Lad Magazines, Raunch Culture and the Increasing Pornification of South African Media
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Lad Magazines, Raunch Culture and the Increasing Pornification of South African Media Dominique Rizos 0405569A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfillment of the Degree of Masters in Arts 1 Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the media in the pornification of society and the subsequent rise of laddism and raunch culture. By pornification I refer to the proliferation of the pornographic phenomenon in mainstream media and everyday life and the subsequent co modification of sexuality. It will examine in full detail lad culture and lad magazines as a genre of the text. The study will draw comparisons between local lad magazine FHM to the international pornographic magazine Playboy. This is in order to establish whether these lad magazines function as soft pornography, thereby contributing to the fact that mainstream media, is indeed becoming more pornographic and thus leading to an acceptance of the increased pornification of every day life and the ensuing rise of raunch culture. The research paper will examine raunch culture in depth and its subsequent influence on contemporary women and how they respond to these representations. This paper also seeks to identify the magazines as part of backlash to feminism. Backlash refers to the reaction against feminist advancement and the return to traditional gender roles. This study includes a literature review and theoretical framework chapter which explore the various theories pertaining to the research problem. The methodology chapter discusses the research methods used in the study. These methods include content analysis, semiotics and discourse analysis. The theoretical underpinnings that will be the primary influence of this paper is that of the feminist approach. This is a feminist study as it deals with how current representations found in the magazines influence and are influenced by women and how this will affect gendered society as a whole. 2 I declare that this thesis is my own work. It has not been submitted to any other university for degree examination before in any form. Date: 16 February 2009 Name: Dominique Rizos 3 Acknowledgements: I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people. The paper would not have been achieved if it was not for their support. Firstly, I would like to thank my wonderful supervisor Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola, for whom I have a great deal of respect. Her guidance, insight and support throughout this process has been invaluable and I am greatly appreciative of her assistance. I would like to express gratitude to my parents, Laura and Arthur, my sister Angelique and brother in law Gavin for making my ambition to do a degree in Masters a reality and for their unyielding encouragement throughout the year both financially and emotionally. I would also like to thank Wayne Bickerton for helping me obtain Playboy when it was initially unavailable in South Africa. Lastly, I am so grateful to have the twins, Alexander and Anastasia in my life, they are the most precious gift that my family has been blessed with and the constant joy that they bring has made this degree a pleasure to complete. 4 Contents: Abstract i Acknowledgements iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review 6 Chapter 2: Research Methodology 27 Chapter 3: A Comparison of the Representation of Women in Lad Magazine FHM to the Pornographic Magazine Playboy 43 Chapter 4: Raunch Culture and the Pornification of Society 108 Conclusion 149 Bibliography 158 5 Introduction: Considering the role the media plays in society, this study examines its participation in the pornification of society. This is a feminist study of the rise of laddism and raunch culture and how they too, influence this occurrence. By pornification I refer to the proliferation of the pornographic phenomenon in the majority of media and everyday life and the subsequent comodification of sexuality. This study scrutinises lad magazines, examines what a lad is and what the genre of text is and explores the conventions and influences of lad magazines. It compares a contemporary men’s lifestyle, FHM, to one which was established over fifty years ago, Playboy, in order to ascertain whether the newer magazine promotes the same philosophy on gender the older one still advocates. It must be observed that this philosophy was created before the women’s liberation movement and has, since its inception, continued with the same representation of women, regardless of any advances made by the movement. Thus it is interesting to see if the contemporary FHM magazine also acknowledges women in the same light, even though it was created in a post feminist culture. This study examines whether the lad magazine functions as pornography, the same way that Playboy does and thus leading and increasing the acceptance of pornographic media content in the general public. 6 Women in pornographic content have traditionally been seen as objects for the male subjects arousal (Kipnis 1993:124). It can be said, then, that by objectifying the female form, pornographic content is exploitative of women and therefore prejudiced. As this project is feminist in its approach, the investigation considers how the pornification of media, and its resultant representation of women, is in fact a form of feminist backlash. It also examines how, due to raunch culture, women have become implicated in these types of pornographic representations and how this has come to be. It is important to understand the dynamics and practices of pornographic media, in order to grasp whether the genders are being represented in this manner in other media, which can lead to the construction of identities in accordance to the representations found in pornography. It is important to examine if women are more willing to read and appear in lad and what is conventionally known as pornographic magazines. While feminism has given women the right to choose the way they are seen, the choices provided by the male magazine market are limited. This study investigates how these choices revolve around the same representations of women pornography provides. In other words, women are merely given the choice to be depicted as one dimensional sexualised objects. Hugh Hefner, creator of the magazine Playboy, is the global pioneer of such representations, but others in the same vein are guilty of this as it is undoubtedly a global occurrence. It must be noted that while this is a topic of enquiry found 7 in other contexts within the South African research field, not much attention has been paid to FHM in this regard; it is useful to examine these issues in a local context as the magazines seem to be perpetuating these established ideas of the genders. What is more is that some women may be partial to this representation. Using a combination of research methodologies comprising of content analysis, semiotics and discourse analysis allows this feminist study to examine if the content in FHM makes use of the same conventions of female representations found in the Playboy magazine. Content analysis enables the study to quantify the number of times women are represented in a certain manner. The combination of semiotic and discourse analysis facilitates an in-depth investigation of both the written language used to represent women as well as the accompanying pictures. These methods also assist in examining the way women have represented themselves in these magazine and if this links to the conventions found in raunch culture. This methodology was chosen with the intention of determining whether there is a strong correlation between the way women are represented in these two magazine titles. In other words, this project aimed to ascertain and establish whether the lad magazine’s portrayal of women is as pornographically motivated as that of the famously pornographic Playboy. Does FHM portray women in such a way as to incite arousal in its male readers? Do these depictions of their models draw parallels with conventions normally associated with pornography? Are women 8 accepting stereotypical representations of their sexuality, and thus partaking in what is known as raunch culture? This is important to ascertain because these magazines argue that they provide men with instruction; thus the way gender relations are depicted and how men are taught to relate to women is a crucial issue to address. It was also important to observe whether there is a diversity in the representations, in relation to ethnicity as well as the variety of female identities found in society. Are represented women given agency and power to show their individuality and sexuality on their terms? Or, are they typecast in a manner that homogenises them and shows them in a particular light? Chapter one contains the literature review and theoretical framework of the study. It concentrates on the literature surrounding the conventions and practices found in pornography. It closely examines the conflicting stances feminist scholars have taken on the topic of pornography, in order to gain a greater understanding of the research at hand. It explores the conventions and characteristics of the two genres of lad and raunch culture in great detail and examines how they both have contributed to conventional understanding of masculinity and feminity. Chapter two explores the methodologies that the study employed, highlighting the positive contributions these methodologies make to the research. It examines the 9 theories of content analysis, semiotic analysis and discourse analysis, as well as their backgrounds and contributions to academic research. Chapter three focuses on the comparison between the two magazines. It contains the findings of the content analysis, in order to establish if FHM is as pornographic as Playboy. This provides the foundation needed for further investigation using semiotics and discourse analysis. A complete analysis of the magazine’s content is provided as well as the findings this has lead to.