sexual orientation itself may not develop.

The Article

While Susan Bordo’s  “Beauty Re(discovers) the Male Body: Men on Display” is lengthy, it is both engaging and enlightening.  Regarding the former, Bordo is consistently conversational in her approach, occasionally making a joke or two to lighten the gravity.  At the same time, she holds to a rigorous analysis of what she presents validly as a modern phenomenon: the proliferation of hyper-sexualized masculine imagery in media, and especially in advertising.

Insightfully, and in perhaps the article’s most psychologically valid section, Bordo dismisses notions of there being “hard-wired” differences in how men and women respond to erotic imagery, simply because responses may be culturally trained.  She cites her own experience as evidence that women very often are unclear as to how to respond (2012, 175).  Essentially, then, and early in the work, Bordo dispenses with any objection that such images inherently miss the mark, and do not actually arouse women.

In later sections, the author more acutely analyzes aspects of the male beauty promulgation.  She credits designer Calvin Klein with an epiphany that would transform advertising in this respect, and reintroduce masculine sexuality that would attract gay men, heterosexual men, and heterosexual women.  Bordo even breaks down male imagery into “rocks” and “leaners”, which discusses how standard poses generate different messages to consumers.  In digressing  into how male beauty is structured to specifically attract heterosexual men, she presents an interesting view of a recent evolution, in which male narcissism has been gradually inculcated as acceptable in the culture.  This is followed by something of a history of male vanity through the ages, which provides an essential foundation.  Particularly relevant to Bordo’s broader subject is that: “For most of human history, there haven’t been radically different “feminine” and “masculine” attitudes toward beauty” (2012, page #).   Bordo concludes the article with emphasis on her primary points, and this is rendered as appealingly and thoughtfully as the preceding sections.

Ultimately, what Bordo stresses is that there are implications to today’s culture of male beauty of uncertain, but clearly important, impact.  As a woman, she seeks to booth explore the issue from a distance and examine its meaning for herself, as when she admits to not having been able to tell a romantic partner that she desired to see him undress.  Bordo makes no definitive arguments, however, save for her insistence on the cultural importance of the subject and what it may tell us about  orientation and gender perceptions.  This is both her work’s weakness and its strength, for Bordo seeks to maintain a level, fair gaze on a subject that seems to require deeper investigation.  For example, how images of male beauty reflect societal feelings about homosexuality is referred to throughout the article, but she consistently resists this critical factor as the influence on marketing to women it may well be.  She asserts the blatant significance of homosexual influences creating and accepting of her subject, yet she chooses to ignore that homosexual men are still men, and that this factor reinforces promoting of male beauty, not as an equalizing process, but as one very much conforming to gender traditions.  As follows, various other viewpoints may interpret the meanings of the subject in ways only glanced at by Bordo.  Her work is compelling and valuable, but the reader is inclined to wish it probed more deeply.

Implications for Heterosexual Women

It is important to note, in interpreting the many facets of male beauty images, that the ways in which heterosexual women perceive an ideal relationship has often been expressed as requiring a kind of “feminized” masculinity; in many popular comedies of the 1930s and 1940s, for instance, playfulness between a presumably sexually-engaged couple depended on the man’s eager participation in the realms considered a woman’s domain.  Witty banter, teasing, and even flirting were practiced by the men in these films, and often at the cost of their esteem from other men.  Intentionally or otherwise, this genre emphasized something different in heterosexual depictions; namely, that there was an intimacy that transcended sex (Bordo, 2000, 181-182).  Advertising, of course, operates differently, and it is then interesting to note what may be a cultural progression at play.  By the late 20^th century, media entertainment increasingly stressed a kind of new man, one who was both sensitive and blatantly heterosexual.  A barrage of “sensitive man” films altered the masculine ideal, changing it from the rampage hero to the caring protector, yet still emphasizing that this was a totality of masculinity, rather than a remodeling of it (Gates 145).  This itself may have been an evolution from the earlier comedy models; more exactly, if women could not get men to enter into their arenas of communicative power (flirting, banter, etc.), they would then be content with a medium-range model, or a man who, if he was not playful, at least esteemed the quality in women.  Then, overt physicality entered the arena in the form of male exposure, and this is a truly extraordinary development.  Essentially, and rather suddenly, emphasis switched from visceral and emotional concerns, and men were as objectified as women had always been.  1994 was a watershed year, in introducing the “Diet Coke stud.”  In the famous commercial, office women set their watches to observe a construction worker strip off his shirt and drink the soda.  There is no ambiguity here, or field of sexual politics to ponder; women, the world was told, like to look at sexy men just as much as men have always been permitted to ogle sexy women (Bowdery  111).  The entire playing field changed for women, in that thew time-honored insistence on meaning as dictating sexual appeal was set aside.  The following decades would see a great deal more of the same, which seems to imply that it is quite all right for women to sexually objectify men.

