Beauty (Re) Discovers The Male Body By Susan Bordo Analysis

Consumer capitalism is a an economic system where buyers drive the economy by selecting which products they want to spend their money on. As a result, there is an aggressive targeting of shoppers to win their favor. Many times advertisements will use psychological manipulation techniques to make products seem more appealing and as a result the subject matter is often sexual and questionably provocative. Susan Bordo is a philosopher who specializes in the human body, and uses this knowledge to analyze advertisements. In Bordo’s essay “Beauty (Re)discovers the Male body” she discusses the harm these types of advertisements are causing for the viewers, although the essay was written in the late 1990s, many of the points she makes still are valid in 2017. I have seen advertisements in stores and online that highlight the male figure in ways Bordo described 30 years ago. Similarly to Bordo, I …show more content…
Bordo acknowledges that this is still an issue, but she notes that there is an emerging phenomenon where men are beginning to become objectified in advertisements along with women. She claims that men are beginning to be portrayed in ways that highlight their genitals and make them appear to be more feminine. Previously this had been taboo in our predominantly straight culture and only acceptable for gay men. Now, Bordo says this is changing and it is “the male clothing designers who went south and violated [those] really powerful taboos.” (Bodro 189). She wrote this essay in 1999 and this was a time where the macho man was fading and the fashionable man was the new craze in advertisement. So her essay is specific to the time where provocative men were taking over advertisements. It has since changed. The macho man is resurging and starting to match the fashionable man in terms of popularity in