‘Fair Dinkum Personal Grooming’
Male beauty culture and men’s magazines in twentieth century Australia
Jennifer Burton BA (Hons) Faculty of Creative Industries Queensland University of Technology 2008
1 Keywords
Men’s magazines, masculinity, grooming, metrosexual, representation, cultural economy, media, readerships
2 Abstract
In this thesis, I analyse the representation of grooming in Australian men’s lifestyle magazines to explore the emergence of new masculine subjectivities constructed around narcissism and the adoption of previously feminine-coded products and practices which may indicate important shifts in the cultural meanings of Australian masculinity. However, in order to talk about ‘new’ subjectivities and ‘shifts’ in masculine behaviours and cultural ideals, then it is imperative to demonstrate ‘old’ practices and ideologies, and so while the thesis is concerned with discourses of grooming and models of masculinity presented in the new genre of men’s lifestyle titles which appeared on the Australian market in the late 1990s, it frames this discussion with detailed analyses of previously unexplored Australian men’s general interest magazines from the 1930s. According to Frank Mort consumption, traditionally associated with the feminine has now become a central part of imagining men (1996: 17-18) while the representation and sale of masculinity is an increasingly important part of the ‘cultural economy’ (Mikosza, 2003). In this thesis I am concerned with the role of men’s lifestyle magazines and magazine representations of masculinity in the ‘cultural economy’ of mediated male grooming cultures.
3 Table of Contents
Keywords ...... 2 Abstract ...... 3 List of Illustrations ...... 6 Statement of Original Authorship ...... 18 Acknowledgements ...... 19
Chapter 1 Introduction and Literature Review...... 20 Magazine Studies ...... 21 Literature Review: Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines ...... 33 The British ‘New Man’...... 33 Cultural Economy and the ‘New Lad’...... 44 Australian Research...... 50 Thesis Outline and Methodology...... 59
Chapter 2 Vernacular Theory: Public discourses around the ‘metrosexual’ in the Australian popular press 2003 - 2004...... 65 Introduction...... 65 Defining the Metrosexual and Mapping the Australian Male Beauty Industry...... 67 What drove the emergence of a male beauty culture in Australia?...... 71 Discourses around the metrosexual in the Australian media in 2003 ...... 84 Conclusion ...... 94
Chapter 3 Historical Contexts ...... 97 Introduction...... 97 Hegemonic Seaboard and Colonial Masculinities ...... 98 The Australian ‘Bloke’ ...... 107 Modernity, Industrialisation and Urbanisation ...... 110 Mass Media and Commercial Production...... 113 Conclusion ...... 114
Chapter 4 Discourses of Grooming in MAN Magazine 1936 – 1974...... 116 Introduction...... 116
4 MAN’s ‘New Man’ of the 1930s: Fashion, Style and Consumption ...... 119 Discourses of Grooming in MAN ...... 123 The 1930s, 1940s and 1950s...... 125 The 1960s and 1970s ...... 161 Conclusion ...... 175
Chapter 5 Discourses of Grooming in Follow me Gentlemen 1984 – 1987...... 178 Introduction...... 178 Representations of Grooming in Follow me Gentlemen ...... 180 Discourses of Gender: Skin and Hair Care...... 184 Discourses of Gender: Fragrances...... 188 Discourses of Gender: Science, Work and Sport ...... 198 Discourses of Nationality...... 202 Discourses of Class...... 208 Discourses of Sexuality ...... 214 Conclusion ...... 222
Chapter 6 Australian Men’s Lifestyle Magazines in the 1990s ...... 226 Introduction...... 226 The Failure of Follow me Gentlemen ...... 227 Flops and Launches, 1995-6 ...... 232 Max and Ralph: Successful ‘Blokes’ ...... 245 Conclusion ...... 267
Chapter 7 Conclusion...... 271 Bibliography...... 278
5 List of Illustrations
Chapter 3
Figure 1: Philip Dawe, Pantheon Macaroni, 1773 accessed at http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/eighteenth-century_studies/v038/38.1rauser.html p.100
Figure 2: William Hogarth, The Bench, 1758 accessed at http://www.maximiliangenealogy.co.uk/hogarth/hogarth42.html p. 102
Figure 3: Nathaniel Dance, Captain James Cook, c 1775 accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook p. 102
Figure 4: Unknown Artist, Governor Arthur Phillip accessed at http://libapp.sl.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/spydus/ENQ/PM/FULL1?200119,I p. 102
Chapter 4
Figure 1: Cover, Issue 1, MAN: The Australian Magazine for Men December 1936, National Library of Australia p. 117
Figure 2: Advertisement for Leslie T Stocks, MAN December 1936: 68, National Library of Australia p. 121
Figure 3: Fashion editorial, MAN December 1936: 69, National Library of Australia p121
Figure 4: Fashion editorial, MAN December 1936: 70, National Library of Australia p121
Figure 5: Advertisement for Langridge School of Physical Culture, MAN January 1938: 120, National Library of Australia p. 122
6 Figure 6: Advertisement for Langridge School of Physical Culture, MAN July 1937: 83, National Library of Australia p. 122
Figure 7: Advertisement for Maximax Blade Sharpener, MAN December 1937: 91, National Library of Australia p. 126
Figure 8: Advertisement for Sunbeam Shavemaster, MAN December, 1938: 119, National Library of Australia p. 127
Figure 9: Advertisement for Gem Safety Razors, MAN April 1938, National Library of Australia p. 128
Figure 10: Advertisement for Gem Safety Razors, MAN June 1941, National Library of Australia p. 128
Figure 11: ‘Men of Self-respect’ Gillette advertising campaign, MAN May 1950, National Library of Australia p. 130
Figure 12: ‘Men of Self-respect’ Gillette advertising campaign, MAN June 1950, National Library of Australia p. 130
Figure 13: ‘Men of Self-respect’ Gillette advertising campaign, MAN October 1950, National Library of Australia p. 130
Figure 14: Advertisement for Club razor blades, MAN July 1948, National Library of Australia p. 130
Figure 15: Advertisement for Club razor blades, MAN April 1949, National Library of Australia p. 131
Figure 16: Advertisement for Club razor blades Christmas Gift, MAN December 1948,
7 National Library of Australia p. 132
Figure 17: Advertisement for Palmolive Shaving Cream, MAN March 1939, National Library of Australia p. 135
Figure 18: Advertisement for Glider Brushless Shaving Cream, MAN April 1948, National Library of Australia p. 136
Figure 19: Advertisement for Palmolive Shaving Cream, MAN February 1940, National Library of Australia p. 139
Figure 20: Advertisement for Brylcreem, MAN January 1955, National Library of Australia p. 139
Figure 21: Advertisement for Brylcreem, MAN February 1955, National Library of Australia p. 139
Figure 22: Advertisement for Hunt Club Toiletries, MAN September 1948, National Library of Australia p. 141
Figure 23: Advertisement for Hunt Club Toiletries, MAN April 1949, National Library of Australia p. 141
Figure 24: Advertisement for Straight Eight Toiletries, MAN June 1948, National Library of Australia p. 142
Figure 25: Advertisement for Hunt Club Toiletries, MAN September 1948, National Library of Australia p. 143
Figure 26: Advertisement for Club razor blades, MAN October 1950, National Library of Australia p. 143
8
Figure 27: Advertisement for Ingram’s Shaving Cream, MAN September 1948, National Library of Australia p. 144
Figure 28: Advertisement for Vaseline Hair Cream, MAN December 1954, National Library of Australia p. 146
Figure 29: Advertisement for Vitalis Hair Dressing, MAN October 1941, National Library of Australia p. 147
Figure 30: Advertisement for Lustre Crème Hair Dressing, MAN May 1950, National Library of Australia p. 148
Figure 31: Advertisement for Lifebuoy Soap, MAN October 1941, National Library of Australia p. 149
Figure 32: Advertisement for Palmolive Shaving Cream, MAN May 1950, National Library of Australia p. 149
Figure 33: Palmolive ‘Hungry Hair’ campaign, MAN December 1949, National Library of Australia p. 150
Figure 34: Palmolive ‘Hungry Hair’ campaign, MAN May 1950, National Library of Australia p. 150
Figure 35: Palmolive ‘Hungry Hair’ campaign, MAN June 1950, National Library of Australia p. 150
Figure 36: Advertisement for Napro Hair Vitalizer for Men, MAN May, September 1948 National Library of Australia p. 151
9 Figure 37: Advertisement for Napro Hair Vitalizer for Men, MAN January, March 1949 National Library of Australia p. 151
Figure 38: Advertisement for Pinaud “Eau do Portugal”, MAN February 1948, National Library of Australia p. 152
Figure 39: Advertisement for Aqua Velva, MAN October 1950, National Library of Australia p. 152
Figure 40: Advertisement for Vaseline Hair Tonic, MAN July 1946, National Library of Australia p. 154
Figure 41: Advertisement for Vaseline Hair Tonic, MAN November 1948, National Library of Australia p. 154
Figure 42: Advertisement for Vaseline Hair Tonic, MAN November 1948, National Library of Australia p. 154
Figure 43: Advertisement for Vaseline Hair Tonic, MAN September 1948, National Library of Australia p. 154
Figure 44: Advertisement for Vaseline Hair Tonic, MAN December 1948, National Library of Australia p. 154
Figure 45: Advertisement for Colgate Toothpaste, MAN December 1951, National Library of Australia p. 155
Figure 46: Advertisement for Colgate Toothpaste, MAN June 1952, National Library of Australia p. 155
Figure 47: Advertisement for Colgate Toothpaste, MAN January 1949, National
10 Library of Australia p. 156
Figure 48: Advertisement for Colgate Toothpaste, MAN March 1949, National Library of Australia p. 156
Figure 49: Advertisement for Colgate Toothpaste, MAN February 1949, National Library of Australia p. 157
Figure 50: Advertisement for Vaseline Hair Tonic, MAN February 1945, National Library of Australia p. 157
Figure 51: Advertisement for Ingram’s Shaving Cream, MAN June 1946, National Library of Australia p. 158
Figure 52: Advertisement for Ingram’s Shaving Cream, MAN July 1946, National Library of Australia p. 158
Figure 53: Advertisement for Ingram’s Shaving Cream, MAN August 1946, National Library of Australia p. 158
Figure 54: Advertisement for Vitalis Hair Tonic, MAN April 1946, National Library of Australia p. 159
Figure 55: Advertisement for Vitalis Hair Tonic, MAN June 1946, National Library of Australia p. 159
Figure 56: Advertisement for Vitalis Hair Tonic, MAN August 1946, National Library of Australia p. 159
Figure 57: Advertisement for Potter and Moore Brilliantine Hair Tonic, MAN October 1950, National Library of Australia p. 160
11
Figure 58: Advertisement for Potter and Moore Brilliantine Hair Tonic, MAN January 1952, National Library of Australia p. 160
Figure 59: Advertisement for Palmolive Brilliantine, MAN January 1953, National Library of Australia p. 160
Figure 60: Advertisement for Palmolive Brilliantine, MAN April 1953, National Library of Australia p. 160
Figure 61: Advertisement for Lustre Creme, MAN October 1950, National Library of Australia p. 160
Figure 62: Advertisement for Potter and Moore Brilliantine Hair Tonic, MAN December 1951, National Library of Australia p. 160
Figure 63: Advertisement for Palmolive Shaving Cream, MAN January 1948, National Library of Australia p. 160
Figure 64: Advertisement for Brylcreem, MAN November 1952, National Library of Australia p. 160
Figure 65: Advertisement for Magic Tan for Men, MAN May 1961, National Library of Australia p. 162
Figure 66: Advertisement for Trig Deodorant, MAN January 1962, National Library of Australia p. 164
Figure 67: Advertisement for Straight 8 men’s toiletries, MAN December 1949, National Library of Australia p. 168
12 Figure 68: Advertisement for Straight 8 Men’s toiletries, MAN July 1956, National Library of Australia p. 168
Figure 69 Advertisement for Ingram’s Shaving Cream, MAN January 1963, National Library of Australia p. 168
Figure 70: Advertisement for Ingram’s Shaving Cream, MAN February 1963, National Library of Australia p. 168
Figure 71: Advertisement for Tabac, MAN December 1968, National Library of Australia p. 169
Figure 72: Advertisement for Mennen Men’s Toiletries, MAN March 1969, National Library of Australia p. 170
Figure 73: Advertisement for Raft Men’s Toiletries, MAN March 1969, National Library of Australia p. 171
Figure 74: Advertisement for Cobb & Co Men’s Toiletries, MAN August 1969, National Library of Australia p. 173
Figure 75: Advertisement for Cobb & Co Men’s Toiletries, MAN July 1971, National Library of Australia p. 174
Figure 76: Advertisement for Cobb & Co Men’s Toiletries, MAN July/August 1973, National Library of Australia p. 174
Figure 77: Advertisement for Cobb & Co Men’s Toiletries, MAN September 1973, National Library of Australia p. 175
Figure 78: Advertisement for Cobb & Co Men’s Toiletries, MAN December 1963,
13 National Library of Australia p. 175
Chapter 5
Figure 1: Advertisement for Clinique Skin Supplies for Men, Follow me Gentlemen February 1987: 9-10, National Library of Australia p. 181
Figure 2: ‘Confessions of a Cosmetics Convert’ editorial illustrations, Follow me Gentlemen February 1987: 9-10, National Library of Australia p. 182
Figure 3: ‘Confessions of a Cosmetics Convert’ editorial illustrations, Follow me Gentlemen February 1987: 9-10, National Library of Australia p. 186
Figure 4: Advertisement for Clinique Skin Supplies for Men, Follow me Gentlemen February 1985, National Library of Australia p. 187
Figure 5: Advertisement for Clinique Skin Supplies for Men, Follow me Gentlemen September/November 1985, National Library of Australia p. 187
Figure 6: Advertisement for Clinique Skin Supplies for Men, Follow me Gentlemen May 1985, National Library of Australia p. 187
Figure 7: Advertisement for Adidas Aftershave, Follow me Gentlemen March/May 1987, National Library of Australia p. 201
Figure 8: Advertisement for Faberge Partage men’s toiletries, Follow me Gentlemen May 1985, National Library of Australia p. 202
Figure 9: Advertisement for Monsieur Carven Eau de Toilette, Follow me Gentlemen February 1985, National Library of Australia p. 205
14 Figure 10: Advertisement for Guy Laroche Drakkar Noir, Follow me Gentlemen September/November 1985, National Library of Australia p. 205
Figure 11: Advertisement for Imperial Leather men’s toiletries, Follow me Gentlemen February 1987, National Library of Australia p. 209
Figure 12: Advertisement for Trussardi fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen September/November 1986, National Library of Australia p. 212
Figure 13: Advertisement for Trussardi fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen February 1987, National Library of Australia p. 212
Figure 14: Advertisement for Parfums Lagerfeld, Follow me Gentlemen March/May 1984, National Library of Australia p. 213
Figure 15: Advertisement for Aramis fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen February 1985, National Library of Australia p. 214
Figure 16: Advertisement for Aramis fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen May, September, November 1985, January 1986, National Library of Australia p. 214
Figure 17: Advertisement for Guy Laroche Drakkar Noir fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen September/November 1985, National Library of Australia p. 215
Figure 18: Advertisement for Pino Silvestre fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen February 1987, National Library of Australia p. 216
Figure 19: Advertisement for Jan Stuart men’s skin care range, Follow me Gentlemen February 1985, National Library of Australia p. 217
Figure 20: Advertisement for Kouros fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen p. 218
15 September/November 1985, National Library of Australia
Figure 21: Advertisement for Kouros skin care range, Follow me Gentlemen September/November 1987, National Library of Australia p. 219
Figure 22: Advertisement for Parfums Lagerfeld, Follow me Gentlemen June/August 1984, National Library of Australia p. 221
Figure 23: Advertisement for Versace LHomme fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen September/November 1987, National Library of Australia p. 221
Figure 24: Advertisement for Kanon fragrance, Follow me Gentlemen March/May 1987, National Library of Australia p. 222
Chapter 6
Figure 1: Cover, Issue 1, Men’s Stuff May/June 1995, National Library of Australia p.235
Figure 2: Men’s Stuff May/June 1995: 3, National Library of Australia p. 235
Figure 3: Editorial illustration, men’s fragrances Ralph January 1998, National Library of Australia p. 253
Figure 4: Editorial illustration, men’s fragrances Ralph January 1998, National Library of Australia p. 253
Figure 5: Ralph November 1998, National Library of Australia p. 253
Figure 6: Editorial illustration, sunscreens and self-tanners Ralph February 1998, National Library of Australia p. 254
16 Figure 7: Editorial illustration, fragrances Max March 1998, National Library of Australia p. 255
Figure 8: Advertisement for Dr Zog’s Sex Wax, Ralph March 1998, National Library of Australia p. 257
Figure 9: Editorial illustration, ‘Getting a Skinful’ skin care feature Ralph August 1998, National Library of Australia p. 267
17
Statement of Original Authorship
The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet the requirements of an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made.
18 Acknowledgements
First and foremost my thanks go to my principal supervisor, long-term friend and mentor Alan McKee for his invaluable comments, suggestions, support and patience in the writing of this thesis. Thanks also to my associate supervisor Jason Sternberg for his positive feedback and insightful comments, and to Henk Huijser and Brad Haseman who read and commented on the work as the advisory panel for my confirmation seminar. I am indebted to the fantastic comments, feedback, advice and recommendations offered by the examination panel who assessed the research I presented for my final PhD seminar, so to John Hartley, Christina Spurgeon, Alan McKee, Jason Sternberg and Terry Flew a huge thank you for pointing me in the right direction in the fine-tuning and sculpting of the project in its final stages. I would also like to extend my thanks to Terry Flew for the supervision of the project in its early stages, and to Marc Brennan for his support and advice throughout the project. I give my sincere thanks to my housemate, friend and colleague Jean Burgess who has devoted hours of listening to my ideas over beers in the in the back yard and who has offered many invaluable suggestions for the thesis, to Leanne Blazely who guided me through the minefield of administration and official paperwork, and I especially thank the Creative Industries faculty at Queensland University of Technology for the award of the scholarship which freed up my time to concentrate on the work in the final year of my research. Finally, my thanks go to my family for their support throughout my PhD journey and especially to my late father George Burton, who always encouraged, inspired and believed in me.
19 Chapter 1 Introduction and Literature Review
... the representation and sale of masculinity is an increasingly important factor in the ‘cultural economy’ of the Australian media industries. Audiences are imagined or created ... through their consumption habits and patterns.
(Mikosza, 2003: 143)
Taking Janine Mikosza’s central argument and re-adjusting its focus, this thesis is concerned with the role of men’s lifestyle magazines and magazine representations of masculinity in the cultural economy of mediated male grooming cultures. Employing textual analysis as the main research method, the thesis is interested in exploring the important work that texts perform in the opening up of new consumer markets in cultural economies. Excepting Jackson, Stevenson and Brooks (2001; 2003), in the recent research concerned with the ‘cultural economy’ (du Gay, 1997; du Gay and Pryke, 2002) and constructions of masculinity in men’s magazines and advertising, critical analysis of the actual text is sometimes neglected in favour of attention to the cultures of production, the role of key cultural intermediaries and their imaginings of their readerships. Mikosza’s ethnographic work with editorial practitioners of Australian men’s lifestyle magazines was focussed on the production of cultural texts, as was similar work by Ben Crewe (2003) and Sean Nixon (2003) who explored the subjectivities of key editing and creative personnel involved in the production of men’s magazines and advertising campaigns. While these leading theorists of masculinity and representation within the cultural economy have emphasised that the most successful advertising campaigns and magazines were those which connected with the values and lifestyles of their imagined readerships (Crewe, 2003; Nixon, 2003), in-depth analysis of the actual texts themselves is largely missing. Building on this important work on masculinity and representation within the cultural economy paradigm, in this thesis I demonstrate how, and in what ways these texts – in this case the marketing and advertising discourse of grooming in men’s lifestyle magazines – evoke the imagined values and lifestyles of their consumers to enter into a commercially successful mutual dialogue.
20 Related to this, the thesis is also concerned with how men’s magazines – and popular media discussions about them – can be used as a medium to track key changes in social constructions of modern masculinity. The research is organised around the analysis of representations of masculinity and male grooming culture in various Australian men’s general interest magazines from the 1930s to the late 1990s, how these changed over the period and whether the emergence of new magazine masculinities constructed around narcissism and the adoption of previously feminine-coded products and practices indicates significant shifts in the cultural meanings of Australian masculinity. In this opening chapter I situate my research within the field of magazine studies, a subsidiary paradigm within media and cultural studies. I present a brief literature review of existing magazines studies to establish key research themes as well as current issues and concerns within the field. I then give a much more detailed literature review of academic magazine research concerned specifically with masculinity and men’s lifestyle magazines, followed by a chapter breakdown and outline of my thesis.
Magazine Studies
… far from being unimportant, magazines are both a core part of most people’s media consumption practices and an integral part of the media industries in Australia
(Bonner, 2006: 193)
In 2003 Cardiff University hosted an international ‘Mapping of the Magazine’ conference which it billed as ‘a symposium on magazine studies’ (Cardiff School of Journalism, Media & Cultural Studies, 2008). While magazines have been studied as a cultural text from at least the 1930s (see for example Mott, 1930) the Cardiff conference and the conference publication – a special issue of Journalism Studies devoted to magazine journalism (October, 2007) – nominated an area of academic research which had hitherto remained largely invisible, subsumed within the broader disciplines of media and communication, literary studies, journalism and cultural studies, and brought it together under the rubric of ‘magazine studies’. As a specific, critical research field, magazine studies originated in the feminist critiques of women’s mass market magazines from the
21 1970s and onwards (see for example White, 1970; Ferguson, 1983; Winship, 1987; Shevelow, 1989, Ballester et al, 1991; McRobbie, 1991; McCracken, 1993; Hermes, 1995; Beetham, 1996 and McRobbie, 2000) and while the bulk of published research about magazines continues to be centred on women’s magazines and constructions of femininity, magazine scholars are increasingly exploring men’s magazines and masculinity as a sub-set of gender-based studies (Holmes, 2007: 512). Pioneering work in this field was undertaken by British cultural studies from the late 1980s (see for example Mort, 1988; Chapman, 1988; Rutherford, 1988) and developed into a rich body of work around the burgeoning men’s lifestyle magazine genre in the 1990s and 2000s (see in particular Nixon, 1996; Jackson et al, 2001, Crewe 2003a, 2003b; Benwell et al, 2003). My thesis then, with its focus on twentieth century men’s magazines and their readerships, is situated within this paradigm of gender-based magazine studies and aims to contribute to critical research into magazine masculinities, but also to address some of the current concerns of academic magazine scholars.
The Cardiff magazine symposia and special issue of Journalism Studies revealed a relative paucity of published academic magazines research compared to work on other media such as newspapers, radio, television and cinema (Holmes, 2007: 510; 517; Franklin, 2007). Certainly in Australia, academic writing about magazines is scant in comparison to the literature produced from other media disciplines such as journalism, film and television studies or new media, with a lack in particular of whole books devoted to the subject of magazines. Indeed, compared to book publications dedicated to the critical analysis of magazines and magazine culture generated in Britain and America, Australia lags far behind, for (as yet) not a single academic book addressing contemporary Australian magazines and their readerships exists. So far, Australian magazine scholars of both literary and mass market magazines have tended to position their analyses historically in book publications. Books about Australian literary magazines were mostly published before the 1990 and were concerned with historical little magazines (Tregenza, 1964), nineteenth century periodicals (Stuart, 1979), poetry in magazines before 1850 (Webby, 1982) and a collection of essays about the literary journal Nation from the late 1950s to the early 1970s (Inglis and Brazier, eds 1989).
22 Published books about popular and mass-market magazines have been concerned with Australian pulp fiction 1940s and 1950s (Johnson-Woods, 2004), the Australian Women’s Weekly from the 1930s to the early 1980s (O’Brien, 1982; Sheridan et al, 2001), or more generally, Australian popular magazines from the mid-nineteenth century to 1969 (Lindesay, 1983). Currently, only one book – written not by an academic but a freelance journalist and former magazine editor – documents any contemporary trends and developments in Australian magazine publishing, specifically men’s lifestyle magazines (Dapin, 2004). In the absence of any critical book publications or edited collections about contemporary Australian magazines, Frances Bonner’s 1997 essay ‘Magazines’ in Cunningham and Turner (eds., 1997, updated 2002 and 2006) remains the most comprehensive overview of the magazines market and magazine culture in Australia. In that essay, which considers magazine ownership, readership and circulation, market segmentation and women’s magazines, Bonner herself pointed to the lack of critical analysis of Australian magazines compared to the attention paid to other media forms, despite Australians being the second highest per capita consumers of magazines in the world after New Zealand (Bonner, 1997, 2002, 2006).
The key speakers and authors of the Cardiff convention and its special Journalism Studies issue observed the general academic neglect of magazine research (Holmes, 2007: 150; Johnson, 2007: 254), but they were particularly concerned with the neglect of magazine journalism within journalism studies itself (Franklin, 2007). In her paper, Sammye Johnson presented a study which found that between 1983 and 1993, only 8% of the articles published in Journalism Quarterly dealt with magazines (Popovich, 1995 in Johnson, 2007: 525) and another which indicated that between 1995-1999, less than 5 percent of the articles in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and only 6 percent of content in Journalism History featured magazine topics (Sumner in Johnson, 2007: 525).
A similar neglect of magazine journalism by the scholars and publishers of Australian journalism studies is clear from the ‘Australian Journalism Research Index’ published in the University of Queensland’s Australian Studies in Journalism in 1999, a ninety-page
23 academic journal index which featured few references to articles about magazines, with print and broadcast news media dominating the available journalistic research (No. 8: 239-333). The subject index grouped together research articles concerned with the ABC, photojournalism, print, radio and television – but no specific section was allotted to magazines and magazine research. In the resources index, press and broadcast journalism research informed such areas of study and discussion as History, Women and Gay and Lesbian Media, with surprisingly few articles coming from magazine studies. Moreover, indexed subjects such as Audience Studies, Content Analysis and Textual Analysis – common research methodologies among magazine scholars – lacked references to published papers dedicated to magazines; indeed, out of fifty-odd articles indexed in the Content Analysis section, only one paper (Ring, 1997) was concerned with magazines (Day, 1999). Journalism studies has tended to overlook magazine journalism in favour of the more ‘serious’ or ‘political’ news journalism found in print and broadcast media (see also Hartley, 1996). Magazine journalism is not seen as ‘serious’ journalism, to be taught – no magazine articles appeared under the subject headings of Journalism Education and Media Theory in the Australian Journalism Research Index for example – or to be analysed for ‘political’ meaning.
Yet such neglect by journalism and wider academic disciplines argue magazine scholars, closes down the unique research opportunities offered up by the magazine form, a collective concept David Abrahamson identifies as ‘magazine exceptionalism’ (2007: 667-670) which brings together pronouncements by magazine theorists about the socio- cultural importance of magazines and their unique relationship to their readers. Abrahamson proposes that the magazine form is genuinely different – exceptional – from other media texts such as newspapers, broadcasting and online media because magazines are a product of social reality but equally, they can also be a catalyst, “shaping the social reality of their socio-cultural moment” (2007: 667). In other words, magazines can be both ‘reflective’ and ‘transformative’; they are markers of socio-cultural change, but equally they are the drivers. Abrahamson provides several persuasive contemporary historical examples of his ‘magazine exceptionalism’ thesis, including how the decline of mass-market magazines and the rise of special interest publications throughout the 1980s
24 and 1990s was not only a product of the fractionalization of culture at that time; ‘narrow- cast’ publications were also a catalyst of the transformation itself, furthering a process that was already taking place (Abrahamson, 2007: 668-669). He similarly proposes that the rupturing of the virginal and chaste view of life presented to teenage girls in magazines in the 1940s and 1950s by new magazines such as Dolly and Sassy in the 1970s and 1980s was both as a response to, and vehicle for, a definite shift in the socio- cultural norm of teenage female sexuality and sexual awareness (Abrahamson, 2007: 668). Theorists of men’s magazines and masculinity similarly suggest that men’s magazines play a pivotal role in producing new forms of masculine subjectivities (Gill, 2003: 48-49; Jackson et al, 2001: 9; Stevenson et al 2003: 112; Schirato and Yell, 1999: 81); yet they are also a crucial site for gauging important trends and socio-cultural shifts in constructions of masculinity (Rutherford, 1988: 37). Underscoring Abrahamson’s suggestion that magazines are both ‘reflective’ and ‘transformative’ of social reality, Bethan Benwell emphasises that men’s magazines “are both a representative site and mobilising force of crucial cultural shifts in masculinity” (Benwell, 2003:7).
Abrahamson’s theory of ‘magazine exceptionalism’ can be divided into two parts; magazines are an exceptional cultural text because they can foster understanding of the way socio-cultural-economic changes are initiated and disseminated (Holmes, 2007: 510), but also because magazines enjoy a unique closeness with their audience, constructing a community in which readers feel they are members (Abrahamson, 2007: 669). As Tim Holmes suggests, because magazine publishers increasingly research all aspects of readers lives to better tailor their publication to their interests and desires, magazines are a medium which provide unique access to different social and cultural groupings and as such, can give the academic researcher much more clearly defined readerships and communities than other print media such as newspapers (Holmes, 2007: 510-513).
Why then, asked the Cardiff magazine scholars, in the light of the medium’s success as a popular cultural form and ‘exceptional’ research potential, have magazine studies been marginalised and overlooked by wider media and cultural studies disciplines? Both Tim
25 Holmes and Sammye Johnson suggested that the sheer volume and size of the magazines market, and magazines’ highly diverse subject matter, make the genre less easy to study than newspapers (Holmes, 2007: 511). “One of the major problems facing [magazine scholars] is the breadth and depth of the field itself” wrote Johnson, suggesting that “because there are so many magazines, it is difficult for us to focus. It is hard for us to create typologies that we can all agree on and build upon” (Johnson, 2007: 524). Johnson and Holmes agreed that the diverse and various ways in which magazines could be studied by researchers from a wide range of academic backgrounds employing varied and disparate methodologies was a main stumbling block for magazine studies;
Magazines can be studied as shapers, reflectors, cultural crucibles, agenda setters, historical entities, community builders, framers, feminist manifestos, economic commodities, post-modern documents, and more. How do we tackle magazines and their meanings? What kinds of methodologies should we use? Should our approach be quantitative, qualitative, historical, descriptive, Marxist, literary, feminist, post-modern or economic?
(Johnson, 2007: 524)
Complicating what Johnson calls the ‘research conundrum’ is that researchers who study magazines come from backgrounds in journalism, communication, advertising, history, English, sociology, psychology, gender and women’s studies, art, marketing and literature (Johnson, 2007: 252). According to Holmes, the protean nature of both the magazine form itself and of academic research around it is at once a strength, and a weakness of contemporary magazine studies, for it allows analysis from a wide range of academic disciplines and perspectives – its strength – but at the same time such analysis is weakened by poor communication between individual scholars taking different perspectives in different disciplines (Holmes, 2007: 512). Moreover, while there is little communication between scholars within the magazine studies field itself, with writers rarely replicating each other’s research (Johnson, 2007: 524), Holmes also suggests that work on magazines is seldom recognised outside its own field, deploying Abrahamson’s phrase “brilliant fragments” to characterise the state of research into magazines and their
26 readers, and Valerie Korinek’s observation that magazine theorists remain “a small and relatively isolated community of scholars” (Holmes, 2007: 512).
The description of the academic magazine community as isolated and fragmented is particularly pertinent in relation to Australian magazine scholars, who are isolated spatially from Britain and America, and whose work is rarely referenced or acknowledged in British or American magazine narratives and analyses which invariably privilege discussion of the British and American magazine markets and current academic research, with Australia hardly getting a mention. Underpinning this isolation from the academic magazine community of the northern hemisphere is the failure of Australian magazine studies to produce actual books in which Australian writers and thinkers might enter into critical dialogue with British and American authors, which in turn stems from the fragmented nature of magazine studies in Australia. For while no comprehensive volume exists, published Australian magazine scholarship is quite extensive, taking the form not of books and book chapters, but of essays and articles in local and international academic journals. An overview of these disparate “brilliant fragments” of Australian magazine scholarship reveals the breadth of the magazine research landscape in Australia, and the clear diversity of various academic backgrounds, disciplines, approaches and perspectives which characterise magazine studies in general.
Johnson found that magazine entries in refereed journals in America were mostly about literary journals and their historic place, rather than the mass consumer or trends and patterns in contemporary magazine publishing (Johnson, 2007: 525). In Australia, scholarly attention to magazines in academic journals has similarly been centred mainly on historical literary periodicals such as Salt, Angry Penguins, Meanjin, The Bulletin, Lone Hand, Smith’s Weekly, Nation, Overland and Quadrant (see for example McLaren, 1990; Gordon, 1992; Davis, 1993; Albinski, 1996; Glover, 1997; Carter, 1999; Kelly, 2000; Lloyd, 1992, 2001; Lee, 2004) or on avant-garde and modernist little magazines (Carter, 1993; Lang, 2006) in journals such as Australian Literary Studies, the Australian Book Review and Journal of Australian Studies, with a relative neglect of magazines in journals associated with media and cultural studies such as Media International Australia
27 and Continuum. Compared to papers and essays concerned with broadcast media – television, cinema and radio – digital and new media, newspapers and video games, articles about magazines appearing in Media International Australia since the early 1990s have been extremely sparse, with only a dozen or so papers published. Magazines were particularly under-represented in special issues on themes such sport in the media, queer media and body image, with only one magazine entry for sport (Ndalianis, 1995), one paper on queer ‘zines (Dunne, 1995) and two articles about women’s magazines in the body image special issue (Lumby, 1994; Bray, 1994) and while other popular media forms have had various dedicated special issues of MIA, magazines have not. Meanwhile, although the Australian cultural studies journal Continuum has had one special issue devoted partly to magazines (July, 2000), the five papers which appeared are the only articles concerned with magazines published in the journal from the early 1990s to the present day. However, it is within the pages of MIA and Continuum, and increasingly in the Journal of Australian Studies and Australian Journal of Communication that research into mass consumer and lifestyle magazines, as well as into gay and pornographic magazines is to be found, representing a growing interest in non-literary magazines as a cultural text within the Australian academy.
Broadly speaking, Australian researchers of mass consumer and lifestyle magazines have been concerned with overlapping themes of gender, sexuality, parenting, health, advertising and history. Analyses of historical popular magazines include Joanne Scott’s (1998) exploration of readers’ letters to Australian women’s magazines in the inter-war period, Susan Sheridan’s analysis of constructions of the ‘Australian’ woman in the post- war Australian Women’s Weekly (2000) and Ross Laurie’s study of the representation of sex, gender and marriage in cartoons featured in MAN magazine in the 1950s (1998). Within gender-based studies Australian magazine theorists have analysed female body building magazines (Ndalianis, 1995), bridal magazines (Driscoll, 1998) and presented feminist critiques of Australian girls’ teenage magazines such as Dolly (Lam, 1989) and women’s mass market magazines (Lumby, 1994; Ring, 1997), while in recent years Australian writers have begun analysing masculinity and men’s popular magazines such as Tracks, Two Wheels, Waves, Men’s Health, Ralph and FHM (Henderson, 1999;
28 Schirato and Yell, 1999; Cook, 2000; Mikosza, 2003). I discuss these papers in my detailed literature review of existing academic writing on specifically men’s general interest and lifestyle magazines. In recent years Australian magazine researchers have also published work concerned with sexuality and pornography, exploring themes such as personal ads in gay magazines (Moore, 1998), gay magazines and bodybuilding (Benzie, 2000), queer ‘zines (Dunne, 1995), heterosexual female desire in men’s soft-porn Picture magazine (Albury, 1997) and the ‘ordinariness’ Home Girls/Blokes in Picture and People (Barcan, 2000).
The above research into historical and contemporary popular magazine representations of gender and sexuality was published in academic journals from media and cultural studies disciplines, and mainly in Media International Australia, Continuum and the Journal of Australian Studies. However themes of parenting and health, the latter being the subject of the majority of discussion about magazines within Australian journals, introduced critical analysis from within, but also outside of the disciplines of communication and cultural studies, with researchers from sociology, health and nursing entering the field of magazine studies. Media and magazine cultural theorists Frances Bonner and Susan McKay of the University of Queensland have published several papers about discourses of health in Australian mass market magazines for women (2000), representations of family health in the Australian Women’s Weekly from the late 1940s (with Kathryn Goldie, 1998) and ideologies of childhood illness and parenting in Woman’s Day and Australian Women’s Weekly (2002), while Carmen Luke has explored representations of parenting and childhood in Australian child care magazines from a sociological perspective (1994). Outside of parenting and family health, researchers from women’s, media and cultural studies backgrounds have explored the connection between anorexia and women’s magazines (Bray, 1996), the mediation of cosmetic surgery in health magazines (Ring, 1999) and discourses of HIV and AIDS in young women’s magazines Cleo and Cosmopolitan (Saywell and Pittam, 1996).
Meanwhile, media and communication and cultural studies analytical methodologies such as discourse and content analysis have been applied to studies of contemporary
29 Australian magazines in academic health journals, and increasingly in journals produced by the health industry itself. In the academic journal Nursing Inquiry for example Maree Raftos, Debra Jackson and Judy Mannix (1998) applied discourse analysis to Dolly, Cleo, Cosmopolitan and Girlfriend to identify representations of menstruation and femininity in Australian teenage girls’ magazines, yet similar analysis can be found outside the academy in Julie Edwards and Simon Chapman’s article in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia, journal of the Australian Health Promotion Association (2000) which employed content analysis to teenage girls’ magazines as a vehicle for health promotion. Textual analysis of women’s magazines has reached as far as midwifery and home economics; in Australian Midwifery News, the journal of the Australian College of Midwives, Gabrielle Williams and Kathleen Fahy (2004) analysed the portrayal of childbearing women in women’s popular magazines such as Australian Women’s Weekly, while Nicole Senior and Vanessa Lake’s content analysis-based study of representations of healthy cooking in popular magazines appeared in the Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia (2007).
The magazines studies landscape in Australia then is broad and diverse, with researchers entering the field from backgrounds in literary studies, history, media and communication, cultural studies, gender studies, sociology, journalism, nursing and even home economics. While there was no representation from health or nursing, such diversity was reflected at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference hosted by the Australian Studies Centre at Brisbane’s University of Queensland in December 2006, with speakers from a range of disciplines including Australian and cultural studies, English, media and communication, literary studies, sociology, journalism and humanities, and from universities in all the major Australian cities. The papers presented at the conference also reflected the traditional dominance of scholarly attention towards historical literary and cultural magazines, with around half of the presentations being concerned with historical publications such as the Bulletin (Tim Dolin), Life (Meg Tasker), Triad (Roger Osborne), Australian Letters (Sue Sheridan), Art in Australia (David Carter), magazines in Sydney between 1890-1930 (Jill Julius Matthews) and little poetry magazines of the 1960s and 1970s (Ann Vickery). Analysis of historical mass
30 market and consumer magazines included papers addressing the Australian Women’s Weekly in the 1930s (Chris Lawe Davis), MAN magazine from the 1930s to the 1960s (Jenny Burton) and Cleo in the 1970s (Megan le Masurier). Discussion of historical special interest magazines included post-war motorcycle magazines (Guy Allen), twentieth century radio magazines (Andrew Mason) and Australian pulp fiction in the 1950s (Toni Johnston-Woods). As the two-day conference was organised around the theme of magazines and ‘modernity’, the majority of presenters located their research within the historical period of modernity, with only two papers concerned with contemporary magazines; Susan McKay’s analysis of health information in teenage girls’ magazines, and Cynthia Ryan’s paper about the construction of African-American women as health consumers in American magazine Essence.
In her critique of contemporary magazine studies, Sammye Johnson (2007: 523) called for a dialogue between academic scholarship and the magazines industry itself, emphasising the need for both professional and academic interpretations of magazines and how they are used. Researchers with industry backgrounds who presented papers at the Brisbane magazine conference show that an industry/academic relationship does exist; both Guy Allen (post-war motorbike magazines) and Megan le Masurier (1970s Cleo) worked as popular magazine writers and editors before entering academia, and both now lecture in magazines and magazine publishing at the universities of Melbourne and Sydney, while Chris Lawe Davis (the Australian Women’s Weekly 1930s) is an ex- journalist who is currently a senior lecturer in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland. This relationship between the magazine industry and academia is interchangeable, for academic magazine researchers such as Catharine Lumby, and other feminist writers such as Gretel Killeen and Emma Tom have written for both women’s and men’s popular magazines themselves.
However, while such a relationship does exist, Johnson’s main argument was that the magazine industry is reluctant to share its wealth of research information about magazines and their readerships with academic researchers, a stumbling block in developing a mutual dialogue which she suggested was mainly because the current
31 dominant methodologies of academic magazine scholarship – historical, literary and content analysis-based – were of little interest or use to magazine professionals, arguing that
There are many excellent content analyses and framing studies, but we seem to be studying the same magazines and the same topics over and over again. Most media historians prefer to study the nineteenth century. I don’t think we can usefully inform the professional magazine world if we are harking back to the 1860s, 1870s – or even the 1960s and 1970s. If we are going to have a relationship with the magazines industry, we must be looking at the here and now.
(Johnson, 2007: 526)
For Johnson, while contemporary magazine trends, patterns in magazine publishing and professional practices – themes which are more likely to be noticed and used by magazine professionals – are to be found in academic books, book chapters and essays, articles published in refereed journals tend to neglect current trends and developments in favour of content analysis. The problem, she suggests, is that the academy puts more promotion and tenure weight on refereed journals than on chapters or books, and on primary sources such as magazines themselves, creating difficulties for researchers who want to track industry trends and patterns for cultural meaning. Johnson quizzed fellow magazine researchers who had had papers rejected from academic journals because they lacked traditional research components, providing details of two papers which were highly praised by their reviewers but were rejected on the grounds of lacking primary or original research. The problem with one paper was that its literature review was based on mass media secondary resources and the other lacked a research question, rendering it too “professional” (2007: 526-527). As Johnson points out, the cultural significance of magazine trends and start-ups is more widely discussed and questioned within the magazine industry itself – in the trade press, industry association reports and findings of publishers’ own R&D departments – and in popular newspapers than in academic research. Arguing that magazine studies needs to open up to allow essays that break new ground, and which both draw from and inform the industry itself to complement
32 traditional content analyses, Johnson suggests that “we need to redefine and expand what we mean by ‘research’ for the magazine field” (2007: 527). Reconsidering what ‘counts’ as research for the magazine field is an important issue for my own work, for Chapter 2 of this thesis, and parts of Chapter 6 draw on discussions in the Australian popular press precisely because it is here and not the academy where the most informed, critical debates about the contemporary markets for men’s grooming products and men’s lifestyle magazines are taking place.
So far I have presented some of the main issues and concerns of contemporary magazine studies and I have provided a snapshot of the Australian magazine studies landscape. I shall now give a detailed literature review of academic magazine research which has been concerned specifically with masculinity and men’s lifestyle magazines, followed by an outline of my thesis which situates my own work in relation to this existing research.
Literature Review: Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines
The thesis owes much to the rich body of work which came from within British cultural studies around the emergence of the ‘new man’ and the ‘new lad’ masculine subjectivities in the 1980s and 1990s and their associated magazines such as The Face, Arena, Esquire, GQ, FHM, Maxim and Loaded. Research in this area was stimulated by a collection of essays in Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity (1988) which was concerned with the changing meanings of masculinity as constructed in the British media in the late 1980s, ushering in critical theory on the phenomenon of the ‘new man’ and the style press of the 1980s.
The British ‘New Man’
A key thinker in the appearance and representation of the ‘new man’, Frank Mort took as his starting point the new street fashions emerging among young men in 1987 in London and other major British cities in his pioneering ‘Boy’s Own? Masculinity, Style and
33 Popular Culture’ essay in Male Order (1988). He identified such cultural personas as ‘casuals’, ‘yuppies’ and ‘sloanes’ emerging from an urban landscape of clubbing, hip hop, high street bars and street corners – metropolitan style which he suggested could be seen as much on the street as in the fashion shoots of youth style manuals The Face and i-D. Mort was talking about the revolution in men’s retail fashion, led by the transformation of Burton’s menswear into Topman and the appearance of other key high street men’s fashion stores, and the opening up of young men’s consumer markets in Britain in the 1980s (see also Mort, 1996; Nixon, 1996). He defined ‘new man’ fashion as characterised by hair gel, Levi’s 501 jeans, Doc Martens and flight jackets at the casual end of the market, with Next suits and designer labels representing the more classic, tailored styles of the ‘new man’ iconography. Aside from their marking of ‘new man’ style, Levi’s ‘red tab’ 501 jeans were also significant for their 1985 creative advertising campaigns ‘Bath’ and ‘Laundrette’ which Mort (1988, 1996), Rutherford (1988) and later Sean Nixon (1996) suggested ruptured traditional icons of masculinity and offered up more sensual codings which became evident in a wide range of sites concerned with new man marketing and imagery in Britain in the 1980s.
According to Mort and Nixon, the campaigns for Levi’s 501 broke the rules creatively – they were centred on sophisticated production values, cinematography, lighting and soundtrack – but more importantly, they broke the rules of the established codes of aggression and power associated with masculine display (Nixon, 1996: 2), a traditional and dominant representation of masculinity Rutherford calls ‘Retributive Man’ signified by figures such as Rambo and Schwarzenegger and boys’ cultural forms such as Transformers, He Man and Masters of the Universe (Rutherford, 1988: 28-29). Drawing on 1950s iconography, ‘Laundrette’ featured Nick Kamen, a highly-groomed model who enters a launderette and strips off to his boxer shorts to reveal a toned, muscular body before loading his 501’s into a front-loading washing machine to the delight of stunned female onlookers. Mort suggested that the fracturing and sexualisation of Kamen’s body around the commodity – the jeans – via cut close-ups on “bum, torso, crutch and thighs” drew less on traditional masculine macho images of strength and virility, and more on traditional feminine codings and sexual display in consumer culture (1988: 201).
34 ‘Laundrette’ and ‘Bath’, which similarly featured a shirtless, highly-styled and sexualised young male model, screened on television and in cinemas in a year-long heavy mass market campaign (Mort, 1988: 198), thrusting the male body and men’s fashion into the public domain.
The sophisticated production and photography, and the new visual codes of masculinity on offer in the Levi’s campaigns informed many subsequent British ‘new man’ ads, a genre of campaigns which were key to the ‘creative revolution’ which took place in the 1980s in British advertising (see Mort, 1996; Nixon, 1996; 2003). Nixon demonstrated the influence of the Levi’s ads on fashion photography and print advertising in magazines such as The Face, Arena and Esquire, observing how a new masculine softness was connoted by framing and lighting which emphasised the surface qualities of the models’ skin and hair (1996: 122), and how a greater intensity was coded into the images through cropping which “brought the spectatorial eye much closer to the surface of the masculine body … displaying the sensuality in the coding of masculinity” (1996: 191). Discussing the fashion photography in Arena in 1988, Jonathon Rutherford had similarly suggested that “there is a sensuality about the images which until now has been completely absent from publications for heterosexual men” (Rutherford, 1988: 38; see also Benwell, 2003: 13).
The sensualised and sexualised new man imagery was found right across the British mediasphere, not just in the new men’s fashion and style magazines and commercials. His “soft yet muscular, tough but tender” (Mort, 1988: 201) semi-naked image adorned posters, calendars, post cards and greeting cards from 1980s creative photography phenomenon Athena (Chapman, 1988: 225) and he was even found in the nation’s tabloids, The Sun introducing the ‘Page 7 Fella’ featuring images of bare-chested young hunks in 1986 (Mort, 1988: 202). For Mort, Nixon and Rutherford, the new man imagery was important for its sanctioning of masculine sensuality and narcissism through the codes of fashion and style, but also for its sexually ambivalent visual codings which blurred the traditional representational distinctions between gay and straight men (Mort, 1988, 1996; Nixon, 1996; Rutherford, 1988). Both Rutherford and Angus Bancroft
35 (1998) suggested that fashion and its associated imagery in magazines such as GQ and Arena during the 1980s and early 1990s introduced gay male erotica to the mainstream media, while Mort described the new man imagery as “an ambiguous visual erotica” (1988: 202).
British ‘new man’ theorists discussed how the proliferation of erotic and semi-naked images of men influenced by traditional gay iconography threw up all kinds of new codes of looking that fractured the previous gendered power relationships of the gaze, not least the rendering of men as passive, and therefore feminine as the recipients of the gaze (Chapman, 1988: 229). The new man imagery opened up men’s bodies to the gaze of women, but also to other men. Laura Mulvey suggested that “the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification. Man is reluctant to gaze at his exhibitionist like” (1990:34), but with the emergence of the new man iconography in men’s style magazines in Britain in the 1980s, men being asked to do exactly that, gaze at feminised and sexualised images of his ‘exhibitionist like’. Discussing the images in Arena, Rutherford (1988: 38) suggested that
Pictures of young male models are portrayed in passive, ‘feminised’ poses, exposed to the camera. The heterosexual male reader is confronted with a new challenge, the object of his gaze is another man. We are invited to take pleasure from these male bodies and the clothes they wear
Nixon argued that the new man imagery sanctioned a sexually ambivalent masculine- masculine look, affording straight men looking pleasures that were historically the prerogative of gay men (Nixon, 1996: 193; see also Crewe, 2003: 31), while Mort suggested that the gaze which emerged from the fashion spreads of men’s style magazines was a ‘homosocial’ rather than exclusively homosexual gaze. These narratives he argued, were designed to be ‘cruised’, opening up a visually coded space that could be occupied by increasing numbers of straight as well as gay men (Mort, 1996; Jackson et al, 2001: 10).
36 Alongside the new eroticisation and sensualisation of men’s bodies, other ideologies were at play in the marketing imagery and ethos of the Eighties British ‘new man’. In her pioneering 1988 work, Rowena Chapman spoke about the caring, sharing, romantic and relationship-friendly new man who was to be found ‘everywhere’ in British popular culture, from women’s magazines, men’s magazines, billboards, television advertising; he was even present in the catalogue for Mothercare, manufacturers of children’s and babies’ apparel. Chapman’s ‘nurturant’ new man of the 1980s advertising world enthusiastically embraced feminine roles such as parenting, household chores and cooking as well as feminine behaviours such as narcissism and the consumption of a wide range of men’s toiletries (Chapman, 1988). Jonathon Rutherford discussed the new emphasis on fatherhood in fashion advertising and wider popular culture, nominating the ‘New Father’ as one of the plurality of masculine identities which emerged from the new man campaigns (Rutherford, 1988: 34-36). These plural identities are often brought together in various theorists’ descriptions of the 1980s new man persona such as “the feminist-friendly, sensitive narcissist” embodied in fashion-based publications such as Arena, GQ and Esquire (Benwell, 2003: 6), or the “avid consumer and unashamed narcissist but [who] had also internalised and endorsed the principles of feminism” (Benwell, 2003: 13). Rosemary Gill described the new man as a subjectivity who was “sensitive, emotionally aware, respectful of women, and egalitarian in outlook - and, in some accounts, as narcissistic and highly invested in his physical appearance. He is as likely to be gay as straight” (Gill, 2003: 37).
Many cultural theorists suggested that the ‘new man’ was a product of feminism, which had pathologised masculinity in a way hitherto unprecedented (Chapman, 1988: 226; see also Rutherford, 1988: 32; Mort, 1988) and among the earlier ‘new man’ writers, a leading question was whether the imagery and ideology offered or reflected wider changes within sexual politics. Mort suggested that “one of the biggest questions the women’s movement has put to men is this: how can we negotiate a new settlement around sexual relations, a settlement which problemises men’s identities and lays the ground for a different version of masculinity?” (Mort, 1988: 194-195) For him, what was crucial about the new man imagery was that it did just that; it forced men to “look at
37 themselves self-consciously as men, rather than the norm which defines everything else” (Mort, 1988: 195, 222; see also Benwell, 2003: 13; Bancroft, 1998: 36), stimulating opportunities for men to become aware of themselves as gendered subjects and it offered up softer, more emotional and less dominating masculine subjectivities. The argument was essentially that the feminised new man imagery offered a space for the emergence of a new, more self-conscious, less aggressive and less homophobic set of masculine identities via its transgressive visual codes around male narcissism and sensuality which had the effect of loosening the binary opposition between men and women, and between gay and straight-identified men (Mort, 1988; Nixon, 1996; Rutherford, 1988; Osgerby, 2003).
Chapman (1988) and Edwards (1997) disagreed. Chapman quoted market analyst Lucy Purdy: “you can’t assume that the new man is a feminist man, he’s just more narcissistic” (1988: 226) while Edwards dismissed notions that magazine new man representations constituted “some kind of radical shift in the construction of masculinity” as “frankly ridiculous” (1997: 82). Chapman challenged notions that the sexualisation of the male body was necessarily progressive for gender politics, suggesting that it replicated the inequalities of the social relations between men and women (1988: 236). Instead of creating a “democracy of vision” in which men as well as women are objectified, she argued that the new man imagery preserved men’s power and control through the granting of a greater privacy to men’s bodies, the positioning of models in more prone rather than the more vulnerable missionary poses common in erotic representations of women and the positioning of models in more active, outdoor pursuits. She read the toned hardness of the male bodies on display in the new man imagery not as soft and sensual, but as demonstrative of the traditional masculine qualities of strength, power and control (Chapman, 1988: 237). Moreover, Chapman presented an argument informed by critical theories of gender, sexuality and race (see for example Dyer, 1997) which demonstrates how white heterosexual masculinity maintains its dominance of the sex/gender hierarchy by suggesting that the new man ideology was simply a ruse to maintain male power;
Men change, but only in order to hold on to power, not to relinquish it
38 … the effect of the emergence of the new man has been to reinforce the existing power structure, by producing a hybrid masculinity which is better able and more suited to retain control. One of the features of patriarchy is its ability to mutate in order to survive, undermining threats to its symbolic order by incorporating their critique, and adjusting its ideology
(Chapman 1988: 235)
The ‘new man’ for Chapman was such a patriarchal mutation, a ‘hijacking’ of femininity and homosexuality through which masculinity appeared to change, but in fact was “a redefinition of masculinity in men’s favour, a reinforcement of the gender order, representing an expansion of the concept of legitimate masculinity, and thus an extension of its power over women and deviant men” (Chapman, 1988: 247). This concept of the opening up of discursive constructions of traditional masculinity to absorb the ‘deviant’ cultures of women and gay men in order to re-assert a more dominant, heteronormative masculinity is a key theme raised by other theorists around the various constructions of the new lad subjectivity and traditional Australian masculinity, and it is a theme to which I will return as my discussion unfolds.
Meanwhile, Tim Edwards (1997) also suggested that the new man imagery did not necessarily indicate an abandonment of traditional masculine values by men on the ground, arguing that feminised images did not automatically facilitate feminised behaviour (Edwards, 1997: 46) and that sexualised imagery did not necessarily mean significant changes among male populations;
Whilst sexualized advertising and rising interest in men’s fashion may signify some disruption of conceptions of traditional masculinity, it remains an open question as to whether this then implies any significant impact upon practice or attitudes, that is, apart from spending ...
(Edwards, 1997: 47-48)
Edwards argued that the emergence of the new man and the revolution in men’s fashion
39 in the 1980s had less to do with sexual politics than wider developments in consumer society such as marketing and advertising, demography, economics and the political ideology of Thatcherism. In other words, the rise of a specific group of single, affluent, professional city-based young men with ideological dispositions towards consumption, individualism and material aspirationalism (Edwards, 1997: 6). He suggested there was nothing particularly ‘new’ about the gendered sensibilities of the ‘new man’, arguing like Chapman that instead, the new man rhetoric signified a return to, or adaptation of old masculine attitudes and values of economic power and material success rather than values of social and sexual equality, and that it was these values of ‘dress for success’ which resonated with the urban, style-conscious readership of style magazines such as The Face and Arena (Edwards, 1997: 42-43, 50). “The primary (though still nearly always missed academically) role of men’s style magazines” suggested Edwards “is encouraging and perpetuating high spending in order to join the style elite” (Edwards, 1997: 74). For him, the increasing pervasiveness of self-conscious, aspirational and narcissistic representations was the outcome of 1980s British consumer society typified by “consumption, individualism and image cultures as a means of specialization in saturated retail sectors” (Edwards, 1997: 54), and that the new man ideology and men’s style magazines “have very little to do with sexual politics and a lot more to do with new markets for the constant reconstruction of masculinity through consumption”, suggesting that the new man construction “makes money for the fashion and media industries alike” (Edwards, 1997: 82).
The 1980s new man phenomenon then, has been discussed within British cultural studies first and foremost around discourses of fashion, style and the media. Mort (1988; 1996), Nixon (1996), Rutherford (1988) and Edwards (1997) all take as their starting point the UK’s high street boom in menswear, situating their analyses into the new man within a nexus of developments in men’s fashion advertising, new shop floor sales technologies and shopping environments, and media representations of men’s fashion – in particular in men’s magazines, which carry the heaviest representation of new man imagery, and primarily the fashion shoots because this was where the new codings of masculinity were most extensively elaborated (Nixon, 1996: 4). In much of the work around the new man,
40 grooming takes a back seat to fashion; or it is allocated the passenger seat and given a co- pilot role, but it is never driving the narrative. My thesis builds on, but also contributes to this work by elevating developments in the men’s grooming industry, and representations of grooming in men’s fashion and lifestyle magazines to a central role, bringing grooming into the arena of existing critical discussion around the new man, fashion and the emergence of new mediated masculine subjectivities; for as Nixon suggests the reshaping of the men’s toiletries and grooming products markets accompanied developments in the menswear markets, and were “the other key product area in relation to which the ‘new man’ imagery was mobilized” (Nixon, 1996: 31).
Issues of grooming have tended to make fleeting but untheorised appearances in cultural studies accounts of the ‘new man’ and men’s magazines (see for example Chapman, 1988; Gauntlett, 2002; Jackson et al, 2001), and scant attention has been paid to the phenomenal growth of the grooming industry and transformation of male consumer grooming cultures elsewhere in the academy. In my search for existing work around men’s grooming, I found only one book dedicated exclusively to the male beauty industry. In Behold the Man: The Hype and Selling of Male Beauty in Media and Culture (1999), American author Edisol Wayne Dotson suggested that the new man imagery was a marketing creation generated by advertising and the image industries. The book is essentially a male version of Naomi Wolf’s polemic The Beauty Myth (1991), with many of her arguments adapted and reworked to encompass the emergence of a tyrannical beauty industry for men. Dotson laments the sexual objectification of the male body in the new man ‘advertising frenzy’ and the psychological dangers it engenders for men to be valued and defined by their appearance rather than their roles as breadwinner, husband, father and so on. Following the successful establishment of a beauty cult among women, he argues that the exploitative image industries have turned their attention to men – “the advertising industry now picks on men because it can no longer get away with picking on women” (1999: 54-55) – generating billion-dollar profits from the vulnerabilities and insecurities which they create among men who, he suggests compare themselves unfavourably to the naked male torsos on display. For Dotson, the advertisements in magazines such as GQ for men’s toiletries and fragrances offered
41 images of the ideal male body that “play with, tease and distort ideas of male self-esteem and self-confidence”(1999: 36-44), suggesting that “if men buy what the ads are selling, they pay for it with deeply-eroded self-esteem and shattered confidence” (1999: 59).
In Dotson’s version of the influence of the new man imagery on sexual politics then, men emerge as the ‘victims’ and women the victors. “Too many women are enjoying what is happening to men” he suggested, and thanks to their newly-acquired power in society, “some women now find themselves in a position in which they can make demands and place expectations on the appearance of the bodies of the opposite sex” (1999: 1-3). Dotson lays the blame of men’s anguish over body image and self-worth quite squarely at the door of feminism; is this what women want when they “scream for equality?” (Dotson, 1999: 57) Discounting his anti-feminism and compulsion to cast men as the duped victims of the “male beauty moulders” (1999: 5), Dotson makes an imperative point around feminism’s role in the emergence of a commercial grooming industry for men, and the sexual politics of appearance;
Without the …weakening and crumbling of male-dominated power and control in our society, this would never have happened. Since, however, men are slowly losing their hold on power and control, they are also beginning to lose part of what gives them that power and control – their uncaring attitude to how they appear physically …
(Dotson, 1999: 144)
While he makes no mention of them at all, throughout Dotson’s account we hear the main mass culture/society arguments of the Frankfurt School (see for example, Adorno, 1991; Strinati, 1995; Sinclair, 2002), with men positioned as victims hypnotised into false- consciousness by media and advertising that is “always blatant in its attempt to brainwash consumers” (1999: 37), and we hear Baudrillardian laments about the cultural depthlessness and moral bankruptcy of late capitalism (see for example Baudrillard, 1983, 1996; Jameson, 1984; Collins, 1989) but most importantly, Dotson suggests that the $3.3 billion American male beauty industry was created – imposed upon men – by the media, marketing and advertising.
42
Some British cultural theorists predicted such arguments; “some would argue that [the new man] was never more than a gleam in the ad man’s eye, just one more nasty con- trick by the mendacious magician of consumer capitalism” wrote Chapman in 1998, and while she suggested that there “was something deeply suspicious about the enthusiasm with which the new man was taken up by the media … attempts to pass the new man off as pure media hype simply will not do … if he exists in the fantasies of ad men he exists in flesh and blood; advertising reacts to social trends, it doesn’t create them” (Chapman, 1988: 228-229). Mort similarly argued that “the so-called new man isn’t simply a marketing creation, very few successful trends ever are” (1988: 198), insisting that “consumers are not just blank pages waiting to be written on at will” (1988: 213). Upon meeting a classic ‘anti-consumerist’ response supported by “the same old exploitative logic” of a “coup from above” by advertisers simply looking for new markets whenever he discussed the new man phenomenon, Mort asked whether consumption worked in quite that simple a way, arguing for a more sophisticated way of theorising the dialogic relationship between consumer capitalism and popular experience;
I don’t believe that consumption is simply foisted on gullible populations by marketing hype and the lust for profit. It doesn’t come just from above; from the ad agencies and the marketing men. The cultures of consumption are the point where the market meets popular experience and lifestyles on the ground. And this is a two-way process. Marketers and advertisers within the firm have always known this; that’s why they do such detailed consumer research. It is time left economists and those working in cultural politics grasped it as well.
(Mort:1988: 215)
Mort’s central contention was that for the new man ads to catch on they needed to “tap into where young men are actually at. In other words, they must get listened to by young men’s culture on the ground” (1988: 213). Nixon similarly suggested that in order to take off, discursive subject positions such as the new man must meet an historical individual, such as the reader of a magazine on the ground, (Nixon, 1996:14; see also Ballaster et al, 1991: 2) and as the new man imagery did actually enjoy some degree of popular
43 legitimacy and recognition, he argues that this cultural identity must have connected with the felt culture of certain groups of young men (Nixon, 2003: 7).
Cultural Economy and the ‘New Lad’
Mort’s challenge for a more sophisticated way of theorising a dialogic relationship between consumer capitalism and popular experience in the context of the opening up of young men’s markets was taken up by magazine and masculinity theorists – including Mort himself – who embraced the emergent paradigm of ‘cultural economy’ which challenged the traditional perceived divide or dualism between the spheres of ‘culture’ and ‘economics’ (du Gay and Pryke, 2000). Scott Lash and John Urry were perhaps the first to suggest that in post-industrial societies “the economy is increasingly culturally inflected and … culture is more and more economically inflected” (1994: 64), generating new ways of thinking about the mutually constitutive relationship between the realms of culture and economics in the production of contemporary cultural goods and services (see for example the collection of essays in du Gay, 1997; du Gay and Pryke, 2000; Jackson et al, 2001; Crewe, 2003a). For Sean Nixon, the value of the cultural economy model lies in its recognition of the “interdependence of economic and cultural practices and their relations of reciprocal effect in the sphere of cultural production” and that exploring the imbricated relationships between the ‘economic’ and the ‘cultural’ is the real challenge for cultural analysis.” (Nixon, 1996: 199).
In the 1980s Mort saw the new man phenomenon as “a designer-led retail revolution which responds rapidly to changing lifestyles and consumer demand” (Mort, 1988: 208, my emphasis), suggesting an interdependent rather than linear relationship between the spheres of production and consumption, and significantly, one in which the cultures of consumers on the ground affect the production process. Within the British academy, this aspect of the cultural economy paradigm has been embraced and developed largely by the key theorists of men’s magazines and new masculine subjectivities, and especially among those magazine scholars concerned with the subjectivity of the ‘new lad’, for the subject of analysis has co-evolved with new research techniques, frameworks and methodologies.
44
The introduction and phenomenal success of Loaded, launched in 1994 changed the face of men’s magazine publishing in Britain, and the ‘lad mag’ genre catapulted men’s magazines to a truly mainstream status (Jackson et al, 2001; Edwards, 2003). The ‘new lad’ subjectivity which Loaded (and subsequently its competitors) encoded was the antithesis of the feminist, sensitive, stylish and narcissistic new man found in GQ or Arena. The ‘lad’ was constructed as younger, anti-feminist, overtly heterosexual and more working class. He was anti-aspirational and hedonistic, concerned primarily with drinking, football, ‘shagging’ women and ogling ‘babes’ (Benwell, 2003; Gill, 2003; Crewe, 2003; Jackson et al, 2001, Stevenson et al, 2003). The ‘lad mags’’ obsession with, and hyper-sexualisation of, women’s bodies marked a total rejection of the gay- influenced iconography of the 1980s publications, (Bancroft, 1998: 33) representing for Nixon the marking of a “more assertive articulation of the post-permissive masculine heterosexual script” which closed down the spaces of sexual ambivalence associated with the new man imagery (Nixon, 1996: 203). Indeed, there was little visual representation of men at all in the ‘lad mags’ according to Bethan Benwell, who suggested that compared to women’s magazines, images of men and especially desirable, sexualised or commodified men, were a relative scarcity in magazines like Loaded (Benwell, 2003: 156), while Edwards identified a “near neurotic denial of homoeroticism” in the over- sexualisaton of female bodies and the absence of men’s in the magazines which emerged after 1994 (2003: 139).
Stevenson, Jackson and Brooks observed that the softer, more emotional and caring versions of masculinity associated with the new man were “displaced by ‘harder’ images of drinking to excess, a predatory attitude to women and obsessive independence” (Stevenson et al, 2003: 121) in the new laddish genre. While appearance, grooming, fashion and increasingly, health and fitness were the core concerns of the new man magazines of the 1980s (Wheaton, 2003), care of the self was not a feature of the ‘lad mags’. “In fact” wrote Bancroft, “it is explicitly denied by it” (1988: 33). Jackson et al (2001: 103) defined new laddism as a high-risk culture which encouraged drinking to excess, drug-taking and sexual hedonism “regardless of the personal consequences”. The
45 new man’s obsessive care for personal appearance was also negated by the new lad ideology;
Loaded should be rammed full of the things that people go on about in the pub and that stuff like health and perfume should be left to the adult mags. Remember, grooming is for horses.
(Quoted in Jackson et al, 2001: 77)
Apart from the key ‘grooming is for horses’ line here, what is interesting about Brown’s comments is that grooming is also for grown-ups, not the imagined/constructed juvenile readership of Loaded who revel in adolescent boyishness free from adult responsibility. Benwell suggests that the regressive and adolescent tendencies of the laddish magazines, represented by a “nostalgic retreat to infantile forms of behaviour, including scatological obsessions, puerile humour, absence of references to work or social responsibility” indicated a form of “rebellious posturing against ‘adult’ authority (or possibly feminism)” and perhaps a crisis of adult masculinity1 often attributed to the laddish representation of magazine masculinity (Benwell, 2003: 13).
As a signifier of the so-called ‘crisis’ in masculinity, the new lad has commonly been interpreted as a backlash against feminism, and if not against feminism itself then as a backlash against the feminist, and effeminate ‘navel-gazing’ new man construction (see for example Benwell, 2003; Gill, 2003; Bancroft 1998; Jackson et al 2001; Nixon, 1996). A pervasive subjectivity found across a wide range of intertextual cultural sites in Britain throughout the 1990s (see for example Benwell, 2003; Wheaton, 2003), the ‘new lad’ was interpreted by both the readers and the writers of magazines such as Loaded, FHM and Maxim as signifying a return to a more ‘authentic’ or ‘honest’ masculinity (see for example Jackson et al, 2001, 2003; Crewe, 2003a, 2003b; Gill, 2003), and it was this perceived more ‘natural’ or ‘realistic’ representation of men, suggest Jackson et al which fuelled the unprecedented success of the cultural phenomenon of new laddism in Britain
1 For accounts which suggest a ‘crisis in masculinity’ see Faludi, 1999; Nixon, 1996: 382 and Rutherford’s revised introduction to Male Order, 1996: 7
46 (2001: 36-37). Moreover, if the new man had, as Nixon and Mort suggest, connected with the real cultures of certain groups of men on the ground, then the ’lad’ seemed to connect with immeasurably more;
Loaded’s popularity and the rapidity with which the new lad superseded the new man as the dominant commercial representations of the modern male undoubtedly conveyed real resonance with lived cultures of masculinity.
(Crewe, 2003: 91)
The fact that both the readers (Jackson et al, 2001) and writers (Crewe, 2003) of Loaded considered the new lad a more ‘authentic’ representation of masculinity than the new man is significant, not only for the fact itself, but for illustrating how the cultural economy methodology can demonstrate how the cultures of consumers inform the production and content of cultural products. Concerned with “questions about producer- consumer relationships, the interaction of the commercial and the creative, professional knowledge and practices and the perception of media audiences” (Crewe, 2003a: 15), cultural economists employ a ‘circuit of culture’ (Johnson, 1986; du Gay, 1997; Nixon, 1997; Jackson et al, 2001: 2; Crewe, 2003b: 109; Benwell et al, 2003: 89, 155; Benwell, 2007: 541) rather than linear encoding/decoding model of communication which suggests that each ‘moment’ in a circular relationship between commercial production, representation and consumption necessarily informs the other components, with no one particular stage dominating the communication process (Jackson et al, 2001: 4; Crewe, 2003: 18).
Some magazine masculinity theorists survey all of the various ‘moments’ in the circuit; in their analysis of the phenomenal success of the new generation of men’s magazines in Britain for example, Peter Jackson, Nick Stevenson and Kate Brooks (2003) explored the production issues and editorial decisions involved in the shaping of the thematic content of the magazines in the context of readership and interpretation among different groups of young men. Combining interviews with editors, textual analysis and ethnographic research via focus groups, Jackson et al sought to determine how the content of the
47 magazines was informed by both the producers and the consumers of the texts to demonstrate how “the practices of markets and economics are profoundly cultural” (Jackson et al, 2001: 3, 44). Building on Joke Hermes’ (1995) ethnographic work with readers of women’s magazines, Jackson et al explored how readers themselves ‘made sense’ of the thematic content of men’s magazines, an approach also taken by Bethan Benwell (2007) in her analysis of how readers of men’s magazines responded to the magazines’ strategic use of irony. Other cultural economists concerned with men’s popular texts have conducted ethnographic research not with consumers themselves, but with the producers of such cultural products which they suggest, combined with textual analysis and the success of the product itself, can tell us much about how producers imagine their audiences, and therefore much about readerships themselves (see for example Mort, 1996; Nixon, 2003; Crewe, 2003a; Benwell et al, 2003). Crewe argues that this is the key to understanding how the cultures of consumers inform the production process, for aside from their role as interpreters and meaning-makers of cultural texts, consumers “play a critical role in the production process in the minds of programme- makers, editors and similar practitioners” and that as their preferences are monitored with increasing interest, cultural consumers are increasingly invoked and incorporated into decision-making in the sphere of production, becoming “comprehensively integrated into the production dynamic” (Crewe, 2003a: 19, my emphasis).
In theorising the inextricable relationships between the ‘cultural’ and ‘economic’ spheres, cultural economists position key practitioners of the creative industries such as advertisers, image-makers, media producers, market researchers and public relations workers as cultural intermediaries who perform the crucial role of mediating the two-way dialogue between the spheres of production and consumption (see for example Nixon, 1996, 2003; du Gay, 1997; du Gay and Pryke, 2000; Crewe, 2003a). According to Crewe and Nixon, these intermediaries draw on formal investigation or professional knowledges on target markets in the form of research and development data from focus groups, questionnaires, sales figures and the like in order to communicate more effectively with their defined audiences; but for them what is of crucial importance is key practitioners’ more elusive informal knowledges of their target markets in mediating a successful two-
48 way dialogue between producers and consumers, and particularly when the subjective identities and cultural identifications of the practitioners themselves approximated those of the target audience, as was the case they suggest, in the opening up of young men’s consumer markets.
Both Nixon (2003) and Crewe (2003) drew from Frank Mort’s work into the social and professional cultures of British advertising creatives behind the ‘new man’ campaigns of the 1980s (1996) in developing their hypotheses that the cultural proximity of copywriters and art directors of ‘laddish’ campaigns (Nixon) and the editors of men’s magazines (Crewe) to their target audiences was the determining factor in their success, for these practitioners drew on their own cultural repertoires in their creative executions to address a target audience which was very much understood. In his interviews with the founding editors of Loaded James Brown and Tim Southwell for example, Crewe found that they had based the magazine on their own lifestyles, concerns and ambitions (2003b: 97) while Nixon’s ethnographic work with advertising creatives at leading London agencies revealed a profession overwhelmingly dominated by young, upper working class males working in creative departments characterised by sexist masculine cultures and little occupational restraint2, and a work-related social culture which involved juvenile drinking games and food fights in Soho restaurants, bars and clubs and the appropriation of “loud, brash, rude, laddish” codes of masculinity 3 (2003: 147-150). The emergence of ‘lad mags’ and the intensification of ‘laddish’ advertising campaigns – marked by a tendency to be “irreverent, hedonistic, self-mocking, culturally self-
2 The concept of ‘cultural economy’ comprises two strands; the incorporation of the cultures of consumers into the production dynamic – the strand I take up throughout the thesis – and the increasing ‘culturalization’ or ‘casualisation’ of the workplace, involving a more relaxed and informal organisational environment more suited to the unleashing of creativity, particularly in the cultural or creative industries such as advertising, marketing, publishing and content production (see for example Lash and Urry, 1994; Mort, 1996; du Gay, 1997; Leadbeater, 1999; Castells, 2000; Nixon, 2003; Florida, 2005). While this move towards ‘soft’ capitalism generated by the culturalization of economic life is important in the production and content of men’s lifestyle magazines and advertising aimed at men in particular, as I do not enter into dialogue with the producers of the magazines and advertisements I analyse in the thesis, I have focussed only on the strand of the cultural economy model which emphasises how the cultures of consumers inform the production dynamic.
3 See also Mort’s discussion of the gendered work cultures of British creative departments, and of advertising and media professionals ‘at play’ in Soho in the late 1980s (1996: 117-120 and 173)
49 conscious, laced with innuendo and unashamedly heterosexual” (Crewe, 2003b: 96) – throughout Britain in the 1990s then, was driven by cultural practitioners who were essentially ‘lads’ themselves, and through their own identification with this particular masculine script they were able to engage with consumers in a commercially-productive, two-way gendered dialogue which drew from the ‘authentic’ and ‘honest’ languages and idioms of the new lad (Nixon, 2003). David Abrahamson suggests that magazines are an ‘exceptional’ media text because the editors, writers and readers of magazines share a direct community of interest, and “are often, indeed literally, the same people. There is no journalistic distance” (Abrahamson, 2007: 669). As Nixon and Crewe’s ethnographic work demonstrates, contemporary men’s lifestyle magazines and ‘laddish’ advertising campaigns are particularly pertinent sites for exploring a gendered lack of ‘journalistic distance’ between the producers and consumers of media forms.
The implications of this new work around the cultural economy of masculinity, representation and consumption emerging from British cultural studies are two-fold. Firstly they demonstrate how cultural understandings and knowledges of target markets necessarily inform successful economic practices in a mutual exchange between the spheres of production and consumption; but more importantly, they also demonstrate how these knowledges or imaginings of the producers of men’s popular cultural texts of their readerships and audiences are often founded on real experiences and affiliations, strongly re-affirming texts such as advertising and men’s magazines as important sites for looking at the performance and cultural meanings of contemporary masculinities.
Australian Research
As is true for magazine studies in general, compared to the wealth of British academic texts and cultural analyses concerned with masculinity and men’s magazines, Australian research has so far been much more limited, and the work which does exist is at times anecdotal, and/or found mainly in journal articles rather than in whole publications devoted to them. As I emphasised earlier, in my search for existing literature on magazines I found only one book which was dedicated solely to magazines, and this was concerned with Australian men’s magazines. Authored by Mark Dapin, who has written
50 for a wide range of Australian men’s popular magazines, and who was editor of Ralph magazine in the late 1990s, Sex and Money: How I lived, breathed, read, wrote, loved, hated, dreamed and drank men’s magazines (2004) is an autobiography which provides fascinating insights into the world of men’s publishing in Australia. Writing in the colloquial lad-mag style of Ralph itself, Dapin discusses the Australian ‘barbershop weeklies’ or the ‘p-mags’ – People, Australasian Post, Penthouse Australia and Picture – which made up the men’s popular magazines sector before the emergence of the lifestyle genre in the late 1990s, and he gives details about the launch and overall content of men’s magazines such as the AFR Magazine, Ralph, FHM, Max, GQ Australia and Men’s Health, providing the most comprehensive mapping of the men’s magazines landscape in Australia to date. But while the book is useful for tracking new launches, and for establishing the character of various Australian men’s magazines, it does not claim to be an academic publication, nor does it offer any critical analysis of the magazines themselves. What is most useful perhaps, is the book’s fly-on-the-wall insight into the professional cultures and personal personas of the writers and editors involved in men’s publishing in Australia.
Despite its paucity in comparison to British academic analyses – currently only four journal articles organised around Australian men’s magazines and masculinity exist – Australian work has produced sophisticated textual analyses of contemporary men’s lifestyle and sporting magazines (Schirato and Yell, 1999; Henderson, 1999; Cook, 2000) and more recently, investigation into the professional editorial practices of men’s lifestyle magazines (Mikosza, 2003).
Based on a series of interviews with key editorial staff at Ralph and the Australian version of FHM, Janine Mikosza’s 2003 paper was concerned with how audiences are constructed or imagined at the ‘front end’ of magazine production (Mikosza, 2003: 134). She found that while FHM conducted formal market research and focus groups to construct an image of their readers, the editor of Ralph relied more on ‘gut instinct’, a journalistic ‘feel’ formed by experience in the field and comparisons with other magazines on the market, and a concept that Mikosza suggested indicated a familiarity
51 with the audience (2003: 138). Mikosza also found in her interviews with editorial staff that readerships were constructed or imagined as an individual, or solitary ‘type’ such as the ‘Ralph guy’, who was overwhelmingly defined by his consumption habits; how much money he earns and what he consumes (2003: 136, 141-142). Drawing on Mort’s observations that consumption, traditionally associated with the feminine, is now a central part of imagining men, (1996: 17-18) Mikosza emphasises the key role of men’s lifestyle magazines in the gendering of consumption as male, but also how ‘feminine’ consumption is made masculine through professional competition between the editorial staff of the two Australian magazines, fought out over the ideal or imagined reader. Despite the obvious similarity of their targeted audience – young, white, male, heterosexual with a disposable income – she found that consumption habits, and in particular certain brands and products, framed the editors’ construction of their readerships, with a local/parochial subjectivity pitted against a more internationalised and cosmopolitan one. Mikosza suggests that “Ralph positions itself as an ‘Australian’ publication for ‘genuine’ Australian men, whilst FHM markets itself as more sophisticated, cosmopolitan and urban than Ralph” (2003: 143). She found that the FHM reader was defined by brands such as Armani and Calvin Klein, whereas the Ralph ‘guy’ was more into street wear and casual Australian brands. Mikosza argues that while the lifestyle magazine genre had challenged traditional discourses of gender and consumption, a ‘typically’ Australian masculinity was still considered to be working class;
The Ralph guy is described as far more ‘down to earth’ — or ‘downmarket’, depending on the perspective — more ‘Australian’ and more ‘masculine’ than the FHM reader. There is also a distinction between a sophisticated global masculinity and a local Australian masculinity. Both magazines set up these dichotomies …
(Mikosza, 2003: 142)
Recalling his time and experiences as editor of Ralph in the late 1990s, Mark Dapin (2004) himself wrote about such ‘local/international’ rivalry – played out mainly around the areas of class, brands and fashion – between the two magazines, and this dichotomy
52 was also noted by Tony Schirato and Susan Yell in their 1999 paper about the new forms of masculine subjectivity on offer in Australian men’s lifestyle magazines, and in particular in Ralph. They suggested that while the more ‘upmarket’ contemporary men’s magazines such as FHM, Max and Men’s Health produced forms of masculinity which were ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘internationalised’, the more downmarket Ralph
produces itself in terms of a strident, even ‘gross’ masculinity, well exemplified by the magazine’s title (an ocker term for ‘vomit’) … potentially interpellating subjectivities which are more overtly homophobic and ‘ocker’, and which are produced through interest in and literacies with regard to sport, cars, alcohol and women, and through the celebration and fetishising of violence.
(Schirato and Yell, 1999: 85)
Ralph magazine is best described as Australia’s version of Loaded, sharing many of Loaded’s ‘laddish’ characteristics, but with an ‘ocker’ or working class Australian flavour and voice. In their analysis of the ‘gross’ masculine subjectivities produced in the magazine, Schirato and Yell draw on Judith Butler’s concept of gender as an ‘out of synch’ performative iteration, and on Pierre Bordieu’s notion of habitus to suggest that in a post-feminist world, both the writers and the readers of Ralph are self-consciously aware that this is an illegitimate masculinity (1999: 87), and that the magazine’s ‘ockerism’ represents a “nostalgic/comic iteration which loves to visit the original site, but wouldn’t dream of living there” (1999: 88). Arguing that Ralph is crafted so that everything that is ‘given’ – the “stereotype of a mindless, violence-addicted, boozing homophobic and misogynist Australian masculinity” – is simultaneously ‘taken away’ by its marking as a ‘comic’ performance of excess, they suggest that the discrepancy between the habitus and the field, between the stereotypical ocker masculinity and the social and political imperatives that have produced the ‘new age’ male, means that the writers and readers of Ralph know full well that its version of ‘gross’ masculinity is absurd, for they and the world have moved on and for Schirato and Yell, that is the comforting point (1999: 87-88).
53 Published around the same time as Schirato and Yell’s essay, in her 1999 paper Margaret Henderson analysed representations of masculinity in two Australian men’s sports magazines – Tracks (surfing) and Two Wheels (motorcycling) – in the context of growing academic and popular pronouncements of a ‘crisis’ in masculinity, to explore whether contemporary Australian masculinity is “superficially stirred, rather than fundamentally shaken” by recent challenges from feminism and the restructuring of the economy within late capitalism, the two main factors often attributed to such a ‘crisis’ (1999: 64). Nominating sport as central to myths of Australian national identity, and therefore a critical site for the inscription and maintenance of hegemonic masculinity, she suggests that sporting magazines “provide an access point to explore what symbolic, ideological and discursive shifts have occurred in masculinist ideology” (1999: 65).
Henderson’s description of Tracks shows many similarities between the Australian surfing magazine and other theorists’ observations about general interest ‘lad’ mags. For example, she demonstrates the magazine’s use of language as centred on “double- entendre sexuality, scatological references, alliteration and hyperbole”, with a humour which is blatantly misogynistic and homophobic (1999: 66), supporting Benwell’s (2003) suggestions that these regressive characteristics may denote a masculinity in crisis. But unlike Schirato and Yell, she does not claim that the writers and readers have ‘moved on’ from such an ‘illegitimate’ masculinity, but suggests that the sport of surfing – threatened by late capitalism’s takeover of its once anti-commercial activity and the entry of women at professional level – has “remade and hardened the symbolic identity of the surfer into a hyper-masculinised and misogynistic figure to mark its difference from an imagined feminised mainstream” (1999: 75). Echoing Jackson et al (2001) and Benwell’s (2003) suggestion that magazines such as Loaded construct a form of ‘certitude’ around a pre- feminist masculinity, Henderson suggests that Tracks represents “a scene of nostalgia for a more certain patriarchal past” (1999: 65).
Identifying motorcycling as a sport with “a corresponding aura of macho heroics, rebellion, rugged individualism, and male domination”, Henderson’s analysis of motorcycling magazine Two Wheels found that while it offered similar narratives and
54 characters – “legends and heroes, blokes and yobbos” – to Tracks, addressed the reader in a similar informal language, and offered sexualised imagery and double-entendre, it lacked the juvenile humour and scatological references, and it was less misogynist, presenting women as “protagonists/subjects rather than mute receptacles of male desire” (1999: 71-72), suggesting that unlike Tracks, Two Wheels “has ‘opened up’ to the changed socio-political and economic conditions occasioned by feminism and late capitalism, as evident in its loosening of the masculine symbolic identities on offer” (1999: 75). Concluding that both magazines continued to offer the male reader the opportunity of conquest – one of nature, the other of technology – and a journey away from the responsibilities of work, home, family and relationships, situating the hero outside the discipline of the patriarchal capitalist order, Henderson suggests that while Two Wheels is poised on the cusp of a new version of masculinity, Australian hegemonic masculinity on the whole is stirred, but not shaken by recent challenges from feminism and late capitalism.
In her paper Men’s Magazines at the Millennium (2000) Jackie Cook poses a similar research question to Henderson, and to earlier ‘new man’ theorists such as Chapman (1988) in asking whether new representations of masculinity in Australian men’s magazines signal a shift in gendered sexual politics. She suggests that between 1995 and 1999 there was a clear emergence of a range of new-masculinity representations within the Australian media;
Images of Australian men were under pressure to move from the more traditional, rough-and-tough masculinity of body bulk, physical strength and a belief in invulnerability – a hegemony of working class manual labour and rural independence – to a cooler masculinity of rationalized and planned physical fitness.
(2000: 172)
Cook’s central concern is whether the appeal to traditional Australian masculinity as a vulnerable body in need of protection from disease or the stresses of everyday life (feminisation) represents opportunities for a plurality of masculine identities or simply a
55 reassertion of old values to new locations (Cook, 2000: 179). She takes as her subject a new disciplining of the male body in the media since 1995 via discourses of ‘self-health’, exploring an intensification of regulatory health regimes within three sites of representation; body-building and fitness magazines, the behavioural advice columns of surfing magazines and skin-care marketing in men’s general interest magazines (2000: 174).
In my review of existing work, Cook’s paper and a more recent essay by Bethan Benwell (2007) were the only two instances of critical academic enquiry into representations of new feminine grooming practices for men in men’s lifestyle magazines, and as such they are the most relevant and useful sources for my own research, and in particular Jackie Cook’s work which situates the analysis in a specifically Australian context. Cook and Benwell take a similar methodological approach in developing in-depth textual analyses of the discursive representation of a pedicure in Ralph (Cook) and facial, manicure and massage treatments in Maxim (Benwell) combined with ethnographical reader/audience responses to such grooming texts. Moreover, despite the absence of Cook’s earlier work in Benwell’s references for her paper, their findings and hypotheses are strikingly similar.
Identifying skin care as a procedure that “risks the erosion of masculinity itself” (Cook, 2000: 178) and a subject matter that “raises the spectre of an ‘unmanly’ masculinity” (Benwell, 2007: 546), both theorists suggest that the connotations of femininity and passivity associated with the consumption of beauty products, and the threat to gendered cultural inscriptions of power and control require complex discursive repositioning work and negotiation by the producers of text (Cook, 2000: 177; Benwell, 2007: 546). Such work involved compensatory hyper-masculine discourses and over-resistive machismo around skin care for men (Cook, 2000) and the use of ‘exaggeratedly macho’ language in the masculinisation of potentially feminine grooming products (Benwell, 2007: 545-546). According to Cook, skin care marketing discourse must over-compensate for its apparent abandonment of the invulnerability of the male body and re-establish masculine dominance and control, and one of the ways in which it does this is through the alignment of the male body with the industrial and technological machining of surfaces (Cook,
56 2000: 177). Alongside the tough machining of the male body, Cook identified a technologization of the product itself (2000: 177) and found that other hyper-masculine discourses such as rational argumentation, the numeric marshalling of points and evocation of scientific formulae and scientific explanation characterised the behavioural advice columns of men’s magazines (2000: 179).
A second textual device identified by both Cook and Benwell in the discursive masculinisation of beauty/skin care products for men in men’s lifestyle magazines was the use of humour and irony. Benwell suggests that the strategic use of irony – a common device in ‘lad mags’ – functions on two levels; it allows the articulation of sexist or homophobic views while at the same time disclaiming them, and it legitimates participation in the “feminised” realm of consumption (2007: 539-540). In their textual analysis of the Maxim facial feature (Benwell) and Ralph pedicure segment (Cook), both theorists suggested that humour attempted to reassure an imagined ideal reader who was anxious about the product’s troubling associations with femininity, while Cook was more explicit in suggesting that carefully-positioned jokes in the text both anticipated and validated the resistance and nervous cynicism of the recalcitrant reader, setting up what she calls the “pre-emptive response technique” in which the irreverent joke aims to accommodate and control the likely over-reactions of the implied hyper-masculine reader (2000: 178). While Benwell’s analysis is centred mainly on the use of irony in grooming discourse in men’s magazines, Cook’s combines the use of humour with other “mollifying transformational moves” used in the text to inoculate the foot-care procedures from a dis-empowering effeminacy, and in particular the evocation of hetero- sexualised pleasure in anticipation of hyper-masculine resistance to feminised softening (2000: 178).
Cook demonstrates how the Ralph pedicure piece was lightly eroticised, with the procedure mediated by young attractive female columnists who ‘stood in’ for the professional podiatrists at the specialised Sydney male salon the segment was advertising, and the advice that the pedicure amounted to an ‘erotic pampering’ which was ‘as much
57 fun as toe-sucking’ (Cook, 2000: 178-179). In sexualising and eroticising the procedure, Cook argues that
… the text strips the product of undesirable femininity … and replaces it with a correctly masculo-centric, heterosexualised femininity. By re-establishing a male control over all aspects of femininity, the text inoculates the commodity and renders it acceptable for male use.
(Cook, 2000: 179)
Taken with the macho hyper-masculine discourses of skin care marketing, Cook suggests that this sexualised masculine dominance points to an authentic and socially central masculinity left undisturbed, a similar conclusion reached by Benwell in her textual analysis of a feature on facials. Like Cook, she proposes that the feature incorporated elements of an oppositional feminine discourse (that men may care about their bodies), but the use of homophobic and sexist ironic humour preserves the principles of the new lad masculinity, and leaves traditional assumptions about gender and narcissism intact. For Benwell, magazine masculinity retains its power by a complex layering of irony and ambiguity (Benwell, 2007: 546). In her account, Cook also identifies a textual ‘layering’ strategy which she suggests is central in maintaining a traditional masculine dominance of the sex/gender system, and which works by the re-appropriation of resistant behaviours; whenever resistance arises, it is re-appropriated – via irreverent, ‘ocker’ or sexist humour and over-compensatory masculine discourses – into a reformed, but still socially central masculinity (2000: 181, 185).
What is interesting about Cook’s work in particular is how she identifies various strategies found in men’s health advisories across all three sites of her analysis – skin care discourses in Ralph, body building and surfing magazines – which reassert “a comfortable degree of reassuring autonomy, recalcitrance ‘toughness’ and certainty around new behaviours” (2000: 184) which are predominantly centred on a
… commonality of resistance between columnists and readers [which] manages the construction of a form of larrikin backwash active inside
58 the onward rush of regulatory advice … to represent larrikinism as an ongoing, even re-emergent strategy for survival within identity formation.
(Cook, 2000: 179)
In this oppositional reading to that offered by Schirato and Yell (1999), who suggest that larrikinism (or ‘ockerism’) is considered an ‘illegitimate’ masculinity by the readers of Ralph, Cook suggests that while definitions of ‘ideal’ masculinity open to admit ‘self- health’ regimes, offering up opportunities for a plurality of masculine identities, these positions rapidly re-close around the reformed, but still powerful principles of a socially and culturally dominant masculinity (2000: 184).
Thesis Outline and Methodology
When I began this research in 2003, the Australian media were somewhat obsessed with the figure of the ‘metrosexual’, a new highly narcissistic masculine identity who was linked to the booming Australian men’s toiletries and cosmetics markets, and to the recent launch of men’s fashion and style magazines such as Men’s Style Australia and GQ. I took these media debates around the ‘metrosexual’ and the recent market growth in men’s grooming products such as skin care, hair care and fragrances in particular as my starting point for the thesis, presenting the current situation and organising the ensuing chapters around question what drove the emergence of a feminised and consumerised mediated male beauty culture in Australia; where did the metrosexual phenomenon ‘come from’?
Despite its implications for the emergence of more feminised masculine identities which fracture ideologies of traditional Australian manliness, no comprehensive academic enquiry into the history or growth of the Australian male beauty industry exists, and so the intense debates which took place in the popular press around the figure of the ‘metrosexual’ become crucial material for mapping the phenomenon and for drawing out the main factors at play. Employing poststructuralist textual analysis, in Chapter 2 I
59 survey these debates, positioning popular journalists as vernacular theorists (McLaughlin, 1996) and suggesting it was here where the most critical and informed discussion about Australian masculinity and men’s increasing beauty-consciousness was taking place in 2003. But while these press debates allow insights into where the metrosexual phenomenon might ‘come from’, they also demonstrate the dominant discourses involved in a specifically Australian discussion about male narcissism. Australian men were much slower in the take-up of new feminised grooming practices than British and American men, and so I take the press debates as a starting point for theorising this cultural peculiarity.
The thesis is concerned in the first instance with the representation of masculinity in Australian men’s magazines; but it is equally concerned with how Australian masculinity itself has been debated in the media. In the popular press debates around the emergence of ‘metrosexual’ in 2003, the sheer volume of articles and the way in which the phenomenon was discussed suggested that male grooming and image-consciousness was something really new in Australia. I found that many journalists suggested that the narcissistic identity transgressed gender norms; it was not ‘natural’ for men to pay overt attention to their appearance, but these discourses of gender transgression compounded with discourses of national identity, and the figure of the ‘metrosexual’ was often constructed as not simply ‘un-manly’ but also ‘un-Australian’. These findings inform Chapter 3, which provides instances from history to dispel notions of biological essentialism; there is nothing particularly ‘new’ about male narcissism, it has been going on since time immemorial. The chapter locates the emergence of the contemporary dominant discourse of a dualistic gender system which constructed the historical narcissistic predecessors of the ‘metrosexual’ as deviant through its separating out of ‘grooming’ and ‘beauty’ into oppositional gendered categories, and it explores how such figures were, and continued to be ‘queered’ in western popular culture. Meanwhile, contemporary journalists tended to suggest that the Australian ‘metrosexual’, signified overwhelmingly by David Beckham was an effete British import, and so in Chapter 3 I trace the history of these discourses, exploring the nineteenth century construction of an ideal ‘rough and tough’ Australian manliness that necessarily rested on its opposition to
60 an aesthetic British ‘other’.
Chapters 2 and 3 then provide the cultural and historical context for the main concerns of the thesis; how has the issue of male narcissism and grooming been communicated to Australian men in twentieth century men’s magazines? What does this tell us about shifting constructions of Australian masculinity? And in turn, does the representation of more feminised, aesthetic versions of Australian masculinity signal some kind of conciliation between constructions of Australian and British masculinities?
In Chapter 4 I employ textual and content analysis to explore discursive representations of grooming in MAN magazine, the first Australian men’s general interest title launched in Sydney in 1936 which remained in circulation until 1974. The first part of this chapter establishes an ‘old’ masculine grooming culture to which I can compare the ‘new’ feminised version. I suggest that early MAN presented the old grooming culture of modernity, the period of time up until the 1960s when the binaries of ‘grooming’ and ‘beauty’ were still firmly in place, and that this was a culture defined by traditional men’s grooming products and procedures that were functional and practical rather than cosmetic. In the final fifteen or so years of its publication, MAN presented an early emergent feminised grooming culture of postmodernity, characterised by the gradual dissolution of the gendered ideologies of grooming/beauty and the opening up of the older culture to allow previously-feminine associated products such as fragrances to enter into the masculine grooming lexicon. I look at the languages and visual technologies which were used to communicate the ‘older’ grooming culture to Australian men in MAN, and how traditional versions of Australian masculinity were constructed in the magazine, and I use these observations to frame my discussion of the magazine’s own representation of grooming in 1960s and 1970s, and to structure my analysis of grooming discourse in Australian men’s lifestyle magazines in the 1980s and 1990s.
My historical analysis of grooming discourses as they were presented in MAN, and my quest for predecessors of the Australian ‘metrosexual’ were influenced by the work of British and American theorists who have looked back into history for ancestors of the
61 ‘new man’ in historical men’s magazines (Nixon, 1996; Osgerby, 2003; Edwards, 2003). However, Australian research into men’s consumer and general interest magazines before the emergence and success of the current titles is non-existent, but in my search for possible predecessors of Ralph, FHM and Men’s Health in existing work on magazines I found several clues that they had indeed existed. Schirato and Yell for example referred to “the (short-lived) magazine Men’s Stuff” (1999: 81) which they discussed no further, while Frances Bonner’s statements that there had been “persistent difficulties” in launching a men’s style magazine like Arena in Australia (1997: 119) and that the success of the current genre of men’s magazines “follows the failure of many attempts to produce a men’s generalist magazine” (2006: 201) impelled me to investigate these elusive ‘failed attempts’ and ‘short-lived’ men’s titles.
Follow me Gentlemen, launched in Sydney in 1984 could be considered Australia’s version of Arena, and in Chapter 5 I analyse the representations and ideologies of grooming in this previously-unexplored Australian men’s style/lifestyle magazine. In this chapter I present the fully-fledged new, feminised grooming culture of postmodernity which was characterised primarily by skin care products and fragrances, and I analyse how these new products and procedures were presented to Australian men in the grooming editorials of Follow me Gentlemen. Drawing on existing work around the identity of the 1980s British ‘new man’ (Chapman, 1988; Rutherford, 1988; Benwell, 2003; Gill, 2003; Wheaton, 2003) I demonstrate that the grooming editorials in FMG opened up new representations of Australian masculinity to allow softer, more narcissistic constructions which relied less on ideologies of macho toughness and an austere approach to grooming, and more on discourses of self-nurture, health and well- being. In this chapter I also draw on work around the codings of the new man iconography in the fashion photography and advertising in the British men’s style press in the 1980s (Mort, 1988; Rutherford, 1988; Mort, 1996; Nixon, 1996) to explore the visual representation of the newly-feminised men’s grooming culture in Follow me Gentlemen and the available masculine identities on offer in its imagery.
Follow me Gentlemen was Australia’s only foray into the men’s style press in the 1980s,
62 and while it remained in circulation until 1991, it was a localised Sydney-based magazine with relatively meagre sales, never actually achieving mass market status. In Chapter 6 I explore popular press discussion about why the magazine failed, and I theorise the much later development of the contemporary men’s lifestyle magazines market in Australia compared to Britain, for while Australian publishers were still struggling to even launch a successful men’s lifestyle title in the mid-1990s, the sector had experienced a 400% growth in the UK (Jackson et al, 2001: 29) which added to the existing style press titles of the 1980s. At the launch of three new men’s magazines in 1995 popular journalists debated the probability that these attempts would succeed, suggesting that Australian men were in some way ‘different’ from British or European men, and that in the mid-1990s they were still not yet ‘ready’ for a general interest magazine – despite the fact that MAN had survived for almost forty years, although as in academic histories, MAN was never mentioned or acknowledged in these popular debates. The new titles failed, and in Chapter 6 I look at two of these previously unanalysed flopped Australian men’s magazines of the mid-1990s, Men’s Stuff and Amnesia, neither of which survived more than two issues, to explore their overall character and format, their construction of Australian masculinity and how they represented issues of grooming and appearance in the light of the failure of FMG, and their editors’ imaginings of their intended readership published in the popular press.
In 1997, three new contemporary men’s lifestyle magazines were launched in Australia which finally found success in the mass market; Max, Ralph and Men’s Health all surpassed previous sales, prompting the launch of FHM and GQ Australia in 19984 and finally Men’s Style Australia in 2003. In Chapter 6 I illustrate how the Australian magazines which were based on the British ‘new lad’ magazines formula – Max, Ralph and FHM – were the publications which broke the Australian market, and I offer suggestions as to why Australia did not develop a men’s style press until 2003, almost fifteen years after similar British successes. In the latter half of Chapter 6 I employ content and textual analysis to explore discourses of grooming in two of these titles Max and Ralph, chosen for analysis because of their status as specifically Australian
4 GQ Australia folded after 18 months, and was re-launched in 2003
63 magazines rather than a local franchise of a global brand such as FHM, Men’s Health and GQ, while Men’s Style Australia was omitted from the analysis mainly for reasons of space.
My discussion around the opening up of the men’s lifestyle magazines and contemporary male grooming markets in Australia in Chapter 6 draws from existing work on the British ‘new lad’ and his associated publications, and in particular the work around the cultural economy of masculinity, representation and consumption (Nixon, 2003; Crewe, 2003; Benwell et al, 2003). My textual analysis of grooming in Max and Ralph found that Ralph, the most ‘bloke-ish’ and ‘ocker’ of the new Australian magazines, presented a highly feminised and consumerised male grooming/beauty culture, and I found that it – and to a lesser extent Max – communicated issues of grooming in a way which was markedly different from previous magazines’ representations. I suggest that Ralph in particular played a key role in sanctioning the use of feminine products and procedures for the ‘ordinary Australian bloke’ via its use of a typically ‘ocker’ sense of humour and mode of address which resonated with the imagined lived cultures, values and attitudes of its readers. Finally in Chapter 6 I argue that the close cultural resonance between the British ‘lad’ and the Australian ‘larrikin’ resolved some of the historical tensions around male narcissism between English and Australian masculinities, and indeed that it was this commonality between the ‘lad’ and the ‘larrikin’ which finally broke the men’s lifestyle magazines market in Australia.
64 Chapter 2 Vernacular Theory: Public discourses around the ‘metrosexual’ in the Australian popular press 2003 - 2004
Metrosexual man doesn't chew his fingernails - he goes to a salon to get them buffed … He indulges in facials and even pedicures. His bathroom cupboard is full of moisturisers, anti-wrinkle gels and other expensive grooming products. He reads men's fashion magazines, wears jewellery and also enjoys spa treatments.
(Philip Bartsch, Courier-Mail, October 2003)
Introduction
Aside from Jackie Cook’s (2000) discussion around men’s skin care marketing discourse as part of new regulatory health regimes for men in the media, currently no critical academic work into the emergence of a feminised commercial male grooming industry in Australia, and the implications of this for traditional constructions of Australian masculinity, exists. On the other hand, public debate within the wider Australian mediasphere around men’s increasing narcissism and use of toiletries and cosmetics – signified by the figure of the ‘metrosexual’ – has been much more vibrant. Utilising Thomas McLaughlin’s (1996) concept of vernacular theory, which suggests that critical analysis and cultural theory is not exclusive to the academy, but is also produced by a diverse range of non-academic people in both social and professional capacities, this chapter positions the journalists of the popular press as important vernacular theorists of Australian masculinity. As I show throughout the chapter, in the absence of academic work, it is within the philosophies of popular journalism that the most informed and critical debates are taking place about the social, economic and cultural implications of the burgeoning male toiletries and cosmetics industries and increasing beauty consciousness among Australian men.
I discuss the debates which appeared in the Australian popular press around the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ between March 2003, right at the beginning of my initial
65 PhD research, and March 2004, employing poststructuralist textual analysis to look for available discourses and likely interpretations of the phenomenon of masculine narcissism in this country. The sample was obtained via a Factiva database search, which produced 75 articles in the mainstream Australian press which had used the word ‘metrosexual’ over the year. I read through all of these, looking for common themes and ended up using about 45 of them to inform this discussion. The bulk of the material came from the national and regional popular press although nine articles came from specialist business newspapers the Australian Financial Review and Business Review Weekly, but this is not to say that these were necessarily where the most informed debates took place. Throughout the first four months of the sample, the metrosexual appeared in only a handful of articles, but from June 2003 three new developments stimulated intense media discussion and interest in the phenomenon; the opening of ‘The Male Depot’ men’s grooming products area in major Myer and Grace Bros department stores across the country in June, Gillette’s launch of Australia’s first ‘Men’s Grooming Week’ in Sydney in early July and the release of Marian Salzman’s The Future of Men in August. The Gillette report released at ‘Men’s Grooming Week’ indicated that Australian men were increasingly embracing a wide range of cosmetic grooming products and toiletries previously associated with women, while Salzman’s report showed that this was part of a global trend towards a greater consumption of fashion and cosmetics among men.
Surveying the press debates, I found that there are two types of popular theorists; those who follow the practices of traditional philosophy, basing much of their work on their own opinion, and those who carry out research to produce sophisticated and complex models of communication in the academic tradition of cultural economy I discussed in the last chapter. Both of these schools of thought in popular journalism are invaluable to the thesis. The work of the researchers/cultural economists offers up discourses about what drove the emergence of a popular, feminised mediated male grooming culture in Australia, while articles written by the opinion columnists are useful for identifying the dominant ideologies of a specifically Australian public discussion around the metrosexual. Moreover, as these discourses are often evoked to appeal for cultural resistance against feminine grooming products and practices among Australian men,
66 these public debates can also tell us much about the social discourses which may have delayed the emergence of a male beauty culture in this country, for Mark Simpson coined the term ‘the metrosexual’ in the British press in 1994, almost a decade before the figure appeared in the Australian press, who welcomed readers to “the era of the emerging ‘metrosexual’ male” in 2003 (Melocco, 2003: 19).
Defining the Metrosexual and Mapping the Australian Male Beauty Industry
In his original article in the British Independent newspaper, Simpson described the metrosexual as a “single young man with a high disposable income, living or working in the city (because that's where all the best shops are).” He wore expensive designer clothes and aftershaves, used moisturiser and freely embraced his narcissism (1994: 22). The ‘metrosexual’ subjectivity then, was essentially not all that different from the British ‘new man’, except in Simpson’s original definition, he was single and pointedly urban. In a later essay published in online magazine Salon which was picked up by the world media, Simpson defined metrosexuals as “young men with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a metropolis because that's where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference” (Simpson, 2002). By 2002 then, Simpson’s ‘metrosexual’ persona had become more of a fleshed-out subjectivity with a lifestyle that included shopping, nightclubs, gym culture and fitness and the issue of sexuality had been brought into the equation, clearly illustrating that constructions of masculinity are fluid rather than stable, even when given the same descriptive label. The defining characteristics of the metrosexual were now youth, class, spatial location, gender and sexuality and it is these themes which underpin, either explicitly or implicitly, public discussion around contemporary male grooming culture.
Australian journalists’ definitions and interpretations of the ‘metrosexual’ varied. Many used only the first part of Simpson’s 2002 definition, omitting the reference to sexual orientation and self-absorption (see for example Baker, 2003: 18; Burbury, 2003b: 12;
67 Burbury and Meagher, 2003: 18; Shoebridge, 2003: 63), while some embellished the original definition with descriptions such as “fashion-conscious men with money to spare who care about their looks” (Johnson, 2003: 23), “the urban image-conscious male with money to burn” (Langford, 2003: 12) or “an urban male with a strong aesthetic sense” (Rocchiccioli, 2004: 8). The metrosexual’s narcissism necessarily loomed large in descriptions such as “the pure narcissism of wealthy urban men” (Baird 2003: 61) and “a young man with a powerful concern for the way he looked” (Blacker, 2004: 18), while the sexuality of the metrosexual was most often defined as straight, not straight, gay or bisexual as Simpson originally suggested; “the term has come to refer to men of a heterosexual persuasion taking particular care of their appearances” wrote Rachael Langford in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail (2003: 12), a point made by similar definitions such as “straight but image-conscious blokes” (Lawrence, 2003: 25) and “heterosexual men who embrace typically feminine products and services” (Ross, 2003: 78). But while the metrosexual was officially branded straight in the press, he was assigned typically feminine or ‘gay’ characteristics; “a straight, urban-dwelling kind who is in touch with his feminine side and not afraid to flaunt it. Masculinity with a hint of mascara” wrote Philip Bartsch in the Courier-Mail (2003: H06), while Liam Phillips described the figure in The West Australian as “a city-dwelling, heterosexual man with the fashion and grooming savvy of his gay brothers (Phillips, 2003) and Anthony Dennis’ description in The Sydney Morning Herald was simply “heterosexual males with, well, homosexual shopping tendencies” (Dennis, 2003: 10).
Definitions of the metrosexual in the Australian press then, ranged right across the field from the objective, to the slightly over-feminised and homosexualised and finally to the more hysterically feminised and/or homosexualised, such as this definition from Ian Lovett of the Daily Telegraph;
“Our gushing New York fashion person explains: ‘Metrosexuals are straight urban men willing, even eager, to embrace their feminine sides. They're not gay, but sensitive chappies who don't mind splashing out on clothes and cosmetics.’” (Lovett, 2003: 23)
68
What these more frenzied definitions which over-feminise and ridicule the metrosexual persona indicate, as indeed does the sheer volume of articles appearing in the press about the metrosexual in 2003, is that Australia had never quite seen anything like this before, as though the concept of fashion-conscious, narcissistic men was something that was really new and transgressive in this country. While I have not surveyed how the metrosexual was discussed in the British media, given the ubiquitous presence of the 1980s ‘new man’ across the British popular mediascape, it is unlikely that his 1990s successor would generate quite so much hysteria as he did over here, for the ‘freakish’ metrosexual sent shockwaves across the Australian press and wider popular media throughout 2003.
Popular journalists noted that while the phenomenon had begun in the city, it was no longer exclusively urban. Peter Gotting suggested that while the trend had originated in inner-city areas such as Paddington and Newtown in Sydney, it was rapidly spreading “beyond the metropolitan and across Australia” (Gotting, 2003: 13). The metrosexual ‘cult’ (Wilson, 2003: 18; Hornery and Pearlman, 2003: 18) was reported as moving out of the more cosmopolitan cities of Sydney and Melbourne to more provincial cities such as Brisbane and Perth, whose local and state newspapers themselves testified for the existence of the metrosexual in their region. Rachael Langford suggested in the Courier Mail for example that over the last three years Brisbane men had adopted a level of grooming and fashion comparable to their Sydney and Melbourne counterparts (2003: 12). Viva Goldner reported that the metrosexual phenomenon was sweeping the central coast of New South Wales (Goldner, 2003: 1) and Adrian Piccoli identified the ‘rurosexual’, “the metrosexual’s country cousin” of country NSW in the Daily Telegraph (2003: 15). As Gotting suggested, metrosexuality was “happening everywhere” in Australia in 2003 (Gotting, 2003: 13), but significantly, more than fifteen years after the comparable ‘new man’ phenomenon was ‘happening everywhere’ across Britain in the late 1980s. Moreover, as the metrosexual trend moved out of the cities in Australia, it also became more egalitarian. Originally associated with wealthy urban and professional men, the Australian popular press was awash with stories in 2003 of ‘ordinary blokes’
69 who were taking up feminine beauty practices. From builders (Burbury and Meagher, 2003:18; Melocco, 2003: 19) and tree loppers (Lawrence, 2003: 25) to ‘truckies’ (Rocchiccioli, 2004: 8), working class men were portrayed as adopting ‘funky’ hairstyles, skin care products and embracing beauty services such as facials, waxing and day spas.
Aside from offering discursive definitions of the metrosexual and topographical patterns in men’s consumption of new grooming products and services, popular journalism is also a vital source for mapping the actual growth of the male beauty industry. Access to elusive official market research reports and sales statistics is expensive. The publication of reports, trends and data from market research companies such as Roy Morgan, AC Neilson, bU Australia and Euromonitor, and from industry associations such as the Cosmetics Toiletries and Fragrance Association in the press places popular journalism as an important mediator which freely informs both the general public and early researchers with low budgets about the state of the market, and the extent of use of new grooming products and services among Australian men. For example, it is from the popular press we learn that between 1995 and 2003 more than one million Australian men became regular cosmetic product buyers, representing a sales increase of 47% and one third of all cosmetic purchases (Casey, 2003: 17; Burbury, 2003b: 12), and that between 1997 and 2003, the sales of men’s grooming products in Australia rose from $355 million to $488 (Dow, 2005: 6). Popular journalists informed us that sales of men’s skin treatments grew by 24.2% in Australia in 2001, outstripping growth in the women’s market over the same period (Burbury, 2003a: 47; Melocco, 2003: 19; Smiedt, 2003: 38), and that in 2003 the men’s skin care industry in Australia was worth over $60 million, with supermarket sales accounting for $50 million of this figure (Smiedt, 2003: 38; Burbury, 2003a: 47). This in itself represents an important shift away from the association of wealth and class with men’s grooming practices, with supermarkets generally stocking downmarket fragrance brands such as Brut and Lynx, and the Nivea for Men skin care range rather than the top- end brands and expensive designer products carried by department stores such as David Jones or Myer. Indeed, sales of Nivea for Men, aimed at blue-collar workers and occupying a mid-price range, grew by 32% between 2002 and 2003 (Burbury, 2003a:
70 47), suggesting that working class men are not only increasingly embracing skin care routines, but they may be driving much of the growth.
What drove the emergence of a male beauty culture in Australia?
Gillette’s July 2003 report revealed that 65% of Australian men regularly used moisturiser or a moisturising aftershave lotion, and that 58% of men bought their own grooming products, leading to declarations in the press that “the day of the dishevelled Aussie is finally over … the stereotypical image in no longer accurate” (Lovett, 2003: 23; Hornery and Pearlman, 2003: 18) and “Forget the Solo man or Crocodile Dundee, the modern Aussie man has scrubbed up in favour of a well-groomed image” (Phillips, 2003). By their evocation of traditional stereotypes, these statements again indicate that the Australian ‘metrosexual’ had no recent well-groomed predecessor comparable to the British ‘new man’, with the icons of traditional Australian masculinity meeting their first challenge only now. “The dandy” wrote Mark McGinness in his review of George Walden’s 2003 book Who’s a Dandy? in The Australian, “does not lay claim to any of our national traits - ours is not the most fertile soil for exquisites” (2003: 19). This appeal to an Australian national identity in the public discourse around male beautification is something I will address in much greater depth later in the chapter, and indeed throughout the thesis, but for now what is significant about McGuinness’ statement is that it implies that there was or is no native male beauty culture in Australia, which in turn would suggest that it is something which has been introduced or imposed onto Australian men. In the press discussions there were four recurring main sources of explanations for where metrosexuality ‘comes from’; from the media, marketers and advertisers, from feminism, from gay culture and most importantly, from overseas.
Typical of the imposed ‘from above’ school of thought are Sarah Wilson’s comments in the Herald Sun, who proclaimed that “it would appear ‘they’ (the various experts ‘out there’ responsible for all manner of pop culture pronouncements) are trying to resurrect
71 the SNAG”, whom, she reminds readers, failed dismally in Australia5. But, she suggests “it seems ‘they’ are ready to buck the balance again with the metrosexual” (Wilson, 2003: 18). The ‘various experts’ here are presumably Marian Salzman, the ‘trend-spotter, marketing guru’ (Albrechtsen, 2003: 11) and chief strategist at global advertising conglomerate RSCG Worldwide who was credited with bringing the term ‘metrosexual’ to the attention of the world media in her The Future of Men report, and her co-authors of various recent books and reports about “buzz” marketing and the consumption habits of modern men (see for example Fox, 2003: 40; Barker, 2003: 40). “They”, a pronoun also used by Peter FitzSimons in his question “Oh, my brothers, what have they done to you?” (2003: 13, my emphasis) are the media and global marketing institutions which are held accountable by many popular journalists for ‘creating’ the demand for male beauty products, or at least, for creating the mythical metrosexual in order to ‘con’ men into buying its products and services. Neil Shoebridge (2003: 63) for example, argued that
… the theory that Australia is awash with self-absorbed young men who are keenly interested in how their hair looks, what fragrance they wear and the art of exfoliating is wrong. The theory is being pushed by media companies, retailers and the myriad publicists that feed off the fashion and fragrance industries.
While sales of men’s toiletries and cosmetics were growing, Shoebridge contended “that does not prove that metrosexuals are a large category: it simply proves that retailers and marketers in highly competitive categories jump at any chance to manufacture a trend” (my emphasis, Shoebridge, 2003: 63). For Shoebridge, and many other Australian journalists, the metrosexual phenomenon does not exist; it is simply a “marketing creation” or a marketing tool used to fool men that it does. Peter FitzSimons (2003: 13) considered the metrosexual to be “marketing schtick while Matt Martyn-Jones asked in
5 The so-called ‘sensitive new age guy’ was a media construction of masculinity in the 1990s which was based less on narcissism and concern with appearance than on embracing the principles of feminism with regard to family, work and relationships, and so for this reason I do not consider the SNAG as a forerunner to the more image-oriented metrosexual, who is rarely, if ever constructed as a feminist or invested in relationships. For a discussion of the SNAG in Australia in the 1990s see Anthony McMahon, ‘Blokus Domesticus, Journal of Australian Studies, 1998.
72 The Sydney Morning Herald “is this all just a clever con by the marketers and advertisers? The short answer is probably” (2003: 11).
Echoing Dotson’s (1999) suggestions that the images in advertising campaigns for grooming products created issues of low self-esteem for men who had fallen victim to the manipulative image industries, some Australian popular journalists worried about the psychological effects of a male ‘beauty myth’ on Australian men. Similarly employing Naomi Wolf’s hypotheses, Julia Baird wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that advertisers “have recently figured out that undermining sexual self-confidence works whatever the targeted gender”, suggesting that the images and ideology associated with the metrosexual open up “self-hatred” in heterosexual men who believe the “half-truths” fed to them by advertisers (Baird, 2003: 61). This perception of men as helpless victims of media messages, brought about by the alleged negative effects of new man or metrosexual iconography, is a radically new development in popular thinking, and it is one which is relatively prevalent in the Australian press, generating contradictory constructions of Australian men as emasculated victims, vulnerable to self-hatred and insecurities against more traditional ‘tough’ and impenetrable versions. “Enter the power of marketing” wrote Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian “where male assertiveness training begins with a pot of $60 face cream” (2003: 11), while Miranda Devine argued in The Sydney Morning Herald that images of “a masculine ideal that they have no hope of meeting leads to challenged self-worth at best for men” (2003: 17). Finally, in the Courier Mail, Christopher Bantick woefully predicted (although as with most polemic writers, without evidence) that “at least some [men] feel isolated, overlooked, mocked by magazine images and, more worryingly, resentful” (Bantick, 2003: 13). Resentful towards whom?
“What women want” Bantick went on to suggest “is clear enough. It is the ‘metrosexual’ man, and that is bad news for most guys.” Many of the journalists who argue that male beauty culture is imposed ‘from above’ by marketing and advertising also tend, again like Dotson, to blame women, and more specifically, feminism for the ‘crisis’ in men’s self- image brought about by the metrosexual. Interestingly, these writers employ feminist
73 arguments to attack the image and media industries – but then go on to blame feminism itself. “Attacks on the male identity in a post-feminist world have eroded men’s sense of self-worth” wrote Miranda Devine in the Sydney Morning Herald. “The new masculine metrosexual ideal seems to be imposing the same tyranny of lookism on men which women have long endured” however, she suggests that “the overall effect is of female empowerment at the expense of men” (2003: 17). Janet Albrechtsen’s feature article ‘Stop tampering with the male’ in The Australian (2003: 11) lays the charge for the metrosexual and the emasculation of the Australian male firmly at the door of feminism, describing the “sweet-smelling bloke with manicured nails and too much product in his hair” as “feminism’s Frankenstein, a sexual quisling” and suggesting that Salzman’s report about the phenomenon “reads like Revenge of the Feminists”, creating a world of “feminised men and masculinised women”. Putting a similar argument to Devine, she maintains that “strong, assertive, attractive women make men feel bad and men think the only way to feel better about themselves is to look like women”, asking “why did the feminists have to go and ruin everything?” For Albrechtsen, the metrosexual phenomenon ‘came from’ “doctrinaire feminists, marketing and the wacky insights of trend-spotters”, a statement which not only suggests that male beauty culture was ‘imposed’ on Australian men, but which again clearly indicates the newness of the concept of male narcissism in Australia by its incredulousness that it is all simply a ‘wacky’ idea.
In stark contrast to these notions that women, the media and marketing necessarily make men feel bad about themselves, or even somehow force men into taking up ‘unnatural’ beauty routines, celebrating rather than regretting the new growth in male beautification David Smiedt wrote with some relief in The Sydney Morning Herald that
Despite the long-held notion that Australia is a land where men are men and women are moisturised, I am clearly not the only metrosexual … metrosexuals are the SNAGs of the new millennium. Only this time around we are not pretending to be someone we aren’t. This time we’re tapping into the vanity we have previously suppressed because it might be considered unmanly
74 (Smiedt, 2003: 38)
Smiedt’s remarks are crucial in several ways. Firstly, they afford some kind of agency by consumers themselves in the growth of the male grooming industry. Secondly, they reveal that traditional masculinity has been a repressive experience for some men, preventing them from self-nurture and self-expression rather than being a bastion of masculine self-worth. Thirdly, they suggest that metrosexuals don’t pretend to be sensitive or new age, just narcissistic. And finally, his byline to the article reads ‘David Smiedt comes clean about a habit that’s driving an industry’ (2003: 38, my emphasis), setting up discourses around the possibility that the metrosexual phenomenon comes ‘from below’ as much as ‘from above’. Smiedt’s piece is useful for introducing a popular cultural economy school of thought among certain journalists, one which is akin to the academic model from British cultural studies. As McLaughlin (1996) suggests, critical theory can play an important role outside of academic spaces, and the sophisticated approach taken by some journalists of the mass media in their public investigation into the phenomenon of the metrosexual is a particularly pertinent example of this. Moreover, unlike the academic cultural theorists I discussed in the previous chapter, the vernacular theorists of the press are concerned with grooming not fashion, and in an Australian rather than mainly British context which makes these popular debates crucial for exploring discourses about where the contemporary phenomenon of a mass-market Australian men’s grooming culture ‘comes from’.
As I demonstrated in Chapter 1, academic cultural economists dispose of ‘top-down’ models of marketing, looking instead for ways in which the cultures of consumers might inform the production process. Smeidt (above) and several other popular journalists also do this, suggesting that men themselves and particularly young men “are driving the growth in the sales of men’s cosmetics” (Casey, 2003: 17). Academic cultural theorists are also interested in exploring the close inter-relationship between the cultural and economic spheres – between consumers and producers – and particularly in the case of the opening up of new male markets. Many popular journalists, are also aware of, and write about, this dialogic relationship in their discussion around the growth in the male
75 grooming industry in Australia. Peter Gotting for example, wrote that “men of all sexualities are taking a greater interest in their appearance”, but rather than insisting that marketers ‘created’ this interest, he proposes that “marketers are spurring on the change” and that young men in particular are “driving this growth” (Gotting, 2003: 13, my emphases). Rochelle Burbury argued that metrosexual men “have spawned their own market” and that the huge growth of products aimed at men is “catering to these desires” (Burbury, 2003b: 12, my emphasis) rather than imposing or creating them. In his reply to Neil Shoebridge’s suggestion that advertisers were manufacturing the metrosexual trend, Roger James, the national chairman of the Australian Marketing Institute wrote that “markets simply do not respond to vague assumptions about possible mind-sets; they respond to real preferences, real needs and real propositions” (2003: 8), echoing cultural theorist Frank Mort’s 1988 hypothesis that advertisers ‘in the firm’ have always known that consumption cannot be simply foisted onto gullible populations (Mort, 1988: 215) and Rowena Chapman’s suggestion that advertising reacts to rather than creates social trends (Chapman, 1988: 229), but also suggesting that the demand for men’s toiletries and cosmetics came equally from Australian men themselves. Meanwhile, whereas as the ‘philosophy’ school of journalists had dismissed Marian Salzman’s observations as ‘hype’ or the ‘wacky insights’ of trend-spotters, those who took a more nuanced research approach argued that the metrosexual identity which emerged from the Future of Man report had evolved from a genuine study of the shopping, grooming and personal habits and attitudes of the modern male (Barker, 2003: 40; Fox, 2003: 40) again strongly suggesting that marketing was tapping into existing trends on the ground rather than ‘imposing’ unwanted cultural products and practices. What the discourses among the vernacular theorists of the press suggest then, is that the emergence of a male beauty culture in this country took place through a dialogic conversation between producers and consumers rather than being imposed ‘from above’ by marketers and advertisers, despite strong journalistic denials that the ‘metrosexual’ trend did not, or could not exist among Australian men.
Academic cultural economists stressed the importance of ‘cultural intermediaries’ in the dialogue between the spheres of consumption and production within the workings of
76 successful commercial cultures. The journalists of the popular press perform a pivotal role as cultural intermediaries themselves in the opening up of the men’s grooming markets in Australia, reporting the economic progress of the male grooming industry to wider society, disseminating information and providing a forum for public discussion around trends, product usage and popular attitudes to male narcissism. In the tradition of academic cultural economy, they also draw on a wide range of the opinions and expertise of the key practitioners involved in the male beauty industry – from cosmetics and toiletries company directors, general managers and CEOs, marketers, fragrance and cosmetic buyers, strategy planning directors, product managers, media buyers, media strategists and PR managers to spa directors, salon owners, barbers, hairdressers, stylists, make-up artists, naturopaths and models – utilising their professional knowledges to develop complex and informed accounts about the emergence of the metrosexual. Moreover, they look to developments in marketing and advertising, demography, economics and important cultural changes as possible factors or drivers in their public investigation of the Australian metrosexual phenomenon which, taken with current sales trends and a sophisticated recognition of how commercial cultures might ‘work’, in the absence of any academic research then some areas of popular journalism are a key source for theorising the contemporary phenomenon of a feminised male grooming culture in Australia.
The discourses around the role of feminism among these journalists who took a research approach to the growing use of toiletries and cosmetic products among men differed markedly from those of the ‘philosophers’ who wanted to lay the blame of men’s ‘oppression’ on women’s rights. For this school, feminism played a vital role in men’s image-consciousness because it opened up opportunities for women in the workplace which ultimately had had the effect of upping the grooming standards of their male colleagues (see for example Gotting, 2003: 13; Burbury, 2003a: 47), while this group of journalists also recognised changes in the workplace itself as a contributing factor to the growth in sales of men’s toiletries and cosmetics. Gotting suggested that
As the proportion of white-collar workers grows, so does the need to
77 look good. To compete in today's work environment, you must dress well, have your hair cut neatly and take care of your body. “The workplace has become far more competitive,” says David Bush, the general manager of men's wear at David Jones. “It has become incumbent on the individual to look his best.”
(Gotting, 2003: 13)
Various other journalists suggested that the shift towards a professional and services- driven economy had stimulated competitiveness in the workplace and a greater interest in grooming among men (see for example Smiedt, 2003: 38; Metcalf, 2003: 12). Professional and career success was commonly seen as a key driver in men’s image- consciousness by journalists who often featured supporting interviews with stylish successful businessmen, key service providers and market research practitioners (see for example Phillips, 2003; Burbury and Meagher, 2003: 18; Metcalf, 2003: 12; Langford, 2003: 12).
Accompanying these themes of success at work in a changing economic environment other related social factors such as increasing urbanisation (Burbury, 2003a: 47; Megalogenis, 2003: 22) and the changing urban landscape (Langford, 2003: 12) were considered by some journalists as contributing to the metrosexual phenomenon. Rachael Langford suggested in the Courier Mail for example, that there were few metrosexuals in Brisbane compared to the more cosmopolitan Sydney and Melbourne because “there aren’t many places in Brisbane for the metrosexual to gather and graze” (Langford, 2003: 12), re-affirming Simpson’s assertion that the metrosexual lives or works close to urban clubs and bars and underlining the importance of spatial location in the uptake of new ideologies of grooming. However, in 2003 the Brisbane ‘scene’ was changing. In another article unrelated to the rise of the metrosexual, the subjectivity was evoked as a metaphor to lament the demise of the older culture and buildings of the city. “There’s not much of Brisbane City’s old-style George St left” wrote Alison Cotes in the Courier Mail “as hotels are pulled down, traditional watering holes turned into metrosexual bars and gleaming coffee shops spring up in the basements of highrise office blocks” (Cotes, 2003: 14). Here, the implicitly unwelcome metrosexual is constructed as
78 the signifier of an equally unwelcome modern city centre, but taken with Langford’s suggestion about the importance of a place to “gather and graze” for metrosexuals, Cotes’ comments point to some important urban cultural pre-requisites – the demise of traditional masculine-oriented hotels and the changing local economy – to the increasing grooming consciousness among Australian men.
Changes in demographics informed some journalists’ accounts about why more Australian men were taking a greater interest in their appearance. Burbury and Meagher (2003: 18), Megalogenis (2003: 22) and Barker (2003: 40) for example all identified later marriage rates as an important factor in the changes, for larger numbers of men were single for longer, had more money to spend on themselves, and they were looking for partners. Burbury and Meagher also pointed to increasing divorce rates, which affected men’s grooming habits in two ways; male divorcees were stimulated to pay more attention to their appearance as they became single again, and more boys grew up without a permanent father figure (Burbury and Meagher, 2003: 18). Multiculturalism was a further important social and cultural factor attributed by some journalists to Australian men’s increasing use of cosmetics and toiletries. Marcus Casey (2003: 17) suggested that “a new generation of style-conscious men with multicultural backgrounds is spending on modern man products” while George Megalogenis fused the themes of feminism and multi-culturalism in his proposal in The Australian that “generation W” or “women and wogs” are behind the metrosexual trend;
Between them, successful women and immigrants are softening the nation, making it both less ocker and more cosmopolitan. The chap who proves this is the twentysomething or thirtysomething white male. They call him the metrosexual
(Megalogenis, 2003: 22)
The metrosexual, suggested Megalogenis is “a wannabe wog boy, an Australian mimicking the well-dressed continental men who started appearing on the shore after World War II” (Megalogenis, 2003: 22). Alongside other writers who suggested Australian men’s grooming consciousness ‘came from’ post-war European immigration
79 (see also Burbury, 2003a: 47; Burbury and Meagher, 2003: 18), Peter Gotting proposes that globalisation has helped along the development, for international travel and the media meant that “Australian men are starting to see that men in other countries particularly in Europe proudly take care of themselves” (Gotting, 2003: 13). Clarins’ Australian PR manager Anita Kaurinovic pointed to Australia’s multicultural society as “one of the key influences on men buying grooming products”, primarily because “traditionally men with a European back ground here have never worried that buying fragrance or grooming products would be seen as being gay” (cited in Melocco, 2003: 19), a statement which implies that Australian men – traditionally – did worry that these behaviours would be perceived as ‘gay’. Not any more, according to Anthony Dennis, who wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that “there’s no doubt that the Australian male, whatever his sexuality, is developing nicely along more European lines” (Dennis, 2003: 10). The 2003 press debates around metrosexuality, sexuality and ethnicity in particular indicate significant shifts in the representation of Australian masculinity as increasingly embracing a more European outlook towards fashion and grooming, and in social discourses which sanctioned the narcissism of heterosexual men without the stigma of being considered effeminate or gay.
Many journalists suggested that the metrosexual phenomenon ‘came from’ gay male culture, “Twenty years ago fashion, skin care and vanity in general were primarily the domain of gay men” wrote Peter Gotting in the Sydney Morning Herald (2003: 13), a statement which indicates that something has changed in the way society now thinks about the connection between men’s use of cosmetics and toiletries and sexuality. Indeed, Anthony Dennis saw the metrosexual as “the product of more relaxed attitudes towards the characteristics that were once thought strictly the territory of gays” (Dennis, 2003: 10). The popular press comments frequently on how being gay is now not a necessary pre-requisite to beauty-consciousness; “the message is that buying expensive hair and grooming products and changing your hairdo each season is not just for gay men – any bloke can do it” (Melocco, 2003: 19). Several press articles indicated that historically, certain products in particular have been associated with ‘gayness’. Roland Rocchiccioli (2004: 8) recounted how his use of deodorant as a teenager in the 1950s was interpreted
80 by his boarding school house master as signifying he was “not quite right”, while in an interview for Rocchiccioli’s article hairdresser Sally Ellison said that “five years ago, you couldn't convince a straight guy to have his hair coloured. It was always the same comment, ‘I am not a poof!’ Today, whether they are straight, gay, backwards or forwards, they are all doing it” (cited in Rocchiccioli, 2004: 8). In their discussion around the growing social acceptance of heterosexual narcissism, several journalists pointed to the popular television show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy which began screening in Australia in 2003 and in which five gay men make-over and educate straight professional men in matters of dress, grooming, culture and cuisine (see for example, Ross, 2003: 78; Bartsch, 2003: H06; Barker, 2003: 40). “Helped along by the coining of the word metrosexual and the TV show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Australian men are experimenting even more with ‘product’” wrote Nikki Goldstein in the Sydney Morning Herald (2003: 32). According to Burbury and Meagher, more than half a million men tuned in to the show (2003: 18), and while it has a substantial fan base in the gay community, Leah Moore suggested that “it also is a surprise hit with tip-hungry straight Aussie men” (Moore, 2003: 16).
Yet despite this popularity of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, according to Sarah Baston, managing director of marketing company Creative Manoeuvres, “straight men don’t want to be marketed to like gay men” (cited in Murphy, 2003: 4). Among the journalists of the ‘research’ school, the discussion around the advertising and marketing techniques of the male beauty industry drew not on notions of the imposition of ideology, or of false consciousness, but on the knowledges of key practitioners involved in the marketing and advertising of beauty products to men and again, what emerges from these discussions is a form of dialogue between the producers and consumers. While “young inner-city bachelors may have more of an appetite for fruity cocktails and facial products” wrote Cherelle Murphy, “any marketing efforts must avoid feminine connotations” (Murphy, 2003: 4). Marketers and advertisers are quite aware then that while heterosexual men were increasingly embracing stereotypically ‘gay’ or feminine practices and behaviours, they didn’t want to be marketed to like gay men, or like women and so the advertising world responds to their consumers’ desires. Karen Matthews, CEO of Ella Bache
81 Australia for example suggested to Peter Gotting that “when it comes to marketing and communicating with guys, they want to hear it how it is. They don't want any crap; they just want to know what it does” (cited in Gotting, 2003: 13).
Journalists’ interviews with key practitioners involved in shop floor technologies and sales environment of men’s grooming products revealed similar instances of marketers following consumers’ needs, preferences and requirements. The opening of ‘The Male Depot’ in major Myer department stores in 2003 was seen by some journalists as evidence that metrosexual men had spawned their own market (Burbury, 2003b: 12; FitzSimons, 2003: 136), while the professional strategic planning of the new space exclusive to men’s skin care products and fragrances was clearly designed to cater for what men want from the shopping experience. For example, David Smiedt suggests that the department is staffed by women “the theory being that men would be uncomfortable chatting to other blokes about ingrown hairs or oily skin” (2003: 38). The communications and project development manager of Trimex, the distributors of Clarins products in Australia and the company behind ‘The Male Depot’ told Rochelle Burbury that “in the past the only option for men was to go into the female cosmetics department, which is a pretty intimidating experience” and that in the research and development of ‘The Male Depot’ his team had considered that “if we developed a cluster concept which was a real destination and more educational and informative for men, we had more of a chance of being successful (cited in Burbury, 2003a: 47). What emerges then, is how marketers are attempting to ‘teach’ men about skin care and fragrances in an optional non-intimidating, gendered shopping environment which is designed for the comfort and needs of consumers rather than somehow ‘imposing’ beauty culture onto them.
According to John Hartley (1996), all media are pedagogic, including popular commercial media. We have seen that the journalists of the popular press ‘teach’ their readers about the metrosexual phenomenon through informed public discussion; yet many are also involved in the marketing process itself, reflecting the increasing tendency for the political sphere of news, or informative journalism and the commercial sphere of
6 FitzSimons was actually contemptuous of the fact that the metrosexual was responsible for this outrage to traditional masculinity, using it as an attack on the metrosexual rather than an observation of economics.
82 advertising to overlap in contemporary media (Hartley, 1996; Dyson, 2007)). In my survey of press debates around the metrosexual I found that many informative, widely researched and balanced hypotheses about the increasing grooming-consciousness of Australian men developed smoothly into advertorials. Anthony Dennis’ article for example, which explored the influence of multiculturalism and gay culture on straight men’s grooming habits in depth, ended with a recommendation that the reader send “the evolved Australian male” off with a gift voucher to “Face of Man in the Strand Arcade, the original beauty salon for Sydney men” (2003: 10). Philip Bartsch’s article “Happy as a metro in mud” for the Courier Mail (2003: H06) similarly presents a research-informed discussion around the metrosexual phenomenon before he gives thanks to Daydream Island’s Rejuvenation salon for his promotional spa by providing readers with information about the price and range of available treatments. Meanwhile, his ‘ocker’ language throughout the piece strove to ‘normalise’ beauty treatments for the ‘ordinary bloke’. Another example of well-informed journalism giving way to advertising is Nikki Goldstein’s article in the Sydney Morning Herald which, after drawing from complex arguments from gender and queer theory in a discussion around unisex beauty products, morphs into a detailed catalogue of brands and products which can be shared by the sexes with impunity, prices supplied (Goldstein, 2003: 32). However, rather than see the advertorial as a necessarily negative or corrupt aspect of advertising in late capitalism (see for example Dyson, 2007), it is much more usefully viewed as research and information-led advertising which demonstrates one of the leading concerns of the cultural economy paradigm – the close relationship between the ‘creative’ and the ‘commercial’ in contemporary marketing practices (Crewe, 2003).
So far, I have explored press discussion around what drove the metrosexual phenomenon, presenting discourses about where Australian men’s increasing image-awareness ‘came from’. Now I want to explore how male narcissism was discussed in the Australian media; what particular social and cultural ideologies were at work in a specifically Australian debate around the emergence of the metrosexual?
83 Discourses around the metrosexual in the Australian media in 2003
(i) The ‘unnatural’ discourse
The sheer volume of articles which appeared in the Australian press about the metrosexual over 2003 suggested that there was something unnatural about men who took a keen interest in their appearance. Janet Albrechtsen (2003: 11) referred to the metrosexual as ‘weird’, a ‘sexual quisling’ and ‘feminism’s freak’. The metrosexual was repeatedly portrayed as a freak of both nature and culture in Australian press discussion through the evocation of ideologies of biology, sex and gender. For example, many popular journalists referred to the metrosexual as a “new breed” of man (Lawrence, 2003: 25; Bartsch, 2003: H06; Johnson, 2003: 23; Phillips, 2003; FitzSimons, 2003: 13). Albrechtsen saw the metrosexual as representing a “temporary triumph of androgyny over biology”, temporary because the scientifically-proven differences between male and female brains would eventually defy the “gender cognoscenti” who “rail against spotting the differences” (2003: 11). Albrechtsen was not alone among popular journalists in her assertion that male beauty culture in Australia was necessarily a temporary ‘phase’ or passing ‘fad’ (see also Tom, 2003: 13; Shoebridge, 2003: 63; Burbury and Meagher, 2003: 18; McGinness, 2003: 19; FitzSimons, 2003: 13) arguments which supported notions of the ‘unnaturalness’ of the metrosexual’s narcissistic behaviours. Peter FitzSimons suggested that metrosexuals “have just lost their way a little … but sooner or later they will come back to us. It’s in their genes” (2003: 13).
As we saw in the opening definitions earlier in the chapter, the figure of the metrosexual was commonly over-feminised by popular journalists, again to underline the ‘unnaturalness’ of men embracing fashion and grooming. Peter Gotting’s comments in the Sydney Morning Herald (2003: 13, my emphasis) are typical of this;
They go to hairdressers rather than barbers, avoid using soap because it's too harsh on their skin. They’re going to beauty salons … and even have difficulty deciding what to wear.
84 Here the word ‘even’ serves to re-signify the weirdness of male obsession with appearance, and while the metrosexual was over-feminised in the press for his use of beauty products and following fashion, he was also lampooned for his adoption of a host of other characteristically ‘feminine’ behaviours, such as having little interest in military hardware or heroism, a love of shopping and “brace yourself – being passive” (Albrechtsen, 2003: 11). A piece by Terence Blacker which appeared in the Canberra Times in January 2004 is interesting for its headline, ‘Metrosexuality - an excuse to make unacceptable traits appealing’ (my emphasis) and its byline, “Women can primp without serious damage to the brain. Men become gormless and unattractive” (2004: 17). Again, Blacker relies on an argument of biological essentialism which deems women the only ‘natural’ consumers of beauty and appearance, and while he strives to communicate that the genders are different but equal, the over-riding discourse throughout the article is that feminine culture is innately less worthwhile. “It could be argued I suppose” wrote Blacker “that it was a sort of liberation for a young man to be able to preen, primp, shop and generally fanny about as shamelessly as any woman” (my emphasis). He considers men spending too much time in front of the both mirror ‘unnecessary’ and ‘unhealthy’ because “women are different from men. They can primp and worry about the way they look without serious damage to the brain or sense of humour. They’ve had centuries of practice”, indicating that narcissistic behaviour in men is not only unacceptable, unattractive and without any historical precedence, but that to worry about the way they look causes men to lose important components of their masculinity such as their sense of humour and ability to think rationally;
The metrosexual has had his decade7. The new role-model is a guy who can think, who would never dream of wasting time on self-indulgent gels or lotions, who smells bracingly of himself, who is proud to leave his clothes lying around on the bedroom floor.
(Blacker, 2004: 17, my emphases)
7 This article was originally published in the British Independent newspaper a few days earlier, and reprinted in the Canberra Times hence ‘the metrosexual has had his decade’ again tells us that the Australian trend was much slower to take off than in Britain
85 Blacker’s comments here quite clearly explain why he uses the term ‘unacceptable’ to describe the traits of the metrosexual; for him, it is not so much the use of grooming and beauty products themselves which is offensive, but the amount of time wasted on self- indulgence when there are more serious things to think about than ‘fannying around’ with one’s appearance. This is best suited to the female gender who implicitly, have more time to waste on preening themselves, have little else to think about and no sense of humour! Blacker instead appeals to masculinity’s traditional privileges to not worry about how they look, how they smell and to an inclination to untidiness in their haste to get on with the ‘important’ things in life.
Another anti-metrosexual writer who also implored men to smell “bracingly of themselves” and to not worry about their appearance was David Penberthy in the Daily Telegraph. Appealing to traditional gender behaviours he wrote that “conditioner is for girls, and who needs shampoo when you’ve got soap?” before suggesting that “a properly-functioning male body has four smells – neutral, and on Saturday, VB, smoke and a doner kebab” (2003: 20). For Penberthy and Blacker, these correspond to more ‘normal’ or ‘acceptable’ masculine smells and behaviours; to be un-perfumed, and to shun softening or moisturising personal grooming products in favour of going to the pub, smoking, getting drunk and eating late-night fast food is construed as a more ‘authentic’ or ‘natural’ representation of traditional masculine traits and behaviours. Writing at the time when photographs of a shirtless, overweight Anthony LaPaglia were released in the media, Penberthy suggested that rather than being a source of shame, LaPaglia “has done us a huge service in restoring the place of the Australian gut as a source of pride”, arguing that sit-ups are “for prisoners and marines” and having a large gut proved that a man was “well-adjusted enough to eat good food, occasionally bad food, to not mind a drink, occasionally several hundred drinks, and to not really care what anyone thinks” again evoking traditional masculinity’s basic right to be undisciplined and not be judged on appearance. What is significant about Penberthy’s piece however, is how his appeal for resistance is framed by an address to a specifically Australian masculinity through the use of signifiers such as VB, or Victoria Bitter, one of Australia’s iconic brands of beer, and to LaPaglia himself, an Australian actor.
86
(ii) The ‘nationality’ discourse
In the debates which took place in the Australian popular press around the growing use of beauty products and services among men I found that while discourses of gender, sexuality and class for example loomed large, the over-riding framework of public discussion around the metrosexual was a preoccupation with, and appeal to, national identity8. Compounded with more universal discourses of gender and class, this has the effect of denoting that not only is attention to appearance unmanly, it is also somehow un-Australian. Appeals to national identity or ethnicity were made firstly through language and mode of address, with a frequent use of ‘ockerisms’ deployed to more effectively communicate with the reader as an ‘ordinary’ Australian. In an article called ‘Time to put the ugh boot into men who moisturise’ which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald (2003: 13), Peter FitzSimons launched a satirical attack on the Australian metrosexual, singling him out and holding him up for ridicule rather like a humiliating telling-off in front of the whole school. “You new breed of metrosexuals” he wrote,
You know who you are. You don’t buy clobber, you follow fashion … you know what “exfoliation” means. You think you are right on the prow of the “new masculinity”. And you are, and let’s be fair dinkum about this, a narcissistic dickhead … Shampoo? If you must, but soap will suffice. And no, you bloody well don’t need skin-care products
(FitzSimons, 2003: 13)
Here, as in Penberthy’s piece, the strategic use of Australian idioms and casual swearing work as textual devices which ‘naturalise’ traditional working class ‘ocker’ Australian manliness and thus deem narcissism ‘unnatural’, but which also attempt to culturally
8 I have not researched discussions around the metrosexual in the British media, but I would argue it would be unlikely that the figure be attacked for being “un-British” in quite the same way he was attacked in the Australian media as “un-Australian”, as will become clear as the thesis progresses. Moreover, in the academic debates around the ‘new man’ there was no discussion around how his authentic ‘British-ness’ was challenged
87 align the writer and the reader in a mutual agreement that the metrosexual transgresses Australian values as well as gender boundaries. Articles such as these are a good example of Jackie Cook’s (2000) suggestions about the setting up of a nationalistic commonality between columnists and readers which centres on discourses of ‘larrikinism’ and which works to actively invite reader resistance to the uptake of new beauty products and practices. More often than not, discourses of class, gender and Australian identity in public discussion around the metrosexual were annexed to broader masculine discourses such as drinking, as we saw in the examples above, and sport. FitzSimons deems the metrosexual feminine and un-Australian because of his effete “preening” in cocktail bars – as opposed to, implicitly, the rowdy public bar of the typical traditional Australian hotel – and the fact that “what muscles you do have don’t come from manual labour or playing sport, but from endlessly toning yourself in gyms with mirrors” (Fitzsimons, 2003: 13), again pointing to the unacceptable narcissism of (middle class, white collar) metrosexual men. And following his advice that men “bloody well don’t need skin-care products”, he suggested that “a bloke needs three pairs of shoes, maximum. One to play touch footy and basketball with, and … throw in a pair of thongs with the uggies, and you’re done!” appealing explicitly to traditional stereotypes of Australian men as interested in sport but overwhelmingly uninterested in fashion and appearance.
Academic cultural theorists have discussed sport’s centrality to myths of Australian national identity and ideology (Lawrence and Rowe (eds), 1986; Henderson, 1999) and sport was central in the press debates around masculinity, national identity and male narcissism. In particular, sport – in this case football – played a crucial role in the discursive construction of an oppositional ideology which revolved around the hyper- feminisation of English soccer player David Beckham. References to Beckham’s effeminacy, signified in particular by his wearing of sarongs, nail polish and braided hair (see for example Gotting, 2003: 13; Bartsch, 2003: H06; Koch, 2003: 9, Wilson, 2003: 18; Burbury, 2003a: 47; Albrechtsen, 2003: 11; Shoebridge, 2003: 63; Rocchiccioli, 2004: 8) suffused Australian public debate around the metrosexual. Much was also made of Beckham’s willingness to pose for gay magazines, his comfort with being a gay icon, and his enjoyment of being ‘looked at’ and admired, earning him the adjective of ‘poster
88 boy’ or the more feminised ‘pin-up’ (see for example Gotting, 2003: 13; Bartsch, 2003; H06; Melocco, 2003; 19; Albrechtsen, 2003: 11; Burbury, 2003b: 12; McNicoll and Symons, 2003: 11). But as British Beckham was over-feminised, Australian sportsmen are hyper-masculinised; Beckham is a ‘poster boy’ but Sydney Roosters player Craig Wing, who in 2003 endorsed men’s skin care range Nivea for Men in Australia, is
More macho man than metrosexual … Wing is the first Australian rugby league player to endorse a beauty product, following in the footsteps of international sports stars like David Beckham. But while the English soccer superstar and metrosexual poster boy wears nail polish, hair braids and a sarong, Wing remains a blokey bloke.
(Koch, 2003: 9)
In Australian public discussion around the metrosexual, Beckham often comes to signify British masculinity itself in a discursive antonymic feminising of English masculinity and re-masculinising of traditional Australian manhood in a debate which is framed by discourses of sport. Sarah Wilson for example, wrote in the Herald-Sun (2003: 18) that British men are “stepping out” for manicures and hiring wardrobe consultants, something she saw as being “almost impossible to believe”, revealing the tenacity of traditional gender scripts. But, she surmised, as “their sporting hero wears a sarong out on the town and has confessed to wearing his wife’s underpants” this should come as little surprise. On the other hand, she suggested that “while footy has such a stranglehold on men in this country, the cult of the metrosexual is unlikely to strike in force here”, arguing that while British men were quite possibly ready for the return of the SNAG she concludes, again employing ‘ocker’ language and casual swearing “Here? Not a bloody chance” (Wilson, 2003: 18).
In that piece, curiously titled ‘No more Mr Nice Guy ... please’, which seems to suggest she would prefer more of Mr Nasty Guy, Wilson feminises not only Beckham, but also English soccer itself and its fans, suggesting that in comparison, the ‘manliness’ of Australian Rules football, and it’s grip on the male population somehow inoculates Australian men from any penchant for feminine fashion and grooming practices. Another
89 curious thing about Wilson’s column is that even at the time of writing (2003), a plethora of Australian footballers and sportsmen were reported in the media and the popular press as using a wide variety of skin care products, receiving facials and body waxes, Vichy rain showers, eyelash tints and some, such as former North Melbourne footballer John McNamara, had even opened male day salons themselves, (Rocchiccioli, 2004: 8) not to mention the advertising endorsements of men’s grooming or beauty products by footballers such as Wing and indeed, the whole Sydney Roosters AFL team who starred in a Sunsilk campaign for a men’s shampoo and conditioner range! (Burbury, 2003a: 47) These truths – that Australian sportsmen do use and endorse beauty products and services, and indeed, play a vital role in the ‘normalisation’ of such products and practices among Australian men – are totally irrelevant for Wilson, who is more interested in constructing traditional Australian manliness against its soccer-playing effete British ‘other’ to explain why metrosexuality is happening ‘over there’ but not ‘over here’.
Peter FitzSimons similarly employed an English soccer/Australian Rules binary, masculinising AFL as a tough, violent and manly game while feminising soccer, again signified by Beckham. Continuing his public ridicule and over-feminisation of the Australian metrosexual (“you know who you are”), FitzSimons sneers that “you don’t think David Beckham looks like a complete prat, but love all those fabulously creative way he does his hair and nails” before advising his wayward readers that
Following football is OK. You can thrill to the vision of other blokes running into each other and bleeding upon each other, just as your father did before you, and your grandfather before that, without the slightest guilt. And when you're having a pie with sauce at that footy, and the sauce runs down your chin, wipe it off on your sleeve!
(FitzSimons, 2003: 13)
Following football may be OK – but only if it is Australian Rules football in which men have rough physical contact and bleed upon each other, not the non-contact soccer variety which is implicitly as ‘soft’ and ‘vain’ as working out in a mirrored gym, or preening in a
90 city cocktail bar. FitzSimons proposes that the traditional ‘manhood’ of the reader’s father and grandfathers’ generation is somehow more ‘natural’ and ‘Australian’ than grooming, following fashion or shopping. Throughout the article this is underscored by his use of ockerisms and powerful signifiers of ‘authentic’ male Australian culture that reinforce a discourse of nationhood in which ‘real men’ are constructed as being uncouth, unsociable and tough. Throughout his feature, FitzSimons draws on ideologies of class, gender and nationality, setting up a series of binary oppositions around ocker/cultured, masculine/feminine, Australian/English. Evoking traditional Australian masculinity by borrowing a line from an old Holden cars ad – “Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars! YEAH!” – he invites his readers to “choose, you bastards! Blancmange or BLOKE?” (FitzSimons, 2003: 13).
Revisiting the various discourses and signifiers I have discussed above, several sets of important binary oppositions have emerged in the Australian debates around the metrosexual;
Shampoo/conditioner versus Soap Fragrance Natural body odour Fashion Clobber Hair and Nails Thongs and uggies Cocktail bars Traditional hotels Mirrored gym Manual labour/sport Soccer AFL Beckham Wing Blancmange Bloke English Australian Feminine Masculine
In the following chapters I provide historical context to some of these powerful discourses which continue to inform contemporary public discussion around Australian masculinity and narcissism but for now, having looked at the ideologies evoked by the anti-metrosexual school of thought among popular journalists, I am interested to explore the pro-metrosexual side of the debate, and in particular, Matt Martyn-Jones’s reply to FitzSimons in the Sydney Morning Herald.
91
In his reply to FitzSimons, Matt Martyn-Jones admitted tuning in to the English soccer on television not for the game itself but for the hairstyles. “English soccer”, he wrote, is a “sideline-to-sideline waxed, coiffed primped and preened metrosexual mecca. And I reckon it's great” (Martyn-Jones, 2003: 11) And if the definition of a metrosexual was “paying attention to how one presents themselves”, then Martyn-Jones was happily a metrosexual and “not afraid to admit it.” Disagreeing that this made him a “metrosexual miscreant” he surmised that it simply made him a “modern late-20s Aussie male” and moreover, “I've got lots of friends just like me. They're straight, they dress well and they care about their appearance.” Furthermore, to support his argument he too appeals to another crucial defining trait of traditional Australian masculinity – common sense. The byline to his article reads ‘packing the moisturiser before going bush-bashing is not shameful, just common sense’. Recounting a story of a young urban professional man who was shocked when a male colleague applied face cream and hand moisturiser in an office in Canberra, Martyn-Jones writes;
I wasn't surprised. I've lived through a Canberra winter. It's brutal on your skin. You'd be silly not to look after it. None of this is really much of a surprise. It makes sense to me. It's not weird and it's certainly not somehow un-Australian … Even the PM had a makeover before getting to The Lodge to deal with those eyebrows, which was, like most of this stuff, common sense. Which is an attribute most Aussie men would claim to have in abundance.
(Martyn-Jones, 2003: 11 my emphasis)
However, while Martyn-Jones attempts to validate and naturalise the metrosexual through “confessing” his own, and this straight friend’s use of beauty products previously considered acceptable only among women and homosexual men, he is fully aware that his readers may not be wholly convinced that this is a ‘natural’ thing for a red-blooded Australian male to do, and so he employs a range of textual codes to heterosexualize and re-masculinize the beauty-conscious Australian male. While his reply to FitzSimons was pro-metrosexual, Martyn-Jones still feels the need to frame his case for men using
92 ‘feminine’ products such as moisturisers and cleansers within the discourses of traditional Australian ‘manliness’, which reassures the reader of the aesthete’s authentic masculinity. For example, as noted above, he states in his by-line that “packing the moisturiser before going bush-bashing is not shameful” (my emphasis), while later in the piece he asks;
… What's wrong with putting moisturiser on after a day in the surf, or packing the face cleanser when you 4WD to the top of Mt Stirling on a camping trip to see where they filmed The Man From Snowy River?
(Martyn-Jones, 2003: 11)
Evoking hyper-masculine imagery of bush-bashing in four-wheel drives, camping in the rugged outback, legendary bushmen, bush poets and surfing as the signifiers of the ‘real Aussie bloke’ reaffirms the inherent heterosexuality and ‘real’ masculinity of the metrosexual. Meanwhile, the popular media continually offer up new masculinities that are typically “softer at the edges” but are still “just as tough” on the inside (Gotting, 2003: 13, my emphasis), suggesting that it is culturally acceptable to nurture one’s appearance, so long as an element of traditional Australian rough and toughness is retained.
The emergence of the metrosexual in Australia threw up some interesting challenges to traditional constructions of masculinity, seen most evidently in the emergence of a new subjectivity Adrian Piccoli called the ‘rurosexual’, a figure who personified the clash of new narcissistic city masculinities and more established ‘tough’ rural constructions (Cook, 2000). Piccoli described the ‘rurosexual’ as the modern rural man who shuns schooners in the pub and “gutfuls of rum at the B&S ball” for cappuccino, lamb and veggies for nori rolls and “circle-work in the ute” for supplying the picnic rug and champagne for the ladies at the races (Piccoli, 2003: 15). “He still wants to impress the chicks and his mates with his manliness and yet maintain a softer side” wrote Piccoli, but the classiest thing about the ‘rurosexual’ was that while he was shaking off the image of “the rough-and-tumble bloke … he hasn’t gone too far yet”, unlike his “bowling-shoe-
93 wearing, imported beer-clutching metrosexual cousin” (2003: 13). The ‘rurosexual’ then, was a new subjectivity that opened up to allow ‘softer’ and more cultured behaviours, yet it retained elements of rural ‘manliness’, unlike the more feminised city version. The piece was supported by strategically-placed ockerisms that re-signify the rurosexual’s essential Australian-ness, again denoted by outdoor labour and common sense (as opposed to the city metrosexual’s implied ‘silliness’), and which reassure us of his still- intact ‘natural’ heterosexual Australian maleness;
He cares about the way he looks without being silly. He knows that Essence Of Armpit doesn't pull the chicks quite like a good dose of Calvin Klein. No chin tucks or fake tan for him, it’s all fair dinkum personal grooming fashioned from copious amounts of fresh air and hard work out in the sun, with sunscreen, of course.
(Piccoli, 2003: 13, my emphasis)
Conclusion
In the popular debates about the metrosexual, Australian masculinity has suddenly been thrust into the media spotlight to define and defend itself. I began this chapter identifying two types of popular theorists who write about Australian male beauty culture in the popular press. One school I called the ‘philosophers’, those journalists whose writing is guided by their own beliefs and viewpoints on the metrosexual phenomenon. On the whole, the reactionary philosophers tended to find the metrosexual objectionable; his embracing of fashion and beauty products and services was not ‘natural’ or ‘normal’ for Australian men, and therefore these behaviours must have been ‘imposed’ onto him, primarily by marketing and advertising, women and feminism or the UK. This school of thought was most useful for identifying specifically Australian discourses and cultural codes around the issue of male narcissism.
I referred to the other school of popular journalists as ‘cultural economists’, or ‘researchers’ – those writers who develop informed articles based on research that
94 satisfies the aims and concerns of the academic cultural economy paradigm. Indeed, I have shown throughout the chapter that the work of these vernacular theorists offers a vast body of sophisticated and vital research material founded on the knowledges of key practitioners working in the male grooming industry and official statistics which have allowed me to map the recent growth, the shape and development of the men’s grooming industry in Australia here. I have used their comments and interview findings to look at how the industry ‘works’ and to suggest that rather than being imposed ‘from above’, the materialization of a male beauty culture resulted more from a two-way mutual exchange between producers and consumers; it ‘came from’ marketers and advertisers, but equally it ‘came from’ demand from consumers on the ground. This group of journalists looked to wider social, cultural and economic explanations for the emergence of the metrosexual in their public enquiry into the phenomenon, showing how feminism, gay culture, multiculturalism, changes in the workplace, changes in the work force and in contemporary demographic patterns all impacted on the changing grooming habits of Australian men. Outside of these categories it has become clear throughout my discussion that the ‘metrosexual’ phenomenon ‘came from’ the city, and while it originally ‘came from’ the upper classes and white collar professionals, it increasingly ‘comes from’ working class men and blue collar workers. This school of thought then tells us what journalists think drove the emergence of the metrosexual in Australia.
I have endeavoured to show here that the narcissistic ‘metrosexual’ subjectivity appears to have had no recent precedent in Australia, an assumption supported by the volume of articles about the phenomenon, and the way male narcissism was often discussed in ways which bordered on hysteria, shock and denial supported by appeals to biological essentialism and importantly, to national identity. The prevalence of appeals to masculinist ideals and to an imagined ‘natural’ or inherent specifically Australian working class ‘manliness’ in popular debates around the metrosexual tells us much about the deep-rooted cultural beliefs and taboos around straight male beautification that have yet to be fully overcome in Australian society, and are key to understanding what might have delayed the take-up of a more ‘feminised’ grooming products and practices in this country compared to Britain and Europe. In the following chapter I briefly trace the
95 history of male grooming practices to ask if we are really seeing anything particularly new with the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’, and I contextualise the powerful discourses of national identity, class and traditional Australian manliness which continue to shape contemporary debates around male narcissism in this country.
96 Chapter 3 Historical Contexts
Introduction
In the debates which took place in the Australian media in 2003 the metrosexual was presented as a strange ‘new breed’ of male, yet if we look back across history, we find that masculine narcissism and cosmetic adornment is nothing new; it has existed since antiquity. Indeed, men in the upper orders of ancient cultures were often very highly invested in their appearance, and at times more so than the women (Walsh, 1997). In ancient Egypt men embraced heavy make-up, perfumes and long wigs (Dollinger, 2000). Babylonian and Assyrian men used hair dyes and curled long hair and beards with hot tongs, as did the fifth century Irish Celt noblemen who bathed daily, scented themselves with oils and herbs and manicured their fingernails, which they painted with plant extracts (Walsh, 1997), and in ancient Rome men frequented barbers, public spas and baths in a culture which sanctioned social arenas for male narcissism en masse.
Elaborate masculine grooming and narcissism has an ancient history and has existed across many cultures, so we can relatively easily challenge journalists’ essentialist notions of gender and beauty culture. Men’s grooming practices have also been strongly related to class historically, playing a key role in signifying wealth, social status and power. Throughout history nobles, aristocrats, courtiers and gentry men have marked themselves as superior to lower social orders first and foremost by their appearance, whether this be through greater attention to personal hygiene or via a more elaborate display of fashionable hairstyles, facial hair designs and cosmetics. The contemporary ‘metrosexual’ – the straight wealthy man who enjoys spas, manicures, cosmetics, fragrances and hairstyles – is certainly not a new phenomenon, nor is he a biological or sexual ‘quisling’. Indeed, the metrosexual is more representative of traditional masculine behaviours rather than being anything particularly ‘new’ or ‘odd’, and may signal less of a departure from, than a return to normative masculine traits. Moreover, the fact that men have enjoyed and indulged themselves in narcissistic, as well as social grooming pleasures for millennia also challenges contemporary suggestions from both academia
97 and the popular press that the metrosexual trend is ‘imposed’ on men, or that the metrosexual subjectivity is simply a profitable capitalist marketing creation fuelled by false needs, fear and insecurity.
But crucially, while masculine narcissism and the adoption of ‘feminine’ grooming practices isn’t anything new per se, and particularly as I show throughout the chapter, to the historical performance of British and European masculinities, it is new to the performance of Australian masculinity.
In the debates around the metrosexual in the Australian popular press discourses of class, gender and nationality loomed large. Journalists frequently made essentialist assumptions that Australian men – through their cultural heritage and nationality – are in some way naturally less effeminate than European, and particularly British men. The metrosexual was often presented as an effete middle class British import, with a tough proletarian Australian masculinity often being positioned against a more feminised English version. Addressing these over-arching ideologies of class, gender and national identity in public discourse around the metrosexual, this chapter historicises the nineteenth century construction of a specifically Australian manliness which was founded on its British aesthetic ‘other’, and demonstrates how this continues to inform Australian cultural resistance to masculine beautification. Much of the material I present is drawn from secondary sources, although I do use existing – and often quite unrelated – research to develop some key new arguments and issues about male grooming practices and their associated discourses in Australia. This chapter then, provides a contextual background to my original research into representations of grooming in Australian men’s magazines in the following chapters, and to my hypotheses around specifically Australian ways of thinking about male narcissism.
Hegemonic Seaboard and Colonial Masculinities
The founding and settlement of Australia in 1788 coincided with several seismic shifts in the discourses of gender in Europe, particularly around the cultivation of appearance.
98 From the beginning of the Tudor era in England in the late 1400s through to mid-1700s, older, more fluid social formulations of gender had allowed considerable overlap between the sexes and how they looked. It was a system in which “gender boundaries could be crossed in both directions, with the possibility that manhood could degenerate into effeminacy” (Moore, 1998a: 4). Throughout this period and during the Renaissance in particular, face powder, rouge, perfumes, hairstyles and highly elaborate powdered wigs informed the vernacular of aristocratic men’s as well as women’s toilette in an era characterised by ostentation and display by both sexes. From around the mid-eighteenth century a new dualistic paradigm of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ based on biological sex9 was beginning to emerge, marked clearly by a rejection of make-up among men and the appearance of shorter, less effeminate wigs compared to the ostentatious bouffant and ‘full-bottom’ styles which had dominated wealthy men’s fashion for over fifty years (see Ashelford, 1996: 94; Maginnis, 1996). The separating out of acceptable male and female ways of being was played out visibly and performatively by a new and increasing divergence between the kind and amount of attention the sexes were expected to pay to their appearance, and from around the mid-1700s, and onwards the distinct gendered categories of ‘beauty’ and ‘grooming’ began to take shape.
The new social discourses of gender which emerged throughout the eighteenth century began to govern and police male narcissism, constructing aesthetic and feminised masculinities as ‘deviant’. The fantastically-dressed young ‘macaronis’ of 1760s and 1770s London took the wig, make-up and fashion to the extreme, wearing long powdered elaborate wigs that could be up to nine inches above the head, topped by tiny tricorn hats. Heavily-scented, they wore thick face powder, rouge and often a painted beauty spot (Bonnington, 2003; Ashelford, 1996:147; Fourie, 1999). Up until around the 1740s it had been perfectly acceptable for aristocratic British men to wear make-up and flamboyant bouffant wigs; but by the 1770s the Macaronis were causing public outrage. They were ridiculed and despised within society, the term ‘macaroni’ used mostly in the pejorative, and they were lampooned in the satirist popular media as effeminate style-victims
9 Anthony Fletcher (1995) suggests that the Tudor gender system of the sixteenth century was based on strength – of the mind, body or moral faculties – and heat rather than biological sex (see Moore, 1998a: 4)
99 (Bonnington, 2003), much like the ‘metrosexual’ in the contemporary Australian popular press.
Figure 1: Philip Dawe, Pantheon Macaroni, 1773
What had been the norm less than a century ago then, was now being re-constructed as deviant. The following passage embodies the popular anti-macaroni feeling of the time;
The life of macaroni is a perfect vacuum. His words are all wind, his actions are all flash, and his thoughts (if he has any) are all phantasms.
100 He eats, he drinks, he sleeps, he walks, he talks, it is true, but in a manner totally different from all mankind … I shall always be ready with my correcting whip, to drive such noxious vermin away, from the society of mankind.
(Anon., quoted by Bonnington, 2003)
After at least three centuries of masculine performative excess and masquerade, here then lie the seeds of the social production of modern discourses of normative masculinity founded on the rejection and subordination of the narcissistic and the flamboyant, of the feminine and the effeminate;
With the eighteenth century, in seaboard Europe and North America at least, we can speak of a gendered order in which masculinity in the modern sense – gendered individual character, defined through an opposition with femininity and institutionalized in economy and state – had been produced and stabilized. For this period we can even define a hegemonic type of masculinity and describe some of its relations to subordinated and marginalized forms.
(RW Connell, 1995 quoted in Moore, 1996a: 5)
With mounting celebration of the patriotic virtues of the ‘John Bull’ Englishman in imperial Britain the effete macaronis were seen as a threat to the country’s security (Ashelford, 1996: 147), and found themselves subordinated and marginalised to an increasingly ‘manly’, more austere powerful and anti-effeminate hegemonic masculinity that was based on the principles of war, imperialism and colonisation.
At the beginning of the convict era in Australia the use of wigs and cosmetics as an acceptable fashion device among the men of the British ruling classes was over; but the male wig took on a much more powerful symbolic role as it became institutionalised by the state. Within the judiciary and the military, high court judges adopted the full- bottomed wigs once favoured by absolutist monarchs while the official uniforms of barristers, soldiers and sailors incorporated the shorter powdered tie or bag wigs (Ashelford, 1996; Maginnis, 1996) still seen today in the courts of Britain and Australia.
101 The male wig then, became a potent signifier of the force, military strength and power of the British armed forces and legislature. I would suggest that this visual performance of Connell’s 18th century imperial hegemonic masculinity was central in the colonisation process, and in the implementation of a terrifying penal settlement founded on the muscle of British criminal law. Violent physical force was an important part of the regime, but the captains, officers and marines of the fleets, the early governors of the colonies and the ruling British establishment symbolically communicated the hegemony of the British ruling class, the military and its powerful judicial system through powdered wigs, dress and clean-shaven personal grooming.
Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 ‘The Bench’, William Hogarth 1758 Captain Cook c 1775 Governor Arthur Phillip
The convicts, on the other hand, drawn mostly from the ranks of the British working classes and the slums of London, had suffered the atrocities of an eight month voyage in the dark and malodorous holds of the fleets. The ill-treatment, poor sanitation, cramped conditions, malnutrition and high rates of disease and death on board at least the first three fleets undoubtedly fostered abhorrence of authority, and of the British ruling class among the early convict population. Early life in the penal colony was harsh. The male convicts, who by far outnumbered women, mostly performed hard labour clearing the bush, working government farms, and building roads and public buildings in severe heat and on scarce food rations (Grimshaw et al, 1994; Clarke, 2003).
102
In the first four years of the colony, ex-convicts or emancipists who had served their sentence were given small grants of land, seed and equipment to establish themselves as peasant farmers; but when Governor Arthur Phillip returned to England in 1792 the newly-formed New South Wales Corps took over the administration of the colony, and the granting of land to emancipists ceased. Instead, its officers instead granted vast acreages of land to themselves, growing fantastically rich from the labour of convicts who they redirected from government farms to their own land, and from their monopoly of import trade (Clarke, 2003; Grimshaw et al, 1994). By the mid-1790s the bewigged British officers were entrenched in power as government officials, jurors and magistrates, and with a strong foothold in the landed gentry of the colony while the largely landless former convicts and their descendents were restricted from official posts (Grimshaw et al, 1994; Clarke, 2003). Following the Bigge reforms in the 1820s, the situation became worse for convicts and emancipists with an increase in the severity of punishments and changes in land policies. Under the new laws convicts and their families were removed from urban centres and banished to harsh labour on outback farms or distant penal colonies, and land was priced well beyond the reach of ordinary emancipists, while in Britain wealthy entrepreneurs and large stock companies were invited to take advantage of investment opportunities in Australia, including cheap convict labour. Frank Clarke suggests that the social and political policies of the 1820s represented “an apparently deliberate attempt to create artificially a colonial equivalent of the British landed gentry” and to reduce the native-born and lower orders to a landless, rural subservient workforce (Clarke, 2003: 80).
Such policies created factional unrest in the colony. The emancipists and the white native-born were outraged at the large-scale acquisition of land they believed they had an inherited right to by affluent British immigrants, for whom they were now forced to labour. According to Clarke in the 1820s and 1830s a definite anti-authority, anti-British feeling based on the injustice of their situation existed amongst the convicts, whose population was swelled by the arrival of over 40 000 felons from Britain between 1815 and 1830, and among the ever-increasing number of ex-convicts and their now adult
103 descendents (Clarke, 2003: 77, 81). He suggests it was during the 1820s that the socially and politically dispossessed lower orders of colonial society began to feel an increasing identification with the country and a sense of possessing “a distinct local identity separate from the John Bullism of the immigrant gentry” (Clarke, 2003: 86). This fledgling local identity was expressed by two newspapers in the mid-1820s; both The Australian and the Monitor spoke out against the injustice of land policies which reduced the free poor to rural serfs, demanding ex-convicts be given a ‘fair go’ while ridiculing the large landowners and the British ‘exclusives’ at every opportunity (Clarke, 2003: 81-84).
Clive Moore describes the aristocratic young Englishman Robert Herbert, who became Queensland’s first Colonial Secretary in 1859 as “good-looking, something of a dandy” and “typical of the gentry ruling class model of English manhood” (Moore b, 1998: 39). The figure of the dandy, who first emerged in 1790s and 1800s London, is often evoked in contemporary popular discussion about the metrosexual, and there are indeed important comparisons to be made in how men who openly care for their appearance are made deviant for transgressing modern boundaries of gender and sexuality. Impeccably groomed, the dandy, suggests George Walden was “narcissistic, elegant, extravagant and preferably idle … Above all, he is dedicated to his own perfection.” (Walden, quoted in McGinness, 2003: 19). Not too dissimilar then to Australian journalist Peter FitzSimons’ depiction of the effete, preening metrosexual. Englishman George Bryan “Beau” Brummel has been credited with almost single-handedly creating the icon of the dandy and the dandyist movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, as David Beckham is often single-handedly credited with creating the cult of the metrosexual in contemporary media commentaries. Brummell is said to have bathed and shaved his face several times a day, and to have kept three hairdressers – one for the temples, one for the front and one for the back of his hair (Garelick, 2001: 36, McGuinness, 2003: 19). Dandies typically wore their hair long and flowing when men’s hairstyles were becoming increasingly shorter, and they were clean-shaven amid a trend towards moustaches and side whiskers.
Dandyism was performative; the dandy’s joy of astonishing others was the linchpin of
104 their presentation as spectacle, and it was an exclusively urban phenomenon, played out in the cultural sphere of the city, whose streets offered the physical site for the defining visual dialogue of dandies (Fillin-Yeh, 2001: 2-5). Like the contemporary ‘metrosexual’ then, the urban city was the dandy’s turf. But while the dandies marked “a clean break from the heavily scented, over-the-top, 18th-century fop to an emphasis on simplicity in dress and personal cleanliness” (McGinness, 2003: 19), they were nevertheless emasculated and ridiculed and like the Macaronies, the dandies were widely despised for their laziness, vanity and effeminacy. In 1836 the Calvinist Thomas Carlyle launched a moral attack on the dandy, arguing that not only was he idle – “a Clothes-warning Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes” – but as the poor were “gathering their strength and revolution looming”, the dandy is concerned, above all, that his trousers “be exceedingly tight across his hips”, echoing the charges of a lack of patriotism made against the effete macaronis sixty years previously (quoted in Ratcliff, 2001: 101) The new and rapidly evolving social construction of masculinity as opposition to femininity is reflected in Carlyle’s attitude to the dandy, who saw moral failure in the wish to be no more than “a visual object … Your silver or your gold … he solicits not; simply the glance of your eyes … [D]o but look at him and he is contented” (quoted in Ratcliff, 2001: 102). Men then, according to newer, modern formations of masculinity were no longer to be looked at; from now on, men were to be in control of the gaze rather than the object of it. To be looked at, or to strive to be looked at, was to be passive and feminine.
In contemporary popular discussion around the metrosexual, enjoying being ‘looked at’ as Beckham does, or being ‘passive’ is frequently evoked as one of his defining, most feminine and often, most abhorrent characteristics. Strong continuities exist in the public discourse around the metrosexual and the dandy, and indeed around the mythical figures of Beckham and Brummel. Moreover, the arguments being made in the press around masculinity and narcissism in the twenty-first century are exactly the same as those which were being played out in the popular press of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for like the macaroni and the dandy, the metrosexual is often lampooned, feminised and construed as deviant, lazy and unpatriotic.
105
The figure of the dandy had been ridiculed in the nineteenth century in Britain for his effeteness and vanity, but in colonial Australia this mockery and scorn compounded with a distinct anti-British feeling and new imaginings of national identity, fuelling a popular “pricking and pillorying of the pomposity of the English” (Clarke, 2003: 104) and the construction of a particular anti-English, anti-authoritarian manliness which was crucial in the shaping and development of a male grooming culture in Australia. In colonial Australia, I suggest that the dandy, typical of the authoritative British gentry and the well- groomed landed aristocrat, undoubtedly played a leading role in the ideological formation of an oppositional, specifically Australian manhood which came to define a more clearly evolving national character in the popular literature of the 1880s and 1890s. Much has been written on the creation the bushman legend and of the values intrinsic to this exemplary masculinity which came to define a national character, many of which are clearly the antithesis of British culture and values. Linzi Murrie (1998: 68) suggests that the ‘Australian’ identity, drawn from the myth of the bushman, was constructed in the late nineteenth century through a series of binary oppositions against an absent ‘other’. Broadly speaking, these could include:
‘Australian’ ‘Other’ Practical Theoretical Physical Intellectual Anti-authority Authority Egalitarianism Class inequality Earthy/common Cultured/refined Mateship Individualism Masculine Feminine
(Sources: Dunstan, 1988; Jupp, 1994; Murrie, 1998; Ward, 1958; Willey, 1988)
These cultural binaries are strongly evoked in contemporary public discussion around the appearance of the ‘metrosexual’ in Australia. We may add Fitzsimons’ ‘bloke’ versus
106 ‘blancmange’ to this list, as well as AFL versus soccer, or even Wing versus Beckham, Australian Wing being a ‘blokey bloke’ and English Beckham being ‘poster boy’ (Fitzsimons, 2003: 13; Koch, 2003: 9).
The Australian ‘Bloke’
The historical construction of the ‘Australian bloke’ necessarily looms large in theorising popular cultural resistance to masculine narcissism. In his pioneering 1958 work The Australian Legend Russel Ward wrote that “the typical Australian was a practical man, rough and ready in his manners and quick to decry any appearance of affectation in others” (Stephens, 2003). Many contemporary commentaries about the metrosexual in the Australian media show the tenacity of this ‘typical’ national trait, and how the British dandy was evoked in oppositional constructions of traditional Australian manhood. “The dandy does not lay claim to any of our national traits” wrote Mark McGinness in The Australian in 2003. “Our aversion to ostentation and a streak of egalitarianism makes it easy to dandify any Australian man who sports a hat and a buttonhole.” In the writing of the legend in the late nineteenth century, this aversion to ostentation, affectation and authority necessarily rested on its implicit opposition to the fashionable, well-groomed, ‘dandified’ powerful immigrant landed aristocracy.
The writing of the Australian legend depended on the feminisation of the English and Englishness in general; but it also rested on the masculinisation of Australian culture and identity, something we also saw in public debates around the metrosexual. The construction and indeed, continual re-construction, of the ‘Australian’ identity as masculine is a cultural peculiarity of a nation that was, for the first hundred years of its existence at least, numerically an overwhelmingly male-dominated society in which male values dominated, particularly in the bushman ideology. The nationalist and masculinist ‘bushman’s bible’ the Sydney Bulletin, featuring popular native-born writers such as Lawson and Patterson and with a circulation of 80,000 by 1890 (Willey, 1988: 162) was an important discursive site for the forging of the emergent Australian identity and dominant discourses of Australian masculinity. Identifying the Bulletin’s feminisation of
107 such middle class ideologies as paternalism and the family as ‘gentry’, and therefore ‘English’ Murrie, (1998) suggests that the male homosocial nomadic fraternity, mateship and the rough, earthy masculinity of the Australian bushman were idealized. Underpinning this, he proposes, was a gendered city/bush debate between Patterson and Lawson in the magazine in 1892 which inverted the traditional ‘nature/culture’ binary of femininity and masculinity. Within this oppositional construction, it was masculinity which became associated with nature – the bush – and femininity with culture – the city. The Australian bushman’s inarticulateness, his anti-intellectualism and his physicality were celebrated at the expense of a constructed feminised, intellectual and ‘soft’ urban, English masculinity, with the city and civilized society itself being the main feminizing force (Murrie, 1998: 71-72).
Murrie’s suggestions, while not directly addressing men’s appearance or grooming habits – a topic which is rarely mentioned in historical Australian writing – are enormously useful in theorising popular resistance to, and ridicule of, the Australian metrosexual. In the writing and the re-writing of the legend, this city/bush opposition clearly informs Australian public debate around the metrosexual – the urban, professional straight male who embraces shopping, fashion, city culture, softening skin products and the mirrored gym over manual labour (Fitzsimons, 2003: 13). Moreover, Piccoli’s description of the ‘rurosexual’ (2003: 13), the metrosexual’s country cousin clearly depicted a discursive masculinity which was much less feminised than the city version, the rurosexual not having gone ‘too far’, embracing new fashion and grooming practices without being ‘silly’, unlike the “bowling-shoe-wearing, imported beer-clutching” city metrosexual.
If the concept of hegemonic masculinity involves an ideological struggle in which men who are less than thoroughly masculine are subordinated by other men (Connell in McMahon, 1998: 150), then the feminisation of the dandyish English gentry in late 19th century Australian popular culture signals the formation of a (numerically and ideologically) dominant anti-English, anti-authoritative, anti-ostentatious masculinity defined by its aesthetic British ‘other’. And if, in the writing of the legend, the ‘feminine’ social discourse of the city was subordinated to the mute discourse of mateship and the
108 bush (Murrie, 1998: 73), then the visual discourse of the dandy and the English gentleman in the cultural sphere of the city was subordinated to the tough, common and earthy ‘natural’ masculinity of the bushman, whose myth fuelled the image of a national male type and the characteristics of a masculinist ‘national character’ (Moore (b), 1998: 44; Murrie, 1998: 73). In other words, according to the legend it became simply un- Australian to be urban, elegant, educated or an aesthete.
One very important historical group of native-born Australian men who, alongside the bushman played a leading role in the creation and celebration of a masculinist national character, were the urban larrikins of the late nineteenth century, and their approach to fashion and grooming tells us much about the historical ideologies around men’s narcissism and appearance which continue to inform Australian public discourse around the metrosexual. The larrikins challenged fears that city society was inherently ‘feminising’ (Murrie, 1998: 71) by using its performative space to express themselves and their disillusionment with ‘respectable’ society. Working class, notoriously uncouth, violent and brazen, the larrikins present us with an interesting, contradictory rejection and appropriation of femininity. Like the dandy, the urban larrikin identified himself by his clothing, dressing up in distinctive high-heeled boots that were often ornamented, bell- bottomed trousers ‘very skimped in the waist’, collarless shirts, vivid neckerchiefs, short jackets and soft felt hats (Rickard, 1998: 79-80). According to John Rickard;
In an age when beards or whiskers were the norm, the larrikin was defiantly clean-shaven … and it is worth noting that dancing was said to be one of his favourite pastimes. The whole ensemble, with its suggestion of violence and the flaunting of sexuality, mocked the image of the respectable male bourgeois. (1998: 79)
But unlike the dandy, who strove for incorporation into elite society, the larrikins were one of the first male subcultures to use their appearance to signify their dissatisfaction with conservative society and all it stood for. Also unlike the dandy, their ‘flaunting of sexuality’ was definitely heterosexual and masculinist, with violent larrikin gang rapes being widely reported in Sydney in the 1880s (McQueen, 2005). According to Rickard,
109 the mirror often worn on the toe-cap of their boots served the purpose of viewing beneath women’s skirts. The boots were also a signifier of the ‘suggestion of violence’, shaped to a point to inflict injury during skirmishes, and the heels added height to the aggressor. The characteristic brazen swagger, the leer, the breaking up of hotel bars, the drinking, the foul language and the jostling and spitting at passers-by (Rickard, 1998: 79-80) all suggest that within the formative years of the Australian masculine male myth it was acceptable to embrace the feminine activities of dancing, dressing up, narcissism and grooming – but only if this was compensated by hyper-masculinist behaviour, and this is clearly reflected in current pro-metrosexual popular discussions which draw heavily on compensatory discourses of the ‘real Aussie bloke’, relying on textual codes and signifiers which attempt to naturalise the metrosexual as a ‘true’ red-blooded, straight Australian male who may care for his appearance, but is “just as tough on the inside” (Gotting, 2003: 13).
Modernity, Industrialisation and Urbanisation
According to Moore, colonial manhood was violent, racist and sexist, but in transition “from older concepts best designated as ‘manhood’, to newer images of ‘masculinity’, a more contrived socially constructed gender-type” (Moore (a), 1998: 43). However, drawing on the work of Michael Kimmel, who suggests that a shift in language from ‘manhood’, based on historical concepts of production, to ‘masculinity’ with more emphasis on consumption, leisure and recreation occurred in the United States and Europe in the first few decades of the nineteenth century, at least among the urban governing and professional classes, Moore argues that this change came much later in colonial Australia, where hard rural labour preserved ‘manhood’ rather than new concepts of ‘masculinity’ well into the late nineteenth century, and right into the early decades of the twentieth in some areas (Moore (a), 1998: 47-48). Australia’s primarily agricultural and rural economy had, since the beginning of the colony, kept vast numbers of men living and working outside of urban centres; outside of Bakhtin’s creative boundaries of the city, beyond the physical site of the performativity of the cultural sphere (Fillen-Yeh: 5) that gave rise to dandyism and attention to appearance.
110 Industrialisation and urbanisation happened much later in Australia than in Europe and America. Outside of the more urban New South Wales and Victoria, colonial Australia depended mainly on rural industries such as pastoralism, agriculture and mining right up until the 1870s, and keeping almost exclusively male company in the outback, while performing itinerant hard rural labour were hardly conditions conducive to fashion or grooming, nor even for regular washing or shaving. Indeed, the harsh conditions of life for itinerant workers and poor rural smallholders throughout the nineteenth century created what CHM Clarke called a race of ‘bush barbarians’ (cited in Clarke, 2003: 129). It was this model of masculinity on which the Australian legend rested; on the rural ‘battler’, the common, earthy, practical man of the bush who had little inclination, reason or resources to cultivate his appearance. The elevation of these bushman ideals in debates around the metrosexual in the mass media suggests that the concept of ‘manhood’ as opposed to newer constructions of ‘masculinity’ lasted for a lot longer in Australia than Moore’s suggested early decades of the twentieth century; indeed, it suggests that older formulations of ‘manhood’ continue to inform public discourse and self-imaginings even into the early decades of the twenty-first century. The persistence of appeals to national identity and ethnicity in popular discussion around the metrosexual draw from the founding ideology that it was simply un-Australian for a man to be stylish, cultured or well-groomed. To be any of these things was – and still is – to be English, the feminised aesthetic ‘other’ of the earthy Australian male.
The metrosexual’s narcissistic behaviours were considered transgressive not only of gender norms by Australian popular journalists, but also of the established behaviours between hetero and homosexual men. After Brummel, perhaps the most famous and oft- quoted dandy is Oscar Wilde, the flamboyant homosexual playwright who found celebrity in 1870s and 1880s London. The 1880s were significant for some major shifts in the discourses of sexuality itself, and between sexuality and grooming practices. With the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act in 1885, heterosexuality was institutionally enforced in Britain as the dominant, ‘normal’ sexuality of modern masculinity and homosexuality became a deviant, criminal offence. Meanwhile, largely thanks to Wilde, men who paid overt attention to their appearance, and dandies in
111 particular, were becoming increasingly associated with homosexuality. During one of Wilde’s visits to America in the 1880s his appearance was condemned by the press as displaying an ‘Unmanly Manhood’; his homosexuality was ‘immoral’ and his poetry “eclipses masculine ideals that under such influence men would become effeminate dandies” (Higginson, cited in Fillen-Yeh, 2001). So while previous constructions of the ‘deviant’ narcissistic male had been founded mainly on gender performance – a lack of patriotism, or laziness – by the 1880s aesthetes like Oscar Wilde came under attacks based on their sexuality as well as their gendered ‘unmanliness’. The infamous trial and conviction of Wilde in 1895 marks the moment when any explicit attentiveness to appearance became firmly gendered as feminine and increasingly, synonymous with homosexuality at a time when modern masculinity was being re-constructed upon the expulsion of both. From the closing decades of the nineteenth century then the dandy, and subsequent aesthetic masculine subjectivities like him, such the ‘SNAG’ and the ‘metrosexual’, became ‘queered’ in popular culture, representing an ‘unnatural’ manliness and questionable sexuality.
The impact of industrialisation and urbanisation throughout nineteenth century Britain and Europe froze the fluidity of gender differences and sexual behaviour, (Weeks, cited in Moore, 1998a: 47) giving rise to a more austere male grooming culture of modernity which rested on a much clearer distinction between the feminine practices and principles of ‘beauty’ and the more masculine culture of ‘grooming’. The shift from an agrarian to an industrial society was underpinned by the gendered ideology of separate spheres for men and women which rested on the public/private binary, affecting a masculinisation of business and commerce and a reservation of the public ‘serious’ world for men, and thus the shift to austerity in matters of appearance marked men’s entry into the professional and urban workforce. By the end of the nineteenth century then, men’s appearance had generally become more business-like and ‘serious’; the hair was kept short, and any overt attention to the styling of men’s hair was now considered effeminate (Hayward and Dunn, 2001: 22). Fragrances for men, popular with the dandies, increasingly came to represent the “whiff of lavender”, a euphemism for homosexuality and so the feminisation and ‘queering’ of the dandy coincided with the emergence of the
112 respectable, heterosexual middle class ‘working man’ ideal, a powerful hegemonic masculinity signified by austerity in dress and personal grooming which continues to shape discourses of male narcissism in contemporary Western culture.
Mass Media and Commercial Production
The rise of mass communication media and new modes of representation in the early twentieth century, particularly the photograph and film, radically altered the way in which men thought about their own appearance. For the first time, they could see what their peers in other parts of the world really looked like and began to assimilate styles from other countries (Hayward and Dunn, 2001: 15). Hollywood in particular came to dominate global fashions in grooming and style, and one of the first Hollywood fashion statements of the 20th century, popularised by the silent screen icon Rudolph Valentino, was flat hair, or the ‘plastered-down’ look. Testimony to Hollywood’s key initial role in the birth and development of a global men’s grooming products industry was the boom in men’s hair dressings fuelled by the ‘flat hair’ craze in the 1910s, with a wide range of brilliantines, hair oils and dressings appearing on the market to achieve the look (Hayward and Dunn, 2001: 22). In the past, men had styled their hair with macassar oil or with simple hair oils made at home from castor or olive oil (Ashelford, 1996; Baker, 1998; Quinion, 1996), but the twentieth century saw the introduction of commercially available men’s grooming products. The immaculately and sleekly-groomed styles of Hollywood actors such as James Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks or Gary Cooper in the 1920s were relatively high-maintenance, requiring frequent barbering, and importantly, product to hold them in place. Invented and designed specifically to hold these slick styles were Murray’s hair pomade (1926) and Brylcreem (1928), both still popular brands on the contemporary grooming market. Murray’s prospered mainly in the US, where it was developed, but it was the British Brylcreem which became the first branded, internationally mass-marketed men’s hair product (murrayspomade.com; Hayward and Dunn, 2001: 54). As part of the wider growth of the consumer economy in the 1930s, men’s grooming products and preparations were becoming more specialised, and crucially this trend coincided with the appearance of the first specialised general interest
113 and style magazines for men. It was during the 1930s and 1940s that magazines first became a popular medium where men could learn about grooming, fashion and style as well as about news and politics. Moreover, Australia played a pioneering role in the early development of men’s magazine publishing with the launch of MAN: Australian Magazine for Men in 1936, the subject of the following chapter.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have challenged assumptions of biological essentialism in the Australian popular press that the narcissistic ‘metrosexual’ is in some way ‘unnatural’ by demonstrating that there is nothing particularly ‘new’ or ‘odd’ about male narcissism and cosmetic adornment; it has been going on since antiquity and at various times in history men’s grooming practices have signified status, wealth and power. The modern construction of masculinity based on its opposition to femininity and on the total expulsion of narcissistic or flamboyant behaviours became a more powerful and more dominant discourse in the mid-nineteenth century, but such a construction is relatively new. When viewed in a much wider historical context, the metrosexual disrupts the codes of an imagined ‘traditional’ masculinity that has really existed only for the last hundred or so years. Looking back across history, the metrosexual represents not necessarily an emergence of a new self-conscious narcissistic masculinity, but rather a return to what I would argue are more traditional traits of masculinity associated with the time-honoured pleasures and practices of grooming and display. However, while I have suggested that narcissism and the performance of ‘feminine’ grooming practices is not necessarily new for men as a gender, I have demonstrated that while Britain and Europe have a long history of masculine beautification, Australian masculinity – itself a comparatively new construction – does not. Indeed, in tracing ideologies in the contemporary Australian press that the metrosexual is somehow ‘un-Australian’, I have endeavoured to show how historical dominant definitions of an unaffected, earthy working class Australian masculinity were, and continue to be, constructed against an effete, aesthetic British ‘other’, whether this be the dandy, typical of the nineteenth century English ruling class model, or the metrosexual, signified by English soccer player David Beckham.
114
This chapter then, provides some historical and cultural contexts to the debates around, and the current phenomenon of, Australian men’s increasing grooming and image- consciousness before moving into the heart of the thesis; how issues of narcissism and grooming have been presented to Australian men in twentieth century men’s magazines.
115 Chapter 4 Discourses of Grooming in MAN Magazine 1936 – 1974
Introduction
This chapter explores the discursive representation of grooming in the new genre of the general interest magazine for men from the launch of Australian MAN magazine in 1936 to its closure in 1974. How did the magazine’s representation of grooming change – if at all – over this period? What kinds of products were on the market? What languages and ideologies were used to market commercial grooming products to Australian men? In the following chapters I identify a ‘new’ men’s grooming culture, and so in this chapter I am concerned to explore the ‘old’ one which necessarily preceded a ‘new’ version. What did it look like? How were older, more traditional constructions of Australian masculinity communicated through discourses of grooming? And how did these constructions and imaginings change from the 1930s to the 1970s?
Revisiting the main themes arising in contemporary popular press discussions around the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ in 2003, I look at how grooming was represented in MAN in the context of class, gender and nationality. In current debates, male narcissism is often represented as being ‘un-Australian’ and commonly as a philosophy which ‘came from’ Britain. In the previous chapter I traced these powerful discourses to the nineteenth century and in this chapter I explore ‘British-ness’ in the communication of twentieth century grooming in MAN, both discursively and literally through the import of grooming products. In Chapter 2 I also found that discourses of sport, egalitarianism and ethnicity are commonly evoked in the popular media’s discussion of why the metrosexual is from ‘over there’, but not ‘over here’. Employing content and textual analysis of MAN magazine, here I map these ideologies of nationhood, sport, class and gender onto a historical analysis of the magazine’s representation of commercial grooming culture to Australian men from the late 1930s. In Chapter 2 I also argued that the commotion the figure of the metrosexual had caused across the Australian mediasphere in 2003, and the way that journalists discussed the phenomenon, suggested that representations of masculine narcissism and image-consciousness was a completely new thing among
116 Australian men, and that the metrosexual phenomenon had no recent precedent. Using the MAN material I question these popular assumptions that the traits of the metrosexual were necessarily new or ‘foreign’ to mediated Australian masculine identities.
The chapter is divided into two parts; the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s inform the first part and the bulk of the discussion, while the second part is concerned with the 1960s and 1970s. Part one identifies an ‘old’ grooming culture of modernity, the period of time up to the 1960s characterised by rigid class and gender boundaries, and in particular between the gendered concepts of ‘grooming’ and ‘beauty’, while part two deals with an emergent grooming culture of postmodernity, characterised by the gradual dissolution of these binaries as part of the wider fracturing of the meta-narratives of modernity.
Figure 1: Issue 1, December 1936
MAN was launched in Sydney in December 1936. It remained in circulation for almost forty years, reaching the peak of its popularity in the early 1950s, and it was the only men’s general interest magazine on the market in Australia until the 1980s. It was clearly modelled on the American magazine Esquire which had been launched three years earlier in 1933. Esquire was aimed at middle class men, and featured men’s fashion, food and leisure advice, scantily-clad women, full-page cartoons and contributions from prominent American literary figures and fiction writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Osgerby, 2003; Lindesay, 1983; Bookrags, 2005).
117 MAN, published independently by KG Murray, featured the work of prominent Australian writers such as A.P. Elkin, George Mackaness, Ion Idriess and Frank Clune in the 1930s and 1940s, and like Esquire it featured a men’s fashion section, scantily-clad women and full-page cartoons, the latter two eventually becoming its most defining and popular features. It also comprised men’s fiction, and factual articles organised around topics such as history, Australiana, business, and current national and foreign affairs. In its early years, MAN was plush, debonair and high class, printed on heavy art paper and with thick, glossy covers. Like Esquire it had a sophisticated art deco style and high production values, and it sold for two shillings. Despite it’s (for the time) high cover price and doubts from within the publishing industry that a specialist magazine aimed at men could survive, particularly in a country with such a small population (June, 1937), MAN was phenomenally successful. The first issue sold 8, 000 copies in one week. In six months it had doubled its sales, and by September 1937 sales had reached over 30, 000 (January, 1937; May, 1937; September, 1937). By the onset of the Second World War its circulation was 60,000, while the decade after the war was the height of MAN’s success, with sales peaking at over 200, 000 copies for one issue in 1953 (White, 1979: 147; 160- 161), a figure twice that of today’s best sellers Ralph and FHM, and particularly impressive when the population was around 9 million compared today’s 20 million.
In the light of MAN’s popularity and achievement as the first men’s general interest magazine in this country, it is surprising that it has received so little academic critical attention, especially compared to the wealth of social and historical analyses afforded to its feminine counterpart, the Australian Women’s Weekly, launched three years prior to MAN (see for example O’Brien, 1982; Sheridan et al, 2001; Sheridan, 2000; Bonner et al, 1998; Lawe Davis, 2006, Baird et al, 2007). Despite its huge success MAN remains an obscure publication in Australian magazine studies, appearing only in one journal article (Laurie, 1998) and two book chapters (White, 1979; Lindesay, 1983). Ross Laurie and Vane Lindesay focused their attention on the characters and narratives of MAN’s cartoons, describing a world of pre-feminist male sexual fantasies populated by busty secretaries and portly businessmen, gold-digging beauties and middle-aged sugar daddies, harems and Arab sheiks, while Laurie (1998) and White (1979) addressed the
118 sexual objectification of MAN’s ‘cheesecake’ models and in the more explicit Etudes des Femmes and Manadorables sections. MAN then, was clearly a historical forerunner of contemporary men’s magazines such as Ralph and FHM in its use of irreverent and sexist humour, coverage of fashion and the objectification/fetishization of women’s bodies, although other sections featuring news, current affairs and business were more serious and political, constructing a more ‘adult’ readership than the current ‘lad mags’. While this comparative research between ‘old’ and ‘new’ Australian men’s lifestyle magazines has yet to be conducted, of the existing research into the magazine Richard White’s early cultural studies analysis (1979) of MAN’s construction of a new image of the Australian male in the 1930s is the most useful for my own work here.
MAN’s ‘New Man’ of the 1930s: Fashion, Style and Consumption
White suggested that in the late 1930s, alongside its fiction and features which presented traditional narratives of Australian bushman and South Seas adventurers, MAN created an image of a new sophisticated, modern and urbanised Australian male which challenged traditional images of Australian men. He argued that while the magazine’s older writers such as Idriss and Elkin continued to represent traditional rural and frontier masculinities, it’s younger contributors, who were more self-consciously urban and sophisticated themselves developed an image of a ‘new man’, to whom they catered with fashion, cocktail recipes and reviews of theatre, films, books and wines suggesting that
Man’s new image of the Australian male, then, was of a city sophisticate … [but] … One of the problems with the new man was that, unlike the Bulletin’s bushman, or Smith’s Weekly’s digger, he was not ‘typically’ Australian. Yet the magazine was desperately nationalist.
(White, 1979: 155-156)
As I discussed in the previous chapters, the ‘typical Australian’ was traditionally constructed by discourses of national identity as ideally rural, uncultured and uninterested
119 in matters of appearance, while educated, cultured urban masculinities were feminised. White suggests that the magazine’s attempt to reconstruct the traditional Australian male identity to suit modern, urban life came into conflict with its nationalism, and it struggled to reconcile its ‘new man’ with traditional images of the Australian male (White, 1979: 145, 149). MAN was the first local magazine to appeal to Australian men through the feminine discourses of fashion, style and consumption and the inclusion of a fashion section was highly contentious. “The appeal of fastidious fashion etiquette to the average Australian male” suggested White, “even if he was the ‘New Man’, seems to require some justification” (1979: 155).
The magazine went to great lengths in justifying the inclusion of fashion by insisting that taking an interest in fashion was in no way feminine or un-Australian; “There’s nothing effeminate in taking a certain amount of pride in one’s appearance” wrote the fashion editor Phillip Lewis in the first fashion segment of the first issue. “The truth is that common sense is the basis of dressing well … When we describe a man as being always well turned out it is a tribute more to his intelligence than anything else” (December, 1936: 73). Dressing stylishly then, had nothing to do with vanity, but more with intelligence and common sense, the latter trait associated strongly with traditional representations Australian masculinity. The following year Lewis again reassured anxious readers that following fashion was indeed compatible with manliness; “lose that inhibition that being stylishly and correctly dressed is by way of anything feminine … dressing is an important factor in success” and if readers were still in doubt he advised they have their winter overcoat tailored to suit their new ‘roadster’, a definitive signifier of maleness and success (July, 1937: 85). Aside from nominating it as one of the features of the magazine aimed at the urban ‘new man’, White made little mention specifically of MAN’s fashion section, despite this being the area of the magazine where his ‘new man’ would most likely be found. In contemporary men’s magazines, grooming often appears either within, or around the fashion section and so my initial research into MAN’s representation of male grooming began in its fashion section. A brief look at the first and early fashion segments of the magazine is a useful starting point for exploring the
120 discourses of nationality, class and gender in the communication of men’s style in MAN in the late 1930s, and to contextualise my core discussion around grooming.
Appearing directly after an advertisement for a Sydney tailor which drew heavily on the exemplary style of the British royal brothers, the first fashion section in the first issue of MAN in 1936 set the tone for how fashion was presented in the magazine through to the 1950s. It was made up of dense text, featuring just one photograph of the Duke of Kent, a dapper colonial ‘gentleman’ in a safari hat, and several hand-drawn illustrations. Already then, we can see pivotal discourses of the superiority of British style and class as well as of British imperialism and patriotism.
Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4
The text was sub-divided into sections titled “In Town To-day”, “To-nite at 8.30” and “Call of the Wild”. Addressing upper and middle class urban men, and giving a clear indication of the imagined/ideal urban lifestyle of its ‘new man’ readership, it covered what to wear for business in the city, formal evening/dinner wear and clothing for a country ‘jaunt’, presumably in the roadster. It was, as were most of the fashion editorials in MAN throughout its publication, littered with references to men’s fashion from Britain, America and Europe which suggested that Australian fashion was necessarily derivative of overseas trends. Written in complex dense narratives weaves, threads, colours and cuts
121 were discussed at length. There was nothing frivolous about the very serious men’s fashion section in MAN, which aside from its aim to educate men about clothes and fashion strove to “educate him in the ways of the modern world as well” (White, 1979: 155).
Six months into publication the ‘Fashion’ section became the more masculine ‘His Clothes’ and while Lewis was at the helm throughout the 1930s and the 1940s, typical topics included golf fashions, beach and resort wear, dressing for dinner, at home informals, house coats and smoking jackets and hand-woven tailored suits which addressed an imagined readership of wealthy, educated, stylish and professional men. Appearing around the fashion pages in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the advertising campaign for Langridge School of Physical Culture similarly appeals to a wealthy, urban professional readership:
Figure 5 Figure 6
White’s Australian ‘new man’ of the 1930s then was represented in MAN as comparatively rich and living or working in the city in white collar professional occupations. He looked to Europe, Britain and America for the latest trends in fashion,
122 which he took very seriously and without injury to his masculinity. He drank wine and he made cocktails. He also went to gyms and day spas, where he played squash and received electric or vapour baths and massage. Our ‘new man’ construction of the 1930s is beginning to sound more than vaguely familiar to the contemporary ‘metrosexual’ identity who, as was suggested by the journalists of the popular press, visits day spas for Vichy rain showers and vapour baths, intensely and seriously cultivates his appearance, lives and works in professional positions in the city, drinks wine and cocktails and goes to the gym. This clearly suggests that there is nothing particularly ‘new’ about certain basic characteristics of the mediated metrosexual persona, but crucially, what was absent from the 1930s construction was a keen interest in grooming and the use of a wide range of cosmetic grooming products and preparations, and this is precisely what is new about the metrosexual phenomenon.
Discourses of Grooming in MAN
MAN was fashion-conscious, but not particularly grooming conscious. While the fashion feature was the only segment of the magazine present from the beginning to the end of its publication, there was never a specific grooming section in MAN. Moreover, compared to the meticulous attention to detail afforded to choice of fabrics, weaves, cuts, colour combining, accessories and the ‘rules’ of modern fashion, there was a virtual absence of editorial advice about grooming procedures, and particularly, about grooming products. The first time grooming was mentioned editorially in the magazine was in ‘His Clothes’ in December 1938, where readers were advised to simply “keep the hair combed, hands clean and shower regularly”. Grooming was not mentioned again until over ten years later in February 1949 and again, indicative of his imagined reader’s class and lifestyle, Lewis advised men how to freshen up at the office for after-work cocktails;
Most offices are equipped with a hand-basin in which you can sluice the features. Additionally there’s the possibility that you carry a kit of hair dressing, comb etc. in your bottom (or top) drawer. So you can freshen up the face, re-comb the hair – and then for a coup de grace, what better than a clean, well-laundered shirt that you keep in the office for the
123 occasion.
Aside from its formal address, what is interesting about the language Lewis uses here is how it frames grooming and attention to personal appearance as impersonal. He advises readers to sluice ‘the’ features, freshen up ‘the’ face, comb ‘the’ hair not ‘your’ features, face or hair, setting up a discourse which distances men from their skin or hair rather than one which invites any kind of nurture or care; sluicing the features here is a little like washing inanimate objects such as the car or cleaning the windows – necessary but something which should not take up too much time. Moreover, Lewis only alludes to “a kit of hair dressing, comb etc” rather than entering into a discussion of the function or variety of hair dressings – or any other late 1940s grooming products – in any comparable way to his discussion around clothes and fashion.
The next time grooming appeared editorially in MAN was in January 1963, appearing again in the fashion section as number eight in ten prescribed ‘rules’ of dressing well, and despite the availability of a wide range of men’s toiletries by the 1960s, ‘good grooming’ was defined simply as “a daily shave, shower and change of linen, regularly scheduled haircuts, clean and trim nails” while readers were advised to “keep toilet articles at the office in case that evening meeting comes up unexpectedly” (January, 1963). Grooming then was important, but it was not important enough to warrant its’ own section in the magazine nor any discussion around specific products, which throughout the magazine’s publication remained the obscure ‘kit’ or ‘toilet articles’. Discussing or presenting fashion in an Australian men’s magazine then was contentious; but discussing personal grooming was potentially disastrous, for it risked suggestions of male narcissism and vanity, feminine traits to be avoided at all costs.
Lewis was loathe to advertise or endorse any grooming products in his column. Indeed, in his discussion of grooming packs appearing on the market in the 1950s he went to great pains to describe the products without naming the brand;
Are you the cove who looks a bit distraught because he doesn’t carry
124 a comb, or who digs his hands into his pockets because he has no nail file? Well, this column isn’t advertising a thing; but throw a glance at some of the neat groom-as-you-go packs.
(June, 1950 my emphasis)
The communication of the ‘old’ grooming culture in MAN then was characterised by an absence of product discussion and advertising within the editorial and so it was advertising itself which took on the explanatory role, dedicating considerable copy space to medical, social and functional advisories around the products. Analysing these advertisements in MAN at the height of its popularity allows us an opportunity to build a picture of an ‘old’, more ‘traditional’ masculine grooming culture before the large-scale opening up of contemporary men’s toiletries and cosmetics markets, giving us a snapshot of the kinds of products, services and brands that were available to Australian men. Further, textual analysis of grooming ads in MAN allows us to identify the dominant discourses employed to communicate with Australian men in the early mediation of men’s commercial grooming products in the new genre of magazines for men.
The 1930s, 1940s and 1950s
I. Shaving Appliances
In the first year of its publication, not one single advertisement for a grooming product or grooming aid appeared in MAN. Indeed, in the three years up to the outbreak of the war very few grooming ads appeared, and those which did were mostly for shaving appliances and devices, with only a single ad for a shaving cream and an anti-dandruff treatment being featured before the war.
125
Figure 7
A full-page announcement for the Maximax Blade Sharpener and Conditioner was the first grooming product advertisement to appear in MAN in December 1937, exactly a year after the first issue. The advertisement for this “ingenious device” – pointedly from America, where the device had experienced “wonderful success” – was suffused with signifiers of newness, modernity and exclusivity; it was “as modern as to-morrow” and as it was on offer only to MAN readers this had the effect of re-branding the magazine and the readers themselves as also “modern as to-morrow”, or as modern as the US. Evoking discourses of precision engineering, the ad was typical of 1920s and 1930s advertising appeals to advances in modern industrial technology and its application to consumer durables. Advertisements for men’s personal mechanical and electrical grooming aids were the perfect arena for the communication of masculine discourses of industrial modernity and technological progress; the word ‘patent’ was prolific in the marketing and advertising of men’s shaving equipment and appliances from the 1900s to the late 1940s.
126 Electric shavers were another new grooming appliance in the 1930s which gave advertisers the opportunity to celebrate modernity. In its 1938 advertisement in MAN Sunbeam boasted that its Shavemaster model was “new in principle … new in performance … new in quick, close comfort-shaves” (December, 1938: 119). Sunbeam also employed new and innovative advertising techniques, here running an early joint campaign with its host magazine. “MAN, what a shave!” read the lead grab of the full- page ad, the M-A-N appearing in the font and style of the magazine logo, intertextually branding both as essential consumer products for the thoroughly modern man.
Figure 8
Addressing MAN readers so directly and exclusively the advertisement sets up an imagined readership/consumer of both the magazine and the product, and invites the reader to recognise himself as, or at least aspire to be, the young, suave modern businessman smiling from the mirror. Here then is our imagined ‘New Man’ of the 1930s. Modishly expressing the ease and simplicity of shaving with the new electrical appliance compared to cumbersome, old-fashioned wet shaving (just plug into an electric point, apply the Shavemaster, and – presto!), the ad sets up binary oppositions between new and old, modern and dated. Placing as much emphasis on the razor’s revolutionary
127 mechanical and electrical engineering – it’s lightening-fast, self-stropping oscillating cutter, it’s brush-type self-starting motor – the ad celebrates technological modernity, addressing a mechanically-literate male readership accustomed to ads elsewhere in the magazine for spark plugs, piston rings and engine oil.
Advertising campaigns for razor blades in the 1930s and 1940s relied on similar masculine codings of industrial precision engineering and technological modernity. Gem ‘Double Life’ blades were “stropped 4, 840 times and honed 1800 feet” (November 1938: 146; June 1940; 112) while Gillette blades boasted their modern technological prowess to produce “hardest electrically-tempered steel of the most exacting specification”, the uniformity of the blades tested “at every stage of production by micro-sensitive machines” (April 1948). 1930s and 40s advertising for safety razors themselves on the other hand, drew less on discourses of industrial modernity and mass production, and more on long-established know-how, skill and authentic craftsmanship. For example, Rolls Razor declared in MAN in May 1938 that in “10 years hence, the steam locomotive will be obsolete, but you’ll still be having perfect shaves with the same blade and the same Rolls Razor”, reassuring the reader of the durability and permanence of traditional, rather than newer technologies. Alongside the discourses of tradition, workmanship and expertise which were privileged in advertisements for wet shaving equipment in the 1930s and 1940s, narratives of nationality, nationhood, heritage and history also loomed large. ‘Made in England’ or ‘British Made’ were monikers frequently used to evoke Britain’s reputation for steel production and world-class manufactured goods.
128 Figure 9 Figure 10
Gem celebrated Australia’s 150th year of white settlement with an anniversary model razor housed in a British bakelite case engraved with a map of Australia and the dates 1788 – 1938. The design drew on ideologies of nationhood, yet at the same time celebrated colonial history and British imperialism; the model, like the fleet of 1788 had “just arrived” from England. Indeed, Britain and America had colonised the Australian market for men’s shaving equipment, with all the major brands being imported mainly from England and the States. Furthermore, discourses of colonialism were prevalent in the names of some, particularly British, razor models advertised in MAN such as Rolls’ Imperial and Colonial models which were housed in prestigious, lined leather boxes and cases (May, 1938; August, 1939).
Gillette also produced models which relied on presentation, aesthetics and discourses of class and sophistication as much as the razor’s functionality. Its expensive Aristocrat model for example, came in a leatherette-covered metal case with plated rims with a satin and velvet lining (December, 1949: 76); their Set No. 6 was housed in a velvet lined, lizard-grained case (December, 1954: 73) while the Aristocrat Junior, priced more moderately was “smartly packed in an ivory-toned moulded case” (October, 1948: 99). The aesthetically cased and razors and electric shavers of the ‘old’ grooming culture then, in much the same way as men’s prestige stationery items communicated the taste, wealth and class of their owners. Gillette’s advertising campaigns in particular were shot through with discourses of class and nationality. The Gillette brand targeted the wealthier, middle class or more professional consumer than brands such as Gem or Que. For example, in 1950 Gillette launched a campaign in MAN for their ‘Blue’ blades entitled ‘Men of Self- respect’ featuring illustrations of a high court judge, a modern businessman and an American sailor.
129
Figure 11 Figure 12 Figure 13
“Men who matter, men in the public eye, take no chances with their daily shave” read the copy underneath the judge, (May, 1950) while a subsequent ad in the campaign suggested that “some men, by their very occupations have great traditions to keep up. Not least is that they should be well-shaved, always” (October, 1950). Such professional masculinity representations give us clues to Gillette’s imagined consumer, or the professions, lifestyles and middle class cultural values to which consumers should aspire. Moreover, alongside the discourses of class here, we again find strong discourses of American culture, style and modernity. Amid these advertisements for predominantly imported brands of men’s shaving equipment, which mostly featured illustrations of beaming, well-groomed, clean-shaven middle class men and relied on stylish, aesthetic marketing and packaging promotion, one Australian brand, Club appeared in MAN in 1948;
Figure 14
130
Here, we see a complete rejection of the suave and sophisticated codes found in advertisements for British and American brands, and an assertion of ‘true blue’ Australian manliness and working class values. The cropping and framing of the photograph, the lay-out of the ad itself and its lack of decorative prose extolling the personal and professional pleasures of shaving work together to signify an oppositional unpretentious, functional advertisement that expresses a strong discourse of ordinary Australian-ness. The overweight, unshaven, flat-capped ‘model’ provides a clear self- imagining and celebration of a ‘real’ or authentic ‘typical’ Australian masculinity that is rough around the edges and not affected by vanity in any way. ‘Made in Australia’ is a proud statement of nationhood, and can be read as referring to both the blade and the representational image of Australian working-class manhood, which is clearly the antithesis of more styled and groomed representation of British and American masculinities in shaving products advertisements. Moreover, a later modification to this ad, appearing in MAN in 1949, featured the same Australian ‘bloke’ with noticeably hand-sketched black and white touch-up whiskers covering his chin instead of the previous photographic dark stubble, and the lines ‘True blue blade – made in Australia” replaced with “No finer blade than club is made”.
Figure 15
131 These modifications strengthen the discourses of Australian-ness in the campaign, the drawing on of the whiskers signifying a typically laconic, dry sense of humour and being able to laugh at oneself (Willey, 1988; Cook, 2000) while the copy is redolent of bushman’s poetry rather than refined English verse. At 5 for 11 pence, Club blades were cheaper than imported brands, and their low-budget marketing campaigns addressed the average Australian man with no airs or graces. Most shaving appliance manufacturers placed more ads in MAN just before Christmas, and in December 1948 Club placed an ad for its own gift suggestion;
Figure 16 Again, we can see strong codings of class and nationality. Compared to the aesthetic satin and velvet lined leather casings of prestigious gift sets offered by overseas brands, the plastic Club gift box is cheap, unpretentious and austere, but it is also practical and functional, becoming a match box and ashtray, the used blades forming the base for cigarette stubs. The characteristics of the product itself – without airs, practical, tongue- in-cheek and functional rather than aesthetic – are aligned with the characteristics attributed to the exemplary national masculinity found in the legend of the Australian bushman. In the previous chapter I argued that this ‘traditional’ Australian manliness was historically constructed against its aesthetic ‘other’, the English ruling aristocracy and the urban middle class, and that contemporary debates in the popular press suggest that the cult of the ‘metrosexual’ is an effete British import. Amid the myriad of suave,
132 sophisticated and wealthy city masculinities presented in both American and British advertising campaigns for men’s shaving equipment, the Australian Club campaign gives us a very explicit, visual representation of such an oppositional construction – against both British and American representations – while illustrating the tenacity of the bushman legend in informing the ideologies and ideals about masculine grooming and beautification in 1940s Australia.
II. Grooming Preparations
Overview
MAN was two years into publication before it featured any ads for grooming preparations, with campaigns for Palmolive Shaving Cream and Listerine Antiseptic anti-dandruff treatment appearing only in March 1939. These were the only two grooming preparations to advertise in MAN before the outbreak of WWII, during which advertising in the magazine in general fell off markedly. Up until 1946, ads for shaving appliances had predominated, with only one or two campaigns for Palmolive’s shaving cream appearing in the magazine, despite the availability of many other brands on the market10. And surprisingly, given the product’s wide discussion in fashion histories and the range of brilliantines on the Australian market in the 1930s11, there had been only one advertisement for a hair dressing or hair styling product in MAN, and this appeared only in the magazine’s sixth year of publication (Vitalis, 1941). For the first decade of MAN’s publication then, men’s grooming products manufacturers and advertisers seemed reluctant to use the Australian new men’s magazine genre as an advertising vehicle.
This changed in the immediate post-war years, in the height of the magazine’s readership. This was the ‘golden age’ of grooming preparations campaigns in MAN, which attracted
10 There were plenty of shaving cream brands on the Australian market in the 1930s and 1940s who did not advertise in MAN, such as Swank, Spruso, Bickfords and Potter’s; these can be seen on the Sydney Powerhouse Museum’s online catalogue, and in the work of Baird et al into advertising in women’s magazines in the 1930s to the 1950s
11 Vigorene, Romney’s, Simpson’s and Polo (Powerhouse Museum Sydney, online catalogue 2007)
133 advertising from 13 preparations brands, most of which ran regular campaigns. The number of brands however may have increased dramatically, but up until 1949 the main product categories of shaving cream, hair dressing, toothpaste and soap had changed very little, suggesting that Australian men’s grooming culture still accommodated only the most basic of grooming preparations. The 1940s saw the birth of the specialised range or ‘family’ of toiletries for men and in 1949 the Christy’s and Straight 8 brands advertised ranges which extended the available products on offer to readers to include newer preparations for men such as aftershave, cologne, men’s deodorant and shampoo. But the post-war boom in grooming preparations advertisements and available product categories in MAN didn’t last long. One of the most surprising findings of my research was that, instead of the plethora of advertisements I expected to encounter for a growing range of men’s commercial grooming preparations in the so-called ‘consumer age’ of the 1950s, I found markedly fewer, particularly in the latter half of the decade. Between 1950 and 1954, the number of grooming preparations brands advertising in MAN fell to nine and campaigns became far less regular, and with the disappearance of campaigns for the two product ranges in the early 1950s, the available product categories remained overwhelmingly the basic grooming preparations of shaving cream and hair dressings right through to the early 1960s.
My analysis of grooming preparations advertisements in MAN at the height of its popularity revealed that cartoon characters, illustrated storyboards and serial formats were a leading genre of communication in this ‘older’ mediated men’s grooming culture of the 1940s and 1950s, with characters offering advice to each other and ultimately, to the reader, and I found the key discourses and ideologies which informed the campaigns to be modern science, sport, class, nationality, gender, love and romance and age. While I endeavoured to discuss these themes individually, I found at times that was impossible, for several discourses clearly overlapped in many campaigns and so I have grouped certain key themes together, although this meant that some, such as sport and class seem to appear twice.
134 Discourses of Modern Science
Figure 17
Ads for men’s shaving equipment had privileged discourses of modern technology and industrial innovation in the 1940s and 1950s; campaigns for men’s grooming preparations tended to evoke science, another central meta-narrative of modernity, and in particular, advances in chemical and clinical science. Palmolive Shaving Cream for example, had scientific properties which enabled it to “multiply itself in lather 250 times” (March 1939; February, April, September 1940). A similar molecular claim was made in 1948 by Ingram’s Shaving Cream, which “bubbles into 120 atomic lathers” (September, 1948; January 1947). Invented in the 1920s, shaving cream was a chemically- manufactured preparation challenging the older shaving soap or shaving stick, which had generally dropped out of currency in marketing campaigns from the 1930s. The advantages of scientifically-developed shaving preparations over shaving soaps, which had acted simply as a lubrication, were that the “strong bubbles hold the beard erect for shaving” and that it had the ability to “maintain its creamy fullness for ten minutes on the face” (March 1939; February, April, September 1940), something which traditional shaving soap could not achieve, particularly in hard water. ‘Brushless’ shaving creams
135 were introduced to the market in the 1930s (Gillette, 2006) and American company Williams introduced their Glider brand to MAN readers in April 1948;
Figure 18
This ‘how to’ ad illustrates the storyboard format’s advisory and instructional role, a device commonly used by advertisers to introduce men to new products in particular. Meanwhile, advertisements for new chemically-compounded shaving creams were not the only men’s grooming product category to evoke discourses of advances in modern science. Indeed, narratives of scientific modernity informed all the mainstream categories of personal grooming preparations featured in MAN between 1945 and the late 1950s. Advertisements for dandruff treatments, hair tonics and hair creams were suffused with the phrases “scientifically developed”, “scientifically proven” and “scientific formula”. Anti-dandruff products such as Listerine, Pinaud and Thermaderm relied on the virtues of laboratory-produced compounds in particular. “If you are free from dandruff you are one in a thousand” claimed the March 1939 ad for Listerine, and considering the glut of advertisements in MAN and the wider popular media, dandruff was indeed a condition which affected most of the adult population and was most likely caused by washing the hair with soap.
136 In the 1930s scientists had developed new non-alkaline synthetic shampoos, but in early marketing and advertising campaigns, shampoos were aimed heavily at women, deploying feminine discourses of freshness and nature rather than science, and in advertisements placed mainly in women’s mass magazines (see for example Baird et al., 2007). Only two advertisements for shampoo appeared in my 1930s –1960s content analysis of MAN, and neither appeared as a stand-alone alone campaign. Given the product’s feminine image and its advertising being confined mainly to a female audience, most men probably would have not used shampoo which in its early days was situated firmly on the ‘beauty’ side of the ‘beauty’/’grooming’ binary with preparations such as setting lotions, deodorants and perfumes. Indeed, as we saw in the press debates in Chapter 2 contemporary popular journalists continue to strongly associate shampoo with femininity, both FitzSimons (2003: 13) and Penberthy (2003: 20) advising readers who wanted to retain their traditional Australian manhood to use soap not shampoo, which they framed as a signifier of the effeminate metrosexual.
Hair dressings and tonics on the other hand, were coded as much more masculine products in the 1940s and 1950s. If men’s dandruff, dry scalp and dull, lifeless hair were caused by using soap rather than ‘feminine’ shampoo, then it was up to the more traditional men’s hair oils and tonics to help men with their problems. Hair dressings in the Forties and Fifties were not designed or advertised simply as hair styling products; most, if not all, were marketed as performing three or even four functions of cleaning the hair and scalp, eliminating dandruff and conditioning the hair as well as styling it, the latter often being of minor importance. Jay Martell’s ‘Formula Four’ for example promised to “get rid of dandruff, bring back healthy vigour to lifeless hair and a dry tired scalp, preventing falling hair … acts as a hair dressing too” (October, 1952). American products again led the way. Vitalis Hair Tonic was the first hair dressing to be advertised in MAN in 1941, and it introduced itself as “the hair dressing and tonic in one … stimulates the scalp, dresses the hair” (October 1941). Hair tonics such as Vitalis, Vaseline and Potter and Moore claimed to boost circulation by vigorously rubbing or massaging the product into the scalp which, coupled with their high oil content, promised to check dandruff, keep the scalp clean and healthy and the hair lustrous and well-
137 groomed. Their clinical function meant that advertisements for hair tonics, and later hair creams, also drew heavily on discourses of medical and scientific modernity. An advertisement for Potter and Moore’s Brilliantine Hair Tonic for example proclaimed that the product “contains ‘cholesterol’, a blend of valuable oils scientifically proved to keep the scalp healthy by feeding the hair roots” (December 1951). Jay Martell ‘Formula Four’ was a tonic which claimed to be an “amazing new scientific treatment … a new special compound containing Lanolin” (October, 1952). Products advertised specifically as hair dressings (rather than actual tonics) such as Lustre Crème (May, 1950) and Brylcreem (June, 1952) were similarly marketed as also being scientific cures for dandruff, not just as styling products. The men’s hair dressings of the ‘older’ grooming culture then were not specialised, but rather multi-purpose products which acted simultaneously as anti- dandruff shampoo, conditioner and styling agent.
Discourses of Sport and Gender
Aside from narratives of scientific development, advertisements for men’s personal grooming preparations in the 1940s and 1950s relied heavily on representations of sport. Palmolive Shaving Cream (February 1940) featured a cartoon character of the product itself wearing shin pads and holding a cricket bat, and cricket was also the sport of choice for Brylcreem, who enlisted professional cricketers Denis Compton and Keith Miller to endorse the product in advertising campaigns which appeared MAN in January and February 1955.
138
Figure 19 Figure 20 Figure 21
Tennis was another sport often used in campaigns for grooming products, particularly for hair tonics and dressings. Advertisements for Vitalis, (August, 1946; September 1947), Vaseline Hair Tonic (September, 1948; March 1949) and Potter and Moore Brilliantine Hair Tonic (October, 1950) all featured men playing tennis. The Vaseline brand’s men’s hairdressing products exclusively used themes of sport in campaigns in MAN between 1945 and 1955, featuring tennis, golf, sailing, surfing, boxing and swimming. Palmolive Shaving Lather considered sportsmen one of its ideal customers (1950-52), and both Brylcreem (December, 1954) and Colgate toothpaste (February, 1949) used imagery of surfing. Christy’s toiletries range for men drew on discourses of fox hunting (1948-49), while advertisements for Ingram’s Shaving Cream and Straight 8 Brilliantine featured horse racing, both analogising the finishing post with the ‘perfect finish’ of grooming with the product (September, 1948; January and June, 1958).
Employing masculine discourses of sport evoked gendered ideologies of agility, competitiveness and winning; winning the game, the race, or in the case of the Straight 8 brand, potting the black or eight ball in pool. Associating grooming products with sport inoculated the products and their users from associations with femininity, replacing ideologies of vanity with activity. Unlike female models, who until fairly recently were generally posed or represented in self-absorbed narcissism in advertisements for toiletries
139 and cosmetics, using discourses of sport in men’s grooming products ads portrayed men as active subjects rather than passive objects. If men were to groom and beautify themselves, there had to be a purpose other than simply to be looked at. Underscoring the gendered representation of beauty/grooming products, sport is rarely used in ads for cosmetic products aimed at women, which draws its celebrity endorsers mostly from the world of modelling and acting, from role models who strive to be looked at, an attribute considered the pinnacle of femininity, whereas sporting prowess is an attribute of ideal manhood. Using images of sport and endorsement from sporting personalities branded the product as a symbol of healthy masculinity that is active, competitive, adventurous and a good sport, offering stylish grooming but without threat to the user’s inherent manliness.
Discourses of Sport, Class and Nationality
Of course, certain genres of sport are strongly associated with class and nationality. Cricket is traditionally an English game associated with the upper class; played in elite boys public schools, it was the game of gentlemen and players. Tennis is also traditionally an English sport associated with upper and middle-classness, as is golf and most certainly, fox hunting:
140
Figure 22 Figure 23
Advertisements for Christy’s Hunt Club range of men’s grooming products were shot through with discourses of sport, class and nationality. Foxhunting was, and still is, a British equestrian sport enjoyed by the upper class. From the poetic English prose, “bracing tang of an English countryside on a blossoming April morn” to the use of the word ‘tantivy’, an archaic British hunting cry or to go at something full speed or headlong (Quinion, 2007), the campaign proudly applauded British culture, history and heritage. Creating a fictional ‘British-ness’ around the upper-class world of foxhunting, this 1948 campaign – which introduced new grooming products such as cologne, deodorant and aftershave lotion not seen anywhere else in the magazine before – demonstrates how contemporary male beauty culture has been represented as ‘coming from’ overseas, in this case Britain. Aftershaves and colognes had been on the market
141 since the mid-1930s but aftershave lotion, a fragranced facial cream for men, was a new and more ‘feminine’ product of the 1940s and it too ‘came from’, both literally and discursively Britain and America. American brand Straight 8 had placed an advertisement in the magazine in June 1948 for their Lavender Brilliantine and Aftershave Lotion:
Figure 24
Again, discourses of class and nationality are present here, with an allusion to American author, screenwriter and playwright Anita Loos’ 1920s book and Broadway play Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, only later to be introduced to global audiences as a Hollywood movie starring Marilyn Monroe in 1953. Such a reference to American literature and high culture, coupled with the sophisticated wording in the body of the text suggests that the products were aimed at a middle class, cultured and refined modern readership who aspired to models of American masculinity, or the “Straight 8 look”. In 1949, the Straight 8 brand extended from brilliantine and aftershave lotion to become a range of men’s “grooming essentials” which included shaving cream, talc, shampoo and oil of roses, an unusual and particularly feminine-sounding product which drew on early discourses of aromatherapy.
Aside from advertisements from Christy’s and Straight 8, which simply listed colognes and aftershave as one in a range of men’s toiletries, only one stand-alone ad specifically
142 for aftershave appeared in the magazine before the 1960s. Again, this was a product by an American company, and I will discuss this ad in more detail in a moment, but the fact that it was overwhelmingly advertising for overseas brands – or at least brands whose advertising campaigns relied on themes of British and American high class culture – which introduced newer men’s grooming products such as aftershave, cologne, deodorant, fragrant oils and shampoo to MAN readers in the 1940s and early 1950s certainly suggests that a more feminised new men’s grooming culture was represented not as an Australian cultural phenomenon, but rather as one which was imported from Britain and America. Our example of the Australian brand Club is a useful one evoke again here:
Figure 25 Figure 26
143 The representation of an Australian ‘workers’ club versus the exclusive, elite English ‘hunt club’ provides a stark symbolic dichotomy based on class, nationality and culture. The Australian ‘club man’ – the quintessential ‘bloke’ – is defiantly working class; he embraces bushman’s poetry over classic English prose, he is practical, unaffected by aesthetics and his preferred sport is playing cards not fox-hunting, signified here by the suit of clubs. The juxtaposition of these two advertisements quite clearly demonstrates an oppositional construction between an upper class (fragranced) British equestrian masculinity and the ‘earthy’ egalitarian Australian ‘bloke’.
My research of grooming products advertisements in the 1940s and 1950s suggested that some overseas brands such as Ingram’s and Vaseline attempted to communicate more effectively with Australian men by evoking discourses of specifically Australian sport or sporting events such as the Melbourne Cup:
Figure 27
There is little of the British pretension of the Hunt Club, or the American style and sophistication of Straight 8 in this 1948 cartoon advertisement for Ingram’s, the shaving cream that is “an odds-on favourite from Cape York to Flemington, and all points West.” Invoking famous Australian race courses and the Melbourne Cup works here as a
144 culturally-specific device to invite the reader to identify with the ad as an Australian male. Meanwhile, at the price of 1s 10d the product is clearly aimed at the working man as opposed to the Hunt Club’s more exclusive shaving cream which cost more than twice its price. Foxhunting is an exclusive sport reserved for the upper-classes, while horse racing – like playing cards – is accessible to all, making it a much more appropriate textual choice to communicate effectively with an imagined, more egalitarian Australian masculinity. Moreover, cards and racing are organised around gambling, a pastime which has played a leading role in Australian cultural history, and which continues to shape ideologies of national identity in the form of the Melbourne Cup, ‘two-up’ and the pokies phenomenon (see for example Fox, 1988).
Adapting their campaigns for a specifically Australian readership, ads for Vaseline Hair Tonic in the early 1950s addressed men through the twin discourses of sport and beach culture, suggesting their product was perfect for use in salt water and “our Australian sun”. The campaigns featured a text box that corresponded to the particular sport visually represented; below the image of a well-groomed golfer the title “Australian golfers among the world’s best” (April, September 1952), and below imagery of surfing “Australians world’s keenest surfers” (July 1952) while the copy went on to suggest that “in outdoor sport, Australians are among the world champions. But our climate and natural sporting enthusiasm can take it out of our hair. That’s why protective Vaseline Hair Tonic is so necessary.” Pointedly nominating Australian-ness, using the words “our hair” and “our climate” to signify an inclusive “we Australians” and drawing on one of the nation’s defining characteristics, a love and preoccupation with outdoor and beach sports, all invite the reader to identify himself with the characters, their past-times and the product in a way that the Hunt Club for example, could not.
Both Ingram’s and Vaseline then, employed local customs and cultural sporting traditions in an attempt to communicate with their intended Australian readers and consumers more effectively, but what is important is that they did this mainly through sport, perceived by marketers as a ‘natural’ interest or characteristic of Australian men. Several cultural theorists have identified the central role of sport in the construction of a masculinist
145 Australian national identity (see for example Henderson, 1999; Lawrence and Rowe (eds), 1986; Poynton and Hartley, 1990) and sport clearly informed many popular journalists’ definitions of the ‘real’ Australian male in press discussions around in inauthenticity of the metrosexual. In 1954 Vaseline extended their grooming products range to include hair cream, and again, its advertising campaign in MAN drew heavily on discourses of nationality and sport in an ad which was framed principally as a sports bulletin:
Figure 28
Brylcreem had used British cricketers and sportsmen to endorse the British hair cream; Vaseline hair cream on the other hand turned to Australian sporting personalities and great moments in Australian sport. In campaign titled “The Cream of them All” the ad is ‘narrated’ by Cyril Angles, the sports commentator on 2UE radio station in Sydney, who demonstrates his sporting knowledge by referring to recent important events in Australian boxing and swimming. Angles nominates victorious boxer Freddie Dawson and Australian record-breaking swimmer Jon Hendricks as “the cream of them all” among sportsmen, a phrase reiterated to describe the hair cream itself. However, the sports stars themselves are not endorsing the product; rather, the commentator/advertisement uses their names and a bulletin of sporting successes to interpellate the reader and to enter into a culturally-specific dialogue with Australian men.
146 What is interesting about the use of sport in campaigns pitched specifically at Australian men is that discourses of Australian-ness in advertisements for men’s grooming preparations in MAN were always and exclusively annexed to discourses of sport, and advertisements which had central discourses of class, style and sophistication generally came from overseas.
Campaigns such as Vitalis (October, 1941) and Lustre Crème (May, June 1950) presented the reader with an image of well-groomed exemplary American masculinity:
Figure 29 Figure 30
Alongside the products themselves, the American “look” was up for sale here, and “now you can buy it in Australia” suggested the Vitalis campaign. “It’s America’s favourite hair dressing” declared the ad for Lustre Crème, “Now it can be yours!” the ‘yours’ being equally applicable to the product and the image. Post-war advertising campaigns for men’s grooming preparations became increasingly ‘Americanised’ in representational
147 style, narrative and format. Some contemporary commentators tend to suggest that recent discursive masculine subjectivities with an interest in grooming and appearance such as the ‘metrosexual’ were imported from Britain, but in the 1940s and 1950s ideologies of grooming and style in advertisements in MAN actually came mainly from America.
Discourses of Class and Gender
Discourses of class were ubiquitous in the mediated men’s beauty culture of modernity. More specifically, discourses of middle and upper rather than working class-ness abounded, again calling into being an imagined readership that was urban, wealthy and stylish. In campaigns for grooming products men were often portrayed attending high- society dances, (Vitalis, April 1946) they were dressed mainly in suits or in full evening dress, (Vitalis, April 1946; Straight 8, December 1954) they were addressed as “sir”, (Palmolive, February 1940; Vitalis, October 1947; Brylcreem, June 1952) and overwhelmingly they were in professional, white collar occupations. If they were not one already, characters were represented as aspiring to be businessmen, or getting promoted to one through the use of the product (Vitalis, June and August 1946; October 1947; Ingram’s, August 1946; Lifebuoy, April and June 1948; Palmolive Shave Lather, May and June 1950, December, 1951). According to one ad for Vitalis which depicted a character shaking hands with his new employer, “it’s not only ability that’s winning him advancement … well-groomed handsome hair proclaims a neat, orderly mind” (June, 1946) thus aligning good grooming – and the product – with intelligence and professional success.
148
Figure 31:Lifebuoy, June 1948 Figure 32: Palmolive, May 1950
These examples show how Bob (Lifebuoy) and Bill (Palmolive) achieved career success through the product. Significantly, they did not get jobs as labourers, factory workers, or tradesmen, but in professional, executive positions working for companies and corporations. Bob gets promoted to the branch manager of his company, and even gets £100 per annum more than he was originally offered, once Lifebuoy had solved his body odour and the problems this would bring in the “social aspect” of such a position. Bill on the other hand “got the job” and was “a credit to his company” because of the clean, smart, smooth look Palmolive shaving cream gave him. “More successful men use Palmolive than any other shave cream” exclaimed the ad, offering a list of prestigious white collar professional men – doctors, sportsmen, statesmen, editors, bankers, executives, salesmen, lawyers – who use the product, or who work in positions to which men should aspire. Aimed primarily at middle and upper class men, no blue collar or working class jobs appear on the list; to be “successful” then, meant to achieve a high-
149 status, and accomplished profession which required investment in the appearance and personal hygiene. Meanwhile, naming and personifying the characters themselves comprised a personal address which invited men to identify with, or at least aspire to be Bill or Bob, who are portrayed as a ‘friend’, like the product itself. Compounding with discourses of class were ideologies of gender. Much like sport, themes of gaining promotion at work, or of good grooming being a business asset were completely absent in campaigns for toiletries and cosmetics aimed at women in the 1940s and 1950s. Throughout modernity discourses of gender reserved the public world of work for men, while women were ideologically confined to the domestic sphere; both Bob and Bill’s wives were waiting at home to congratulate them on their success.
Some toiletries such as soap and hair tonics targeted both men and women, but the basic premise of gendered advertising was different. Lifebuoy soap, for example, ran campaigns in MAN which were aimed at women, but while ads aimed at men had themes of job promotion (April, 1948), those aimed at women tended to dwell on loneliness at home without a partner (October, 1948) or being a ‘wallflower’ at parties (December, 1948). Vaseline Hair Tonic’s 1949-50 ‘Hungry Hair’ campaign in MAN posed its male models in active, sporting positions, while the ad aimed at women featured a ‘sizzler’ lying passively on the beach:
Figure 33 Figure 34 Figure 35
150 While products such as soap and hair tonics could actually be used by both men and women, some products became gendered in marketing discourse when they were adapted to communicate to female or male consumers.
Figure 36 Figure 37
This campaign for Napro Hair Vitalizer is significant for its clear suggestion that men in the 1940s surreptitiously borrowed women’s toiletries, but what is also interesting is the way in which the product must be discursively modified to dissociate it from being a ‘feminine’ product in order to sanction its use by men. The “special” Napro for Men was exactly the same as the female product, but it had mysterious “certain added ingredients” that enabled it to also be used as a hair dressing, suggesting that if a hair conditioning cream were to be successfully marketed to men, it had to perform more of a functional role than simply nourishing the hair. In another example of the discursive gendering of the same toiletries preparation in advertising campaigns, a 1952 ad for Jay Martell’s ‘Formula Four’ hair tonic relied heavily on discourses of science in its primary address to male readers, but its address to women was different; “For women too! Beautifies the hair and can be used for setting” (October, 1952 my emphasis). Earlier I suggested that while setting lotion occupied the ‘beauty’ side of a beauty/grooming, female/male binary it’s implied opposite, hair ‘dressing’ or ‘tonic’ fell into the more masculine category of ‘grooming’. In reality these boundaries were frequently crossed as the product could be
151 used by both men and women with exactly the same effect; the difference is not within the product itself then, but within language or gendered discourse. Unlike Napro for Men, the Martell product had not been chemically modified in any way, but in its different address to men and women, the language in the ad had. To ‘beautify’ was a strictly feminine concept which was never used in advertisements for men’s toiletries preparations, which deployed the more masculine adjectives ‘handsome’ and ‘well- groomed’. At times, the language used to extol the benefits of a product to men was ambivalent, particularly if it produced ‘feminine’ after-effects. Palmolive’s claim that its shaving cream produced “fine after effects due to olive oil content” (1940-1950) stopped short of saying that it would ‘soften’ or ‘moisturise’ the skin, as did Ingram’s claim in a 1946 ad that the user of its shaving cream would have skin “that would beget comment at a baby show” (July, 1946). Campaigns for men’s toiletries and grooming products in MAN in the 1940s and 1950s then generally tried to avoid discourses of feminine softening, which was a little too risqué for traditional maleness. Even more risky were fragranced products, traditionally associated with femininity and homosexuality.
Figure 38 Figure 39
152
In the ad for anti-dandruff treatment Pinaud – the only grooming product from Europe to be advertised in MAN – Eau de Portugal “for the ladies” or the “fair sex” is a fragranced version of the traditional Eau de Quinine, which presumably smelled a little like ether or had no fragrance at all. Meanwhile, the only stand-alone ad for a men’s fragrance to appear in MAN was for Williams’ brand Aqua Velva in October 1950 (figure 39). Firstly, as a relatively new product to MAN readers, and to straight-identified men outside of the upper classes, the advertisement was overly-instructional, advising men how to apply a splash-on product to the face. Notice how the reader is advised to cup the hands and take a “deep, deep breath” to inhale the “hearty masculine aroma”, the words ‘hearty’ and ‘masculine’ attempting to dispel the traditionally feminine or effeminate associations with fragrances. But in 1950 the “masculine scent” was not designed as a perfume for others to smell, it was marketed merely a “stimulating ‘wake-up’ aroma” and skin-bracer for the user. Further reassuring the reader/user of the masculine qualities of the aftershave, and in turn of his own masculinity, the ad distanced itself from any association with softness and femininity by advising a “brisk rubbing action” rather than a gentle application, and re-affirming men’s traditional ‘toughness’ and resilience to physical pain the astringent aftershave was to be ‘briskly rubbed’ into the “painful nicks and scratches” occasioned by the “harsh scraping” of the razor.
Another way in which discourses of gender loomed large in ‘old’ men’s grooming products advertisements was the female advisory column. In the 1940s and 1950s men apparently needed advice for all kinds of products, not just the newer ones such as aftershaves, and while this advice came from advertising copy itself, discourses of gender which deemed women ‘naturally’ more experienced and inclined towards beautification meant that they were given the primary advisory role, and again this was presented mainly in cartoon storyboard and serial formats. The series of Vaseline Hair Tonic campaigns between 1945 and 1948 drew chiefly on this gendered theme, with wives, girlfriends, women at parties, female tennis partners and secretaries all guiding men towards the product:
153
Figure 40 Figure 41 Figure 42 Figure 43 Figure 44
These same advertisements positioning women as the guardians of men’s hair had also appeared in women’s magazines, a responsibility clearly attested by Silvikrin Hair Tonic’s 1956 campaign in Australian Women’s Weekly featuring captions such as “If you are the woman in his life … watch his hair” and “Don’t let this happen to his hair” (Baird et al., 2007). Women were also portrayed to be more in the know about dental hygiene and girlfriends, supported by ‘official’ and scientific facts provided by male dentists enlightened men about their dental hygiene:
154
Figure 45 Figure 46
What is interesting about these storyboard narratives is that aside from advice about dental hygiene, these women are also advising men about relationships. Governed by traditional discourses of gender, MAN did not discuss relationships anywhere in the magazine, and so grooming ads such as these Colgate campaigns served an important dual purpose. And it was not only girlfriends who were giving out the advice. In storyboard narratives, sisters were also called upon to advise brothers about their personal grooming. Sister Sue advised her brother Bob about Napro for Men (see figs 36 and 37), and even younger sisters who were still at school could be depended upon to counsel men on their grooming habits and their relationship woes. In these storyboards for Colgate toothpaste Jim is advised by Sally’s little sister as to why she “gave him away” and younger sister Wendy helped Pete out with his dating problems:
155
Figure 47 Figure 48
Meanwhile, younger brothers could also be called upon to offer advice and discursively, it seemed that grown men were so essentially clueless in the area of personal grooming that even their own children offered them advice:
156
Figure 49 Figure 50
Discourses of Love and Romance
Aside from discourses of gender which suggested that men needed all the help they could get in these female and family advisories, clearly the theme of love and romance also loomed large. I chose to use the words ‘love and romance’ over ‘sex’ because rather than overtly suggest that men would attain more, or better sex through their use of the product as they often do in contemporary campaigns, 1940s and 1950s advertisements tended to present a more innocent, romantic representation of love which was appropriate for an era when promiscuity and sex outside of marriage were frowned upon. Female characters were often portrayed swooning over male characters, but they were fully clothed and posed in non-sexual positions, often cheek-to-cheek with the men, who were encouraged to please and romance women with their appearance rather than seduce them outrightly. In the illustrated cartoon storyboard and serial format the twin themes of success at work and success in love through the use of the product were elevated. Palmolive’s character Bill “looked smart and got the job (Figure 32), but this campaign equally drew on narratives of success in love and romance, for the man who used Palmolive also “looked smart and got the girl” (October, 1952). Ingram’s shaving cream ran a serialised
157 campaign in MAN throughout 1946 titled ‘Ingram’s Face’ which had love and romance as its basic premise:
Figure 51 Figure 52 Figure 53
This campaign also usefully demonstrates the main themes and discourses I have discussed so far in my analysis of the ‘old’ male grooming culture. Celebrating modern science, references are made to the preparation’s ‘famous atomic lather’, while class, culture and romance are signified by the allusions to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Conforming to dominant discourses of gender, the dutiful wife kisses her husband’s cheek before he sets out for his office job, signified by the suit and the briefcase and for the single man there is the promise of swooning women, described here as ‘bobby- soxers’ in a clearly American and British-influenced campaign.
The Vitalis “What’s HE got I haven’t got?” campaign was another serialised illustrated campaign which ran in MAN throughout 1946, and again the main narratives of love, work, class and gender are clear, while this campaign also drew on discourses of sport to present a storyline in which the hero wins the three most common rewards offered to men
158 in 1940s and 1950s grooming products advertisements, for he gets the girl, the job and the game:
Figure 54 Figure 55 Figure 56
The discursive purpose of men’s grooming in the Forties and Fifties then was predominantly social, professional, sporting and romantic success. But while ‘style’ was signified in these campaigns, there was a distinct lack of the concept or theme of fashion in this ‘older’ grooming culture, and this was linked to wider discourses of age.
Discourses of Age
In men’s grooming campaigns in MAN in the 1950s there were few photographic representations of newer popular styles emerging among younger men, most notably ‘DA’ styles with a quiff worn by Hollywood teen idols and Fifties pop stars, styles adopted by subcultures such as the ‘Teds’ and in Australia the ‘Bodgies’. Only one advertising campaign provided any representation of these styles (Potter and Moore Brilliantine, Figs 57 and 58) while the only ‘teenagers’ to appear in grooming products
159 advertisements in MAN were the all-American youth who presented the Lustre Crème ads (Figure 30) and the models used in the 1953 campaigns for Palmolive Brilliantine
Figure 57 Figure 58 Figure 59 Figure 60
Images in advertisements for grooming products in MAN the 1940s and 1950s were overwhelmingly of middle aged, middle class men. The examples below, and many of the images I have already presented throughout the discussion are typical of the male models who populated the world of men’s grooming within modernity.
Figure 61 Figure 62 Figure 63 Figure 64
While these images suggest that the ‘older’, more traditional grooming culture featured little or no market segmentation or differentiation by age, they also point to a certain
160 ambivalence around portraying photographs of young, good-looking men in a men’s magazine. In his analysis of Esquire magazine in the 1930s, Bill Osgerby (2003: 80-81) suggested that the use of watercolour illustrations rather than actual photographs on its fashion pages avoided charges of homoeroticisation, and represented a deliberate attempt to avoid inviting a voyeuristic gaze. In the grooming culture represented in MAN in the 1930s to the 1950s, hand-drawn cartoons and photographs of mostly older men predominated, indicating that it was not just men’s fashion imagery in men’s magazines which strove to avoid a homoerotic gaze.
From the early-50s the magazine had an ‘old’ feel to it. It seemed a little old-fashioned in its outlook and tone, and contents and features catered more and more to the middle-aged rather than young man (White, 1979: 164). From the second half of the 1950s, advertisements for grooming products and preparations in MAN became fewer and fewer, with ads for only a handful of products appearing each month until the magazine’s closure in 1974. The first Australian men’s general interest magazine then was not necessarily seen by advertisers as the ideal arena for the marketing of men’s toiletries and grooming products.
The 1960s and 1970s
While grooming ads in MAN were virtually non-existent throughout the 1960s, and those most regularly featured – electric shavers, anti-dandruff treatments and medicated hair dressings – were noticeably geared towards an older readership, occasionally throughout the decade advertisements appeared for new men’s cosmetic products emerging on the market, and while these campaigns relied heavily on some older discourses, particularly class and sport, they introduced new themes and representations which challenged constructions of traditional Australian masculinity. Magic Tan for Men, the first male cosmetic to be advertised in MAN in May 1961, was one such new product:
161
Figure 65
“Everybody!” began the opening line of the copy, although clearly, this was not a product aimed at everybody. Suffused with discourses of class, it was aimed at the ‘man about town’, the ‘playboy’ and the ‘big businessman’, or at least it promised to help men achieve the ‘look’ of these powerful city masculinities. Although the ad featured the image of a ‘sportsman’, he plays tennis in crisp whites, not say football or rugby. The product is clearly not aimed at the outdoor manual worker, who would have little use for the product and speculatively, even less understanding of it. As a cosmetic product designed to change the colour and tone of men’s skin, the fake tan was an extremely ambivalent product which challenged deep-rooted ideologies of gender, but also of class and nationality. The ad disrupts traditional ideologies of nationality in its construction of an Australian masculinity which is urban, sophisticated, narcissistic and wealthy; “look like you own the Gold Coast!” Evoking Australia’s then-new millionaire’s playground, and adding Sydney to the list of stylish, cosmopolitan European and American cities, the Magic Tan advertisement fuses discourses of class, fashion and nationhood in a way not previously seen in men’s grooming products campaigns, setting up a specifically Australian image-conscious masculinity that is not defined by sport and working class- ness but by the stylish city playboy. The inclusion of specific references to Australian culture attempts to validate the use of the product by Australian men, but the issue of gender also necessarily looms large in an advertisement for a cosmetic product aimed at
162 men, particularly in 1961 when male cosmetics were virtually unheard of. In the same way that it attempts to make the product acceptable for Australian men, the ad works hard to inoculate the product from associations with femininity and to make it more appealing to a masculine audience. The product was described as “super strong” and “specially formulated for men’s skins and only men’s skins”, and while the campaign embodied feminine narratives of high fashion signified by references to New York, London and Paris, the product was also framed as practical and traditionally masculine, for it could be used as an after shave lotion rather than simply a fashion cosmetic. Much like Aqua Velva, the after shave with a “hearty masculine aroma” (October, 1950) Magic Tan boasted a “masculine pine odour”, connoting that its scent was in no way feminine.
In the 1950s, Australian men had not yet embraced fragrances, aftershaves, shampoos and deodorants. Deodorants, like shampoo, were categorised as a feminine ‘beauty’ product and marketed almost exclusively to a female audience through women’s media (see for example Baird et al, 2007). MAN adhered firmly to the concept that men should be un-fragranced. In January 1953, rather than advise male readers about the new deodorants appearing on the market, ‘His Clothes’ advised men should use their underwear, changed regularly, to absorb perspiration! On the other hand, Britain’s Man About Town magazine was more progressive, beginning to challenge the gendered ideologies of the concept of ‘scent’ in the 1950s;
Is it necessary to be smelly in order to be manly? One of the troubles with the stronger sex is that often we are much too strong. By the same token, presumably, the polecat is really King of the Forest. Why don’t more men use deodorants?
(Man About Town, 1955, reprinted in Hayward and Dunn, 2001: 102)
In the early 1960s in MAN, to be unfragranced remained the masculine ideal, attested by Trig deodorant’s 1962 advertisement, the first stand-alone campaign for deodorant ever to appear in the magazine
163
Figure 66
The first thing of interest about this advertisement is its framing as a newspaper headline. The news, serious politics and newspapers in general are typically gendered as masculine, and so immediately the ad attempts to distance a traditionally feminine-associated product from any connotations of femininity. Unlike ads aimed at women for deodorants, there are no signifiers of ‘freshness’ such as flowers, or rewards of romance, but an image of a bloodhound to convey its primary message – reassurance that the product is unfragranced. “No-one knows if you’re using it” reads the opening line. If men had to use a personal deodorant or if a personal deodorant were to be successfully marketed to men, then it had promise to leave their masculinity intact by being unperfumed and unscented. To be fragranced had been a trait associated with femininity and homosexuality throughout modernity, and this was still firmly entrenched in the early 1960s, when men were encouraged to secretly and discretely use odourless deodorants; “no-one knows if you’re using it … only if you’re not.”
However, things were beginning to change in the 1960s, attested by two important editorial discussions presented in MAN around the changing nature of the men’s grooming market in Australia. In August 1965, the magazine published an article titled ‘The Changing Australian Man’ based on a lifestyle questionnaire it had issued to its readers which clearly shows the beginnings of the shift which was to culminate in the
164 contemporary phenomenon of the metrosexual. The readers who responded to the survey were young and better educated than the average Australian male; 28% of the respondents were still at university, three quarters were under 34, almost half of them were single and they earned above the national average (1965: 85). Their consumption patterns indicated that almost three quarters owned a car, over half “listened to jazz recordings or other modern music”, a third drank wine with dinner when they ate out and 83% of them had bank accounts (1965: 85). Most importantly, the questionnaire revealed that 61% of this young, single, fashionable, cosmopolitan and middle class group of men used deodorants and that retail sales of men’s toiletries such as after-shave lotions, talcum powders, deodorants and masculine perfumes were “gradually increasing” (1965: 85). The article suggested that over the last few decades the Australian male had become more sophisticated, particularly in his appreciation of fashion and his decision to “change his traditional indifference to grooming” (1965: 80). The then fashion editor of MAN Paul Nelson suggested that “a number of words used to embarrass the Australian a few years ago. He didn’t like the term men’s fashions and men’s cosmetics … He reckoned that these belonged to the women and connoted sissy-ness” (1965: 80). Again lending weight to discourses that suggest that the new feminised grooming culture ‘came from’ overseas, Nelson suggested that using fragranced products was “once considered the prerogative of the Continental”, and while it was “sniffed at” in 1965 it was “not scorned” (1965: 83).
By the mid-1960s then, Australian masculinity was represented as beginning to accommodate men’s scented toiletries and with Nelson at the helm of the fashion section, in several issues in 1965 MAN itself played an active role in the de-feminisation and heterosexualisation of perfumes and scents. In ‘The Changing Australian Man’, Nelson suggested that men’s fragranced toiletries were “favoured by good masculine types everywhere” – in other words, heterosexual men – and a few issues earlier a ‘reader’ posed a question to Nelson’s the fashion page;
Is it sissy to use men’s cologne and deodorants? – N.B., Stafford, Qld
Not at all. Most men use various types of talcum powder, after shave lotion, etc, and no one doubts their masculinity. Underarm deodorants
165 and colognes are becoming more popular with men of all ages, for hygienic reasons. We’re living in a world that’s becoming more sophisticated … and aids to personal comfort and good grooming are starting to be accepted.
In May 1967 MAN published another article, ‘The Hard Smell’ which explored the growing fragranced male toiletries market in Australia, which now had a market value of $4,500,000 (1967: 78). The author, Ray Hall quoted from a recent study that 16% of Australian men used scented toiletries such as aftershave lotions, colognes, underarm deodorants, scented shaving creams and speciality soaps, and that by far the highest incidence of usage was by men aged 18-30. Moreover, he suggested that sales and usage of fragranced toiletries were mainly restricted to metropolitan areas and mostly to white collar workers. Working class men, or “the denim set” as Hall refers to them “regard them as effeminate, and have little or no concept of their use” (1967: 78). Here then in MAN’s reader survey into the consumption habits of the young modern male, is a very clear emergent 1960s predecessor to the Australian ‘metrosexual’. And crucially, we can also trace the most common theme in the anti-metrosexual tirades in the contemporary press back to this historical moment – that the (unnatural) trend towards Australian men embracing feminine ‘beauty’ practices is necessarily imposed ‘from above’ from marketers and advertisers. Likely drawing from Vance Packard’s then-recent publication The Hidden Persuaders (1957), Hall talks at length and with considerable contempt about the advertisers and business strategists who, “with the support of their tin soldiers … the know-all computers” used persuasive techniques to create “a situation whereby you’d rather die than be without your trusty friend, the underarm deodorant” (1967: 78). With no sense of consumer agency, or consideration that perhaps men did not actually want to reek of body odour, he risks infantilising and alienating readers themselves who used such products by suggesting that the advertising industry “train them young while they’re still impressionable”. The article was littered with words such as ‘propaganda’, ‘convince’ and ‘the slant of advertising’. Implying that by targeting young, impressionable men the ‘advertising chiefs’ were confident they could ‘con’ all men into
166 buying their products, into believing that it was ‘bad’ to smell like a man, Hall (1967: 79) lamented the erosion of traditional Australian masculinity;
The long-standing fear the Australian male passes from father to son that “anything scented is feminine and to be avoided” is being cleverly camouflaged by appealing, almost seductive descriptive phrases like bold and brash, masculine freshness that makes it great to be a man, crisp and sports-loving, new breed, dry and sophisticated
Even down to the description of the beauty-conscious Australian male as a ‘new breed’ then, there is a significant historical continuity here in popular arguments made in the media against the ‘unnaturalness’ of Australian men grooming themselves beyond the functional, unfragranced and practical products which had dominated the market up to the 1960s. Meanwhile, what were these new ‘persuasive techniques’ introduced by advertisers in the 60s that ‘camouflaged’ the long-standing fear of fragrances that Australian fathers traditionally passed onto their sons?
The first was sex. In the 1960s the older discourses of love and romance gave way to more overt promises of sex, communicated first and foremost by the increasing use of women’s bodies. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, only one of the twenty or so men’s grooming brands who advertised in MAN had deployed sexualised images of women in its advertisements. Straight 8’s female cartoon character between 1949 and 1953 was provocatively dressed in a semi-transparent flimsy evening gown, and in 1956 she was replaced by a new, more voluptuous cartoon ‘girlie’ who, like the waisted bottle itself, was coded as “easy to handle”.
167
Figure 67 Figure 68
The straight 8 campaigns however, were not typical of their era; it was during the 1960s that we see sex and the exposure of women’s bodies becoming increasingly more of an over-riding discourse in advertising men’s grooming products. January 1963 saw the return of advertising in MAN for Ingram’s shaving cream, with a campaign called ‘The Right Technique is an Ingram’s Cheek’. While they shared a similar campaign title, the 1960s campaign differed markedly from the 1946 ‘Ingram’s Face’ cartoon campaign I discussed earlier. The one-year campaign was based on the ‘calendar girl’ genre, with a different female model appearing as a full-page, colour ad on the inside cover of each month’s issue. The main photograph was accompanied by a rather crass poem extolling the virtues of the ‘girl of the month’ and the shaving cream.
Figure 69 Figure 70
168
Unlike the 1946 ‘Ingram’s Face’ cartoon campaign, the 1960s ads drew heavily on discourses of sex, both in the posing of the models and the words of the poetry. The women were posed semi-naked, or cropped and framed so that the viewer could see more cleavage or leg than would normally be possible, and they were photographed either in countryside settings, lying seductively in the grass, on a bed, in front of a log fire, and sitting coquettishly on a country swing, or they were cast as the predatory seductress at high society parties.
Figure 71
Advertisements for fragrances and colognes in particular in the 1960s evoked discourses of sex as a powerful signifier which attempted to dispel strongly-entrenched associations with homosexuality. In this 1968 advertisement for Tabac cologne discourses of sex and seduction loom large, with the male wearer of Tabac being seduced by the female model. In the 1950s Aqua Velva campaign, the hand-drawn illustration of the user of the fragrance was depicted alone. In the 1960s, men rarely appeared alone in fragrance ads, instead they were depicted with female models who served to reassure their – and the fragrance user’s – heterosexuality and ‘pulling power’. In this Tabac ad, discourses of sex
169 and sexuality were coupled with masculine themes of war. The ad is a “call to arms” for men, although as there is no other explicit reference to war, the ‘arms’ are presumably those of an imagined female into which the user will fall when he wears the product. “Be bold” suggests the copy, signifying that the wearing of colognes was still considered risqué for a man, but importantly, the text also suggests men to be bold about their sexuality, and in particular, their heterosexuality. The words “She already thinks you’re pretty special. Or she wouldn’t be there in the first place” firmly re-establishes the reader’s heterosexuality and attempts to brand the fragrance as a heteronormative, red- blooded masculine product which may help its user boldly take the next step in his relationship – sex. The ad urges men to try the cologne and “have fun”, a euphemism for casual sex, and to find out “why Tabac Original is such a big deal overseas,” again adding weight to journalists’ notions that feminine new grooming products came from ‘over there’, not ‘over here’.
Figure 72
From the 1960s, men’s toiletries or ‘grooming aids’ were becoming increasingly marketed as a range of fragranced products, and the ranges were expanding, as this ad for the Mennen men’s range suggests. Appearing in MAN in March 1969, the campaign is again organised around themes of sex to encourage ‘Mr Conservative’ to make the
170 ‘exciting new change’ from his old grooming products. The couple are submerged in water, and while the male model’s body is uncharacteristically exposed along with the female’s, his heterosexuality is confirmed by the embrace, and his masculine power and control maintained by his anchored position in the water while the female floats submissively into his arms, overwhelmed by his seductive fragrance.
Accompanying more overt coding of sex in the 1960s were new narratives of sophistication, reflective of the imagined growing sophistication of Australian men. The new men’s toiletries range Raft placed this full colour, full page advertisement in the November and December 1966 issues of MAN
Figure 73
The ad was suffused with discourses of sophistication, seduction, class and style. The chic couple are situated in what appears to be a night club, signified by the lighting, the table lamp and the woman’s dress and demeanour. She appears relaxed, seated at the table and gazing into the camera, while the male, standing above her appears distracted. While we are invited to look at her body, the female character is not draping herself over the male. Rather, they are cool, collected. The characters are classy and are shot in a
171 classy environment, signifying that the wearer or user of the products will acquire this cool sophistication while at the same time suggesting that men with class and style are the most likely to be attracted to the products. Despite the appearance of more fragranced men’s products on the market in the 1960s, and possibly a wider acceptance of them, advertisers still tended to hyper-masculinise the products to reassure readers that they were in no way ‘feminine’. Raft products are branded here as being ultra-masculine; “To her, to any woman Raft says (unobtrusively) ‘This man is male.’ His maleness is signified by the model’s dominant, standing position over the female, and by the choice of font and insignia used on the product. Taken with the word ‘raft’ these symbols connote the ancient masculine culture of Vikings, evoking inherent warrior manliness. The use of the word ‘unobtrusively’ is interesting, for like the Trig deodorant campaign, it suggests secrecy and discretion, signifying that the scent is not pungent or overpowering – to be so would be too feminine – but subtle, hardly noticeable and thus assuring the user that his masculinity remains intact. The leading header “the thing you notice most about a ‘Raft’ man is the woman he’s with” supports this notion of the subtlety of the scent, which is not the first thing you notice, while it also re-emphasises the sexual allure of men who use the products. The ‘Raft’ man doesn’t attract or seduce just any woman; he attracts sexy, sophisticated and classy women with style and panache. Using the words ‘Raft man’ in the campaign sets up a masculine subjectivity or available identity that is modern, chic, sexually attractive and all male. Whereas in older campaigns, wearing a fragrance was coded as refreshing and uplifting, by the 60s it was all about sex and attracting the opposite sex; it was about making an impression, and primarily on women.
Alongside more explicit codings of sex and sexual attraction another new ‘persuasive technique’ (Hall, 1967: 78) of men’s scented toiletries marketers and advertisers to ‘entice’ Australian men to use their products was to draw on traditional discourses of Australian masculinity, and in the case of this Cobb & Co ad, on the historical ideology of larrikinism
172
Figure 74: August 1969
Appearing on the inside cover of the August 1969 edition of MAN, this campaign broke the rules of where grooming advertisements were positioned in the magazine, for until now they had been generally relegated towards the back, diminishing the importance of attention to appearance and narcissism in the performance of masculinity. Offering “Australia’s own brand of manliness”, Cobb & Co were the only exclusively Australian men’s toiletries manufacturer to advertise in MAN and their introductory campaign drew on discourses of nineteenth century colonial manhood, updating it with codes of modern sophistication to define a the ‘new’ Colonial Boy;
Nineteenth century wildness … 20th century sophistication. He is today’s young blood, direct descendant of Australia’s Wild Colonial Boys. The originals built quite a reputation for themselves a century ago. In maybe just one night, you and Cobb & Co could build one all of your own.
The appearance of the Cobb and Co ad is significant in several ways. Firstly it represents the first construction of a fragranced, grooming-conscious Australian male identity in advertising discourse, one that is Australia’s ‘own’, not from Britain or America, but a narcissistic subjectivity that is explicitly marked as Australian. However, because the ad relies on the historical discourses of colonial Australia, ‘Australian-ness’ is defined by a rural, or itinerant ‘wild’ masculinity rather than a modern, sophisticated city type which
173 reaffirms the city/bush, male/female, English/Australian oppositional constructions I discussed earlier, but which also aligns traditional imaginings of Australian masculinity with contemporary marketing practices and new fragranced toiletries for men. And finally, the ‘New Colonial Boy’ ad supports my earlier hypotheses that traditional constructions of Australian manhood can open up to allow men to partake in narcissistic behaviours and consumption; but only if this is compensated with the hyper-masculine performance of larrikinism, or the retaining of a certain Australian ‘rough and toughness’.
Despite its allusions to the ‘wild’ masculinity of the ‘colonial boy’ and its reassurance of his heterosexuality via the adoring female who, gazing up at him from the bed has either already, or is just about to seduce him, the pitch – and the frilly shirt – was considered perhaps too feminine for an Australian readership, for in subsequent campaigns, Cobb & Co reverted to the more traditional theme of sport in campaigns which specifically addressed Australian men:
Figure 75: July, 1971 Figure 76: July/August 1973
174
Figure 77: September, 1973 Figure 78: December, 1973
Cobb & Co claimed to ‘deliver the Australian male’, creating an imagined new and liberated Australian masculinity of the 1970s which freely embraced a wide range of fragranced toiletries, and without injury to his masculinity, signified in the campaigns through the twin discourses of heterosexuality (inset) and sport. In the 1970s, it was not just fragranced products which were crossing the gendered ‘beauty’/’grooming’ divide; the Cobb and Co range pictured here included hairspray, until now an ultra-feminine ‘beauty’ product which was masculinised as ‘Hair Groom Spray’ in the ads. The inclusion of such previously-feminine associated products such as perfume and hairspray meant that the representation of sport in these campaigns required a portrayal of more hyper-masculine extreme sports such as white water rafting, water-skiing and parachuting, not simply horse-racing or golf, to reassure and re-align the ‘real’ Australian masculinity of potential users.
Conclusion
In this chapter I have given shape to the ‘old’ grooming culture of modernity before the 1960s in which the gendered concepts of ‘grooming’ and ‘beauty’ were clearly distinct. Within this culture, men used a limited range of functional, un-perfumed grooming
175 products limited to hair dressing, shaving cream, shaving appliances, soap and toothpaste which were marketed primarily through the masculine discourses of science, sport and work. Australian masculinity was coded almost exclusively in terms of sport and working class-ness, while masculinities that were characterised by style, middle-class culture and cosmopolitanism mostly appeared in campaigns which came from overseas, and specifically Britain and America. These characters lived in a fictional world of high-class cocktail parties, society dances, theatre, foxhunting and white-collar professional occupations. On the other hand, the most explicit image of the typical ‘true-blue Australian bloke’ in 1950 was the flat-capped, overweight and roughly-shaved ‘Club’ man who I presented as a contrast to the myriad of sleek, slim, well-groomed and mainly American middle class executive masculinities. I found while all of the newer, more ‘feminine’ men’s grooming products such as aftershave, cologne, deodorant and shampoo did indeed – both literally and discursively – ‘come from’ Britain and the US in the late 1940s, most of these products and slick masculine images actually came from America more than Britain; in the post-war years in particular it was mostly the ‘American look’ that was up for sale.
By the 1960s and 1970s the older men’s grooming culture was beginning to give way to a more feminised version which accommodated fragranced toiletries, representing a crumbling of the gendered binarisms of ‘beauty’ and ‘grooming’ of modernity. Australian men were urged in advertising campaigns for newer products to become less conservative, and in discussions around the changing market in MAN in the 60s and 70s, young, urban Australian men were portrayed as becoming more ‘sophisticated’, and more like European and American men. Significantly, these same themes were being played out in the popular debates around the ‘metrosexual’ in 2003, and in this chapter I have traced contemporary media discourses of a capitalist ‘coup from above’ by the marketers and advertisers of feminised, commercial grooming products and the ‘un-naturalness’ of Australian male narcissism to the 1960s. In doing so, I have demonstrated that a grooming-conscious Australian identity such as the metrosexual is not necessarily a new phenomenon; his emergent predecessor existed among young, single professional urban men with a high disposable income and a keen interest in consumption, fashion and
176 grooming in the 1960s. Catering to this new identity, men’s grooming campaigns of the 1960s were increasingly informed by discourses of sex, style and cosmopolitanism. Some campaigns aimed at Australian men began to rely less on discourses of ‘rough and readiness’ and working class-ness and more on discourses of urban wealth and fashion, while others ruptured imaginings of traditional Australian manliness as uninterested in matters of grooming and appearance by appropriating traditional discourses themselves. Significantly however, grooming campaigns which presented the ‘new’ feminised Australian male still continued to rely heavily on discourses of sport, and specifically extreme sports which sanctioned Australian male narcissism while retaining an element of tough ‘ruggedness’ in a display of gendered power, strength and virility. In the next chapter I look at how these newer constructions of a more grooming and image-conscious Australian masculinity evolved, and how the increasingly feminised grooming culture of postmodernity was communicated in Australia’s men’s style press 1980s. Did Australia have a ‘new man’ comparable to the Eighties British version?
177 Chapter 5 Discourses of Grooming in Follow me Gentlemen 1984 – 1987
In 10 years, you will rub a masculine face cream into your skin before you take your bird to bed. While you sleep, the cream will condition your skin and soften your beard. In the morning you’ll use an aerosol can of hot shaving foam for a comfortable shave. In the shower you’ll use a body shampoo, followed by a body rub. If your nails have a tendency to chip you’ll use a clear nail polish. Don’t laugh – those are some of the forecasts of toiletries manufacturers.
(J.B King, MAN magazine, October, 1971: 53)
Introduction
Following the closure of MAN in 1974, it was ten years before another Australian men’s magazine which featured fashion and style appeared on the market. Indeed, Follow me Gentlemen, launched in March 1984 by independent Sydney publisher Bruno Giagu, was predominantly organised around discourses of fashion and style. The magazine was a spin-off from Giagu’s up-market women’s fashion magazine Follow Me, launched the previous year, and Giagu himself was its editor-in-chief. In his introductory statements about the magazine in the first issue, he told readers he had created Follow me Gentlemen because a marketing survey issued with Follow Me had revealed that almost half of its readers were men;
The idea was to create a magazine where women, and men in particular, can find the stimulation and excitement of the 80s. The magazine isn’t just fashion, but in fashion. FOLLOW me GENTLEMEN wants to emphasise the male character, but we also want to reach women and tell them about tastes and trends in the male world. The world of FOLLOW me GENTLEMEN is fashion and also culture, sport, economy, science, cinema, books, art, theatre, lifestyle … practically every aspect of living today – a panoramic vision of the world of men
(Giagu, March/May 1984: 2)
178 The world portrayed in Follow me Gentlemen was one of urban, wealthy, fashion- conscious men in their twenties and thirties. It was a stylish, thick glossy magazine with high production values and covered the interests and pursuits of middle to upper class professionals and modern businessmen, featuring topics such as architecture, investment, computing, interior design, classical music, opera, travel, wine and fine cuisine. While it featured sport, it tended to cover golf, sailing or skiing over football or rugby, and it was these sports, along with themes such as ‘sportswear with class’, ‘dressing for business’, ‘city dressing’, ‘resort wear’ and ‘evening wear’ which often informed the fashion spreads and features which generally took up around a third or more of the magazine. Fashion dominated issue one, which featured 110 pages of fashion out of a total of 230, while fashion advertising was by far the largest consumer category represented in the magazine. The fashion in Follow me Gentlemen was mostly quality classics and haute couture featuring European and Australian seasonal collections from renowned designers, innovative and artistic fashion photography and advertisements for ‘gentlemen’s outfitters’ or ‘gentlemen’s clothiers’, although Myer and less exclusive brands such as Esprit for Men and Jag also placed ads in the magazine. Overall however, it was Italian designer fashion which received the most editorial and advertising space, particularly in the earlier issues. Indeed, Giagu himself was Italian and each issue carried the prefix ‘numero’ as apposed to ‘issue’ or ‘number’, adding to the overall flavour and clear influence of Italian and European style and cosmopolitanism in a magazine modelled closely on Italy’s L’Huomo Vogue.
In this chapter I analyse the ideologies of masculine grooming as they were presented to Australian men in a three-year sample of Follow me Gentlemen between March 1984 and September 1987. Again focussing the analysis through the lens of the core themes of gender, nationality, class and sexuality evoked in discussions in the contemporary popular press around the ‘metrosexual’, the chapter tracks the key differences and continuities with the more ‘traditional’ male grooming culture of modernity found in MAN magazine in the 1940s and 1950s, and explores how these discourses shaped the newer grooming culture of postmodernity which emerged from the late 1960s to offer some theoretical suggestions about where the ‘metrosexual’ phenomenon might ‘come
179 from’.
Representations of Grooming in Follow me Gentlemen
While MAN had been relatively fashion-conscious, after the mid-1950s it had featured very few grooming products advertisements, limited mainly to shaving implements, shaving creams, soap and hair dressings, and it had advocated the austere men’s grooming culture of modernity, affording very little editorial space to matters of personal appearance. In its 37 years of publication, grooming had been discussed only four or five times, and until the 1960s there were very few full-page advertisements for grooming products compared to full colour ads for cars, engine oil or cigarettes for example, marginalising its importance in the performance of traditional Australian masculinity. FMG on the other hand, was highly grooming-conscious, featuring regular in-depth editorials and copious full and double-page, full-colour advertisements for grooming products, which after fashion was the second largest advertising category in the magazine. Unlike representations of fashion and grooming in MAN, ads and editorials were not relegated to the back of the magazine, but elevated to occupy prominent positions in the earlier sections, and while MAN had adhered to a no-advertising policy in its sparse grooming editorials, never once referring editorially to a specific brand of product, FMG’s grooming editorials were all advertorials, converging advertising with editorial content, with the products of the magazine’s main regular grooming advertisers featuring heavily in informational articles12. These advertorials played a crucial educational and instructional role in communicating and explaining the function of new men’s products appearing on the market in the 1980s, and their emergence facilitated a shift from linguistic to more symbolic communication in grooming products advertisements themselves (see Fig. 1). While this is part of a wider trend towards more figurative, image-based forms of signification within modern advertising as a whole (see for example Hartley, 2002; Leadbeater, 2000; Coyle, 1998), for men’s grooming products in particular, the appearance of the informational editorial in men’s magazines in the
12 For a discussion around the trend towards the convergence of editorial and advertising in consumer magazines see Dyson, 2007
180 1980s has meant that advertising has been able to relinquish its former explanatory role, with the lengthy text or characters advising consumers of the benefits of the product and how to use it – common in the older campaigns we saw in MAN – disappearing from ads themselves to form the body of the new grooming advisory column.
Figure 1: Clinique February, 1987
Aside from the new grooming editorial/advertorial and a more symbolic, sophisticated and creative advertising of products, it is within the pages of FMG where we first encounter representations of a feminised male grooming culture of postmodernity in which gender boundaries, or the sharp distinction between ‘beauty’ and ‘grooming’, became increasingly blurred, for the magazine placed much emphasis on the newer, more traditionally feminine product categories now available for men, in particular fragrances and men’s skin, body and hair care products. Indeed, the first advertisement occupying the first inside cover of the new magazine was a glossy, double page campaign for a men’s fragrance, immediately setting up the personality of the new magazine and its intended or imagined readership as first and foremost grooming and image-conscious. The first grooming editorial appearing in issue one, ‘Confessions of a Cosmetics Convert: Clean it Up’ was a five-page informational feature on men’s skin and hair care products which, illustrated with photographs of male models using products such as facial scrub, moisturiser and shampoo, aimed to normalise men’s use of cosmetic toiletries previously associated with women.
181
Figure 2
Written in the first person to encourage reader identification, the opening lines of the article set out the ‘problems’ of the old, traditional men’s grooming culture; “I never used to believe in cosmetics for men. I’d wash my face with soap and water, shave with foam from an aerosol and let my face tan naturally in the summer. I’d wonder occasionally why my skin felt so tight around my eyes, flaked off on my chin and developed little red bumps on my neck” (March/May 1984: 65), and offered a range of new products designed to ‘solve’ these previously unmentioned (unmentionable?) problems. Surveying the grooming editorials and advertisements appearing in FMG from its launch in 1984 to 1987, I identified the following new products and procedures which had become available to Australian men – or at least had been presented to them in a men’s magazine – since the 1970s, and these are the defining features of the contemporary, postmodern grooming culture for men:
Facial skin care products Facial skin care procedures
cleanser facial wash professional facial – cleanse, formulated cleansing bar tone, peel, steam, massage, toner mask and moisturiser exfoliator/facial scrub moisturising lotion/cream anti-aging cream face mask skin analysis based on new bronzer categorisation of skin type sunscreen aftershave balm aftershave gel aftershave emulsion
182
Body products Body procedures: body shampoo waxing – neck, back and shower gel upper arms body exfoliating cream body splash manicure body moisturiser moisturising hand cream pedicure foot cream
Hair care products Hair care procedures: conditioner perm hair gel chemical bend hair mousse tinting gel fixant streaking modelling gel mousse bleaching hair colour blow-drying
Table 1
Aside from hair fashions then, with perming and the ‘big hair’ of the 1980s dropping out of currency in the 1990s, most of the products and procedures of the feminised contemporary male consumer grooming culture as it is presented in today’s men’s style and lifestyle magazines, were available to Australian men by the mid-1980s. Compared to the limited practices and products of the old, traditional ‘masculine’ men’s grooming culture of modernity – namely essential shaving procedures and hair dressings – the new procedures and products prescribed in FMG more resembled traditionally feminine ‘beauty’ routines, differing starkly from the austere traditional grooming advice offered to men in MAN which editorially, never mentioned even shampoo, deodorant or aftershave unless they were discussed in features which detailed the changing market. Even as late as 1963, MAN was advising men simply to shave, take a daily shower, regular haircuts and keep clean and trim nails (January 1963: 56). By the 1980s in a grooming editorial called ‘No More Excuses: 6 of the Best’, FMG readers were advised that “the following are a man’s most important health and grooming considerations”:
1. Cleanse the skin twice a day with face soap and warm water 2. Exfoliate the skin once a week to remove dead cells and to deep cleanse.
183 3. Prepare the face properly before shaving -- shower first and apply a thin layer of a suitable product, waiting a full 60 seconds for maximum softening of beard. 4. Shampoo and condition hair regularly 5. Moisturise with a product suited to your skin type twice a day 6. The finishing touch to complete grooming is a fragrance that suits your lifestyle.
(January, 1986: 40)
Discourses of Gender: Skin and Hair Care
These new products and procedures necessarily engendered new discourses and languages for communicating their function and benefits, meaning that new, or previously feminine concepts, phrases and words were introduced into the male lexicon of magazine masculinity. The concept of ‘care’ for example, was an important new discourse in the communication of the new men’s grooming culture which emerged in the 1980s. In editorials and advertisements for skin and hair care products and procedures appearing in FMG, words such as ‘soothe’, ‘soften’, ‘emollient’, ‘comfort’, ‘nurture’, ‘protect’ and ‘nourish’ – completely absent in the grooming culture of modernity as it was represented in MAN – were increasingly commonplace, as was the classification of men’s skin as ‘dry’, ‘oily’, ‘sensitive’ or ‘problem’, again a phenomenon previously confined to women’s ‘beauty’ issues rather than men’s ‘grooming’. In grooming editorials for example, men with dry or sensitive skin were advised to choose aftershave balms and emulsions which would moisturise and soothe their skin rather than briskly apply astringent aftershaves which, “in the old days” was considered invigorating, a point borne out in advertising campaigns for aftershaves such as Aqua Velva in MAN magazine in the 1950s. By the 1980s, the writers of FMG were advising against such sudden, cold shocks to the skin in favour of more gentle products which suited the user’s skin type (June/August, 1984: 137), transgressing traditional masculine disinterest in skin care and ‘tough’ machismo stereotypes in favour of feminine softness and care. Some new feminine words and concepts entering into discourses of modern masculine grooming such as ‘cleanse’, ‘tone’, ‘moisturise’, ‘condition’ and ‘exfoliate’ were introduced
184 through the name of the product itself, and/or its alleged effects, function and benefits, ushering in more new phrases like ‘clarifying’, ‘calming’ and ‘relaxing’ – again all absent from the old grooming culture of modernity. Previously feminine concerns with ageing were also beginning to enter discourses of male grooming in the 1980s, with several men’s moisturisers in the FMG sample claiming to counteract wrinkles, a word/concept hitherto marginal to male grooming concerns, with advertorials and campaigns for facial scrubs promising ‘youthful freshness’ and ‘younger-looking’ skin.
Concern for the skin then, and for a youthful and healthy appearance, was a leading characteristic of the new, feminised grooming culture emerging in men’s style magazines in the 1980s, and these ideologies, products and practices clearly ‘came from’ women’s beauty culture. The facial was a key procedure in the feminisation and consumerisation of men’s grooming habits, whether it was performed professionally in the emergent men’s skin care salons of Sydney such as Pampurrs in Neutral Bay (June/August, 1986: 22; September/November 1986: 126) and Face of Man in the Strand, or at home by the consumers of new men’s skin care products themselves. FMG readers were encouraged to abandon their old, mannish ‘bad’ habits of washing with bath soap and water, which has “been clogging your skin all these years”, or buying “the nearest bottle to hand as he walked down the supermarket aisle” (February, 1987: 44; March/May, 1984: 70), and to embrace a range of cleansing and softening products which contained natural ingredients such as walnut oil, evening primrose, chamomile or aloe vera, to look after their skin and hair by adopting a healthy diet, drinking plenty of water and less alcohol, and getting enough sleep, vitamins and minerals (March, 1986: 20; June/August, 1986: 115-116).
185
Figure 3
As Jackie Cook suggested in her analysis of ideologies of health in men’s sporting and lifestyle magazines (2000: 175-182), these new discourses and images of traditionally feminine concepts of softening, care of the self, nurture and nature were often balanced by compensatory masculine themes of science, work systems and power and control, which sought to uphold at least some gender difference, and to masculinise skin and hair care for men. Print and editorial campaigns frequently deployed discourses of science to de-feminise products which were ‘scientifically formulated’ or ‘developed by dermatologists’ specifically for men’s skin or hair, which was claimed to be different from women’s, and therefore needed different products. Linguistically, the ‘cleanse, tone, moisturise’ beauty routine found in women’s magazines from Dolly and upwards was more often referred to in advertisements and editorials in FMG as a skin care ‘programme’, ‘strategy’, ‘system’ or ‘regimen’, while masculine control extended from the workplace to control of the body in grooming editorials such as ‘Body Management: Total Control’ (June/August, 1986: 114), ‘Under Control: Armpits, Feet and Hair’ (February, 1985:), and ‘Hair Control’ (April/May, 1986: 24). Men’s toiletries and cosmetics were typically packaged and promoted in dark, masculine colours such as blacks, deep blues, greens and burgundy in contrast to the more feminine pastels typically used in women’s cosmetics marketing and advertising, while brand and product names such as ‘Arrogance’ or Clinique’s ‘Scruffing Lotion’ aimed to masculinise feminine products such as moisturisers and exfoliators. Clinique, whose Skin Supplies for Men range was the first specialised men’s skin care line to appear on the market in 1979,
186 tentatively called their pioneering men’s moisturiser M Lotion, omitting the ‘m word’, and its connotations of feminine softening altogether (see Fig. 1). Indeed, the mid-80s advertising campaign for Clinique’s ‘Skin Supplies for Men’ range presents a good example of the discursive ‘masculinisation’ of cosmetic skin care products previously strongly associated with femininity via its visual codings;
Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6
All featuring the dominant, close-up image of a masculine hand holding or grasping at the product, this series of ads visually communicates male strength, negating the feminine softening or cosmetic tanning properties of the products being advertised. The imagery for the face scrub in particular (Fig. 5), with the hand firmly grasping the product like an erect penis signifies masculine strength and virility, the chunky watch symbolising the two minutes it takes the product to work, but also the manliness of its user, a symbolic role also afforded to the other strategically-placed male props such as the sunglasses and razor. In marketing and advertising, feminine products such as moisturisers and toners were often masculinised by becoming annexed to more ‘manly’ discourses of shaving by acquiring prefixes such as ‘Aftershave’ Toner, ‘Shaving’ Cleansing Cream and ‘After- Shaving’ Moisturiser (Jan Stuart, February, 1987; Skin Fitness, March/May: 40), discouraging their traditional associations with femininity and annexing new men’s skin care to more traditional daily shaving procedures.
187
Indeed, this morphing of new men’s skin care practices with more traditional shaving products and procedures into a single, unified and habitual daily routine was a central theme or aim of most print and advertorial campaigns for new men’s facial care products in the FMG sample, and the discursive convergence between shaving, toning and moisturising resulted from some important new economic configurations which were taking place around men’s grooming culture in the 1980s that blurred traditional gendered distinctions between ‘beauty’ and ‘grooming’, in this instance, the horizontal integration of men’s conventional shaving products with skin care and vice versa.
Discourses of Gender: Fragrances
Men’s fragrances, the other key product category which played a leading role in the feminisation of male grooming culture – and one which experienced significant growth throughout the 1980s – were also increasingly marketed as an essential grooming product to be incorporated into a daily, ‘common sense’ routine; number 6 of FMG’s ‘6 of the Best’ grooming tips (above) was to complete grooming with “a fragrance that suits your lifestyle”, a phrase which I’ll unpack in a moment. Unlike men’s skin care products, fragrances had a history in the old, traditional grooming culture, but they had played only a minor role. Until the 1960s and 1970s only a limited range of men’s fragrances was on the market, and in the Australian MAN magazine advertising for after-shaves and colognes was noticeably sparse in comparison to more practical products such as hair tonics and shaving creams. Only a handful of campaigns for British and American brands Aqua Velva, Hunt Club and Straight 8 after-shaves appeared in the magazine in the 1940s and 1950s, and for Raft, Tabac, Mennen and Australia’s Cobb & Co in the 1960s and 1970s. Older products aimed at men were more likely to be unfragranced, conforming to the dominant discourses of gender and sexuality of modernity which stigmatized being perfumed as being feminine or effeminate, and these discourses retained their power well into the 1960s, with campaigns for the first male deodorants appearing on the market emphasizing their reassuringly neutral, undetectable odour. Indeed, as late as 1986 an FMG columnist suggested that “while ‘after-shave’ sounds
188 sufficiently macho for most men, the words ‘fragrance’ and ‘perfume’ suggest sprinklings of effeminacy for some” (January, 1986: 15), a statement that also underlines and underpins the tendency of marketers and advertisers to annex the more ‘manly’ discourses of shaving to previously feminine-coded products and practices.
Faced with powerfully entrenched cultural associations with femininity and homosexuality, advertising campaigns throughout the 1960s and 1970s for men’s fragrances had tended to compensate with discourses of hyper-heterosexuality, evoking themes of macho manliness and feminine sexual reward through use of the product. But according to fragrance analyst Michael Edwards, twice interviewed by FMG to inform lengthy informational editorials on historical and contemporary developments in the men’s fragrance market (January, 1986: 15–23; February, 1987: 108–114), such heavily sex-based advertising had actually held back the men’s fragrance industry, mainly because it addressed only the under-25 market. The problem with marketing perfumes to men, suggested Edwards “has been that we haven’t really had a language to sell fragrance to them” (January, 1986: 16). What was needed then, if the men’s fragrance market was to take off, were new languages to communicate more effectively with men. It is the new languages and discourses of gender that emerged from and around the marketing boom in men’s fragrances and scented toiletries in the 1980s that I am concerned to explore here, and how these fed into the new masculine subjectivities that appeared in fragrance marketing and advertising in new men’s magazines.
… its no longer considered macho to smell like a