This is a deceptive assumption, however, and not only because it is unlikely that the gender constructs of the culture may not be so easily reversed.  It elicits doubt because it operates on a topical premise, and one never before accorded women.  Usually, it is socially fine for women to attempt to modify male behaviors within the arenas of actual relationships, for example, because the attempts are both long established and reflective of a woman’s concerns as predominantly emotional.  Consequently, media presentations of such efforts conform to foundational gender roles.  It is also equally fine  for female desire to be presented as it was in the Diet Coke ad because there is an undercurrent of humor to the scene, and one going beyond the shock value of the timing of the ad.  More exactly, and in a very real sense, the office women are as traditional as the “wallflower,” cynical, female characters in older Hollywood films, sighing over a handsome man and making wisecracks about the impossibility of ever attaining him.  They may demonstrate lust because the object is removed, so they can never actually compromise ideas of womanhood by being sexual, and the ad was presented as a humorous reversal of male stereotyping of women being ogled (Bordo, 2000, 145).  However, the Diet Coke man has given way to armies of sexier men in all media, and the women appraising them are doing so overtly, and with apparent objects of conquest of their own.  This then marks a radical shift, and one by no means blithely infused into mainstream ideology.

Simply, if women may look, it may be asserted that they may not look in the way men do because sexual desire has vastly different implications for them, and even in today’s world.  In Western cultures, certainly, there remains a dominant perception that emotional connectedness must be in place before a woman may enjoy sex, or sexual ideas.  The formula is also more complex than mere sexual bias may account for; as women are conditioned to require care within sexuality, so too are they conditioned to gain esteem by complying with the norms (Fahs  180-181).  Changes have most certainly occurred in regard to female options in these realms of behavior, but it is naïve to assume that long-held and deeply embedded cultural perceptions are so easily reversed,  Even today, a man’s status is enhanced, rather than diminished, by his pursuit of sex; conversely, the woman who enjoys sex for its own sake is immoral.  All the more fascinating, then, becomes modern media’s persistence in rendering men as objects of pure sexuality.  This crucial foundation of gender parameters is, unfortunately, not addressed by Bordo as it demands to be, even as it goes to the heart of her subject.  It is one thing to safely assert that women are as susceptible to erotic stimuli as men; Bordo does this, infusing logic into her rhetoric approach of being agreeable.  It is quite another, however, for a culture to allow them to be so stimulated, particularly when it violates traditional and widespread views on what a woman must be.  The proliferation of male beauty images is relatively recent, and it may be said as yet operating on a plane above the standard frameworks.  It very much remains to be seen, then, whether this trend will create more meaningful change in how women are essentially viewed, or if it will exist only as a somewhat contrary, and consequently interesting, phase in cultural evolution.  More simply, if it truly becomes acceptable in the society for a woman to express longing as men do, images of male beauty, perhaps only generated initially to create a sensational appeal and sell merchandise, may have a profoundly lasting effect on gender roles.

Questions Regarding Heterosexual and Gay Men

As Bordo discusses, it may be that the most significant aspect of the new, sexually explicit male image is not the amount of skin it is revealing.  Rather, it is the more striking fact that the men are now playing to the cameras.  In the past, male beauty was ostensibly accidental; the men, from the burly cigarette smoker to the jeans model, just “happened” to be captured on film, which accident then could not eviscerate the masculine imperative of aggression, or at least a definite non-passivity.  Today, male models, as well as male celebrities, now do what women have done for decades.  They pose.  They actually seek to seduce, and typically in passive, sultry ways.  They have, essentially, taken on that instrument so long in the female arsenal, which is to promise pleasure.  In a culture where manliness has traditionally been confirmed as either aloofness or outright aggression, this is as radical a shift as may be imagined.  In a culture in which homosexuality remains largely seen as an aberration, the consequence of widespread marketing of beautiful men then must relate to how heterosexual men perceive themselves in this visual onslaught.

There appears to be, moreover, a degree of care going into how the images impact on heterosexual men absent in regard to women.  Advertisers have adopted  a modern approach that simultaneously challenges ideas of male sexuality while conforming to them.  There is a sense that success alone dictates how far such images may go, just as it seems likely that even the most well-researched ad campaign cannot hope to ascertain exactly what impact so striking a reversal of gender and sexuality identity may mean for the consumer who is not a gay male.  In 1994, for example, Chanel’s Egoiste cologne was featured in an ad presenting a young, athletic man literally boxing his own shadow.  The messages here are, in a word, many.  On one level, the boy is fighting his repressed, more feminine self which wishes to wear the scent; on another, even if he wears the Chanel, his fists are still up and he is ready to assert his masculinity at any moment (Salisbury  194).  What results is an ideal duality in marketing; heterosexual women and gay men are drawn to the boy’s beauty, and heterosexual men can be comforted by his aggression.  Perhaps no campaign has been more calculated in promoting ambiguity than the now-legendary Dolce and Gabbana ads of the 1990s, revealing young, athletic men in group settings, all wearing only underwear.  On one levels, the appeal to gay men is blatant; on another, the ad adheres to the concept that, for heterosexual men, visual clues dictate the sexual ambiguity, and the ad carefully treads a line.  The men are young, handsome, and nearly nude, yet the setting is a locker room, and the models are both distanced from one another and seemingly defiant or bored.  In such an ad, then, the heterosexual male is free to read into it however it conforms to what reassures him (Masseris 260).  What is then most interesting here, and which relates to how such images may or may not impact on woman’s roles, is that the images essentially leave the effects up to the culture.  Such marketing asserts: this is nothing but male beauty. However it appeals to you, it accomplishes its purpose.

Advertising, or film for that matter, is certainly obligated only to fulfill its objectives and adhere to basic cultural foundations.  This, however, then renders its impact all the more startling, even as its repercussions cannot be estimated.  It is not only gender roles that are inextricably linked to societal behavior; how the society presents itself also creates evolving demands and new parameters.  Consequently, something as seemingly innocuous as a widespread introduction of a certain kind of male imagery must have unexpected impacts, if only because the seductiveness of the modern male image then also strongly relates to sexuality roles.  More precisely, it turns them on their heads, and it defies heterosexual men to consider the boundaries of their own desires.  Men in images are beautiful, often in states of undress, and just as often “inviting” in stereotypically feminine ways.  Even the most arrogant-seeming, muscled models in underwear ads tend to challenge conquest, rather than indicate that they are the conquerors.  The expressions on the models’ faces may be defiant, but the message is still clearly that of an ultimate subordination (Bordo, 2000, 171).  In plain terms, then, the heterosexual male consumer is likely to undergo confusion, and of a type never before so emphatically generated.  All the qualities he associates with desire are now embodied in male forms.  At the same time, and critically, the issue is still largely male, be it a concern of gay or heterosexual men.  It is strange, yet what would appear to be a strategy aimed at women pertains to them only somewhat obliquely, for it is still men both presenting and determining sexual orientations that either attract or do not concern the woman.  Even as the “pin-ups” themselves, then, men are still largely dictating just how physical beauty may have meaning.

Conclusion

In  “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body,”  Susan Bordo takes on a subject easily treated with humor, yet also demanding some serious consideration.  In plain terms, recent decades have witnessed something within media never before encountered in most of Western culture: men are displayed as sex objects, and not in classically subliminal ways.  They are often nearly nude, they are invariably young, strong, and handsome, and they pose in seductive, “feminized” ways once unthinkable.  Bordo addresses the subject in a compelling, readable, and occasionally insightful fashion, yet she avoids nearing the real issues at stake.  Images of male beauty call into question the most accepted and entrenched perceptions regarding gender roles and sexual orientations the culture possesses.  For heterosexual women, enjoying these images may well call into question their own integrity as woman in society, since women remain subject to censure for expressing longings associated with masculine prerogatives; for heterosexual men, it seems likely that an orientation confusion must arise, as the sexual  messages are now so mixed.  Arguments may take various forms, yet it seems clear that the prevalence of the modern male beauty image by no means necessarily translates to equality in appreciation between genders, and that it likely generates sexual confusion in heterosexual men.  Just as importantly, and regardless of how women respond, the male beauty image remains an object of masculine control, whether it is presented as passive or otherwise.  Put another way, if it is now a heterosexual and gay man’s world, it is still a man’s world, and women may be only reactive to the imagery.

Works Cited

Bordo, S.  The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private.  New York: Macmillan, 2000.  Print.

Bordo, S.  “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male Body.” Writing Analytically with Readings, 2^nd Ed. Eds. Rosenwaasser, D., & Stephen, J.  Belmont: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. page range. Print.

Bowdery, R.  Basic Advertising: The Creative Process of Writing Text for Advertisements or Publicity Material.  New York: Watson-Guptil Publications, 2008.  Print.

Fahs, B.  Performing Sex: The Making and Unmaking of Women’s Erotic Lives.  Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011.  Print.

Gates, P.  Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film.  Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.  Print.

Masseris, P.  Visual Persuasion: The Role of Images in Advertising.  New York: Sage, 1996.  Print.

Salisbury, J.  Challenging Macho Values: Practical Ways of Working with Adolescent Boys. New York: Psychology Press, 1996.  Print.