Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book
The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification,
The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.
Viewer Discretion Advisory: This program contains violence, nudity, and sexual themes.
DVD contains two versions: a full length version (72 minutes) and an abridged version (46 minutes) which has been edited for nudity and length.
Sections: Sex and Gender | The Feminine Touch | The Ritualization of Subordination | Licensed Withdrawal | Infantilization | The Codes of Masculinity | Trapped in the Code | History, Power, and Gender Display
Duration: 72 min
(Abr. duration: 46 min)
ISBN: 1-932869-39-5
Date Produced: 2009
Subtitles: English
Discussion Guide
Transcript (full-length version)
Transcript (abridged version)Filmmaker InfoWritten and Directed by: Sut Jhally
Editors: Sut Jhally, Andrew Killoy, Aaron Vega
Motion Graphics: Andrew Killoy
Script Editor: Jeremy Earp
Media Research: Loretta Alper
Additional Media Research: Scott Morris
Camera: David Rabinovitz
Audio Recording: Andrew Killoy
Sound Engineer: Rikk Desgres
Image Retouching: Shannon McKenna
DVD Authoring: Jason Young
About Sut Jhally | Writer, Director, Editor & Narrator
Sut Jhally is Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation. He is one of the world's leading scholars looking at the role played by advertising and popular culture in the processes of social control and identity construction. The author of numerous books and articles on media (including
The Codes of Advertising and
Enlightened Racism) he is also an award-winning teacher (a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Massachusetts, where the student newspaper has also voted him "Best professor"). In addition, he has been awarded the Distinguished Outreach Award, and was selected to deliver a Distinguished Faculty Lecture in 2007.
He is best known as the producer and director of a number of films and videos (including
Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Music Video;
Tough Guise: Media, Violence and the Crisis of Masculinity; and
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire) that deal with issues ranging from gender, sexuality and race to commercialism, violence and politics. Born in Kenya, raised in England, educated in graduate studies in Canada, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Screenings
International Communication Association conference | Boston | May 26 - 30, 2011
Eastern Communication Association| Arlington, VA | April 15, 2011
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference | New Orleans | March 10 - 13, 2011
New England Sociological Association | Durham, NH | November 6, 2010
Southwestern Sociological Association annual meeting | Houston, TX | April 2, 2010
Pacific Sociological Association annual meeting | Oakland, CA | April 8 - 11, 2010
Central States Communication Association convention | Cincinnati, OH | April 17, 2010
Console-ing Passions | Eugene, OR | April 22 - 24, 2010
American Sociological Association's annual meeting | Atlanta, GA | August 14 - 17, 2010
Mid-South Sociological Association conference | Baton Rouge, LA | October 13 - 17, 2010
Film Festivals
Academia Film Olomouc | Czech Republic | April 12 - 17, 2011
Related Links
Attracting Assault: Victims' Nonverbal Cues by Betty Grayson & Morris I. Stein, Journal of Communication
Gender Advertisements by Erving Goffman
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Erving Goffman
Ways of Seeing by John Berger
