Question 11

11) Find two critical texts from the semester (at least two weeks apart), and discuss how they relate to or expand the argument of your overall topic for the semester, drawing on a specific advertisement you did NOT discuss in your papers (250-300 words).



In my papers I discuss how the media constructs the idea of “Woman,” emphasizing the hair featured in a Diesel advertisement and how that constructs women in my first paper and discussing how women are constructed through the advertisements featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine and Nylon in my second paper.

In “Inventing the Cosmo Girl” by Laurie Ouellette (Week 7) it discusses how Helen Brown created the “Cosmo Girl.” It says that the Cosmo Girl is “the fictionalized woman she (Brown) invented to characterize the magazines 18- to 34-year-old female reader.” So, from the very beginning, we see women constructing themselves through the eyes of the Other (aka Cosmo Girl). Cosmopolitan magazine is said to be the “girl-style American Dream that promises transcendence from class roles as well as sexual ones.” In regards to escaping sexual roles Ouellette discusses Brown’s book that supplement the magazine that was for “the girl who doesn’t have anything going for her…who’s not pretty, who maybe didn’t go to college and who may not even have a decent family background.” So, clearly we see the construction of women created. Woman was from here constructed through Cosmopolitan magazine as a strong, independent woman who has sexual freedom. Cosmo has a similar message to many of the magazines that followed it, like Nylon. Though Nylon isn’t as clearly sexual as Cosmopolitan, it does have sexual elements and emphasizes female empowerment throughout its pages.

In Radway’s “Women Read the Romance,” we also see an element of female liberation. Radway says, “When asked why they read romances, the Smithonian women overwhelmingly cite escape or relaxation as their goal. They use the word “escape,” however, both literally and figuratively” and that “the cultural value attached to books permits them to overcome the guilt they feel about avoiding their responsibilities. They believe that reading of any kind is, by nature, educational.” So, just as these women read romance novels to “escape,” the said could be said about reading a magazine. To me, Radway’s most important discussion is when she talks about how “women have been taught to believe that men must be their sole source of pleasure.” This shows that both of these texts discuss mediums for a woman’s liberation and independence.

This video “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child directly correlates to this idea of female independence. The first words of the song are “Now that you are out of my life, I'm so much better. You thought that I'd be weak without ya, but I'm stronger…” showing new-found self-reliance. The images in the video are highly sexualized, strutting mid-rift exposing outfits and belly button piercings, even featuring a “bay watch” like run at the end. This symbolizes their sexuality, separate from their men (who, by the way aren’t in the video at all with the exception of the back-up dancers). This connects to the arguments of my papers because I argue that these magazines construct a highly sexualized, independent woman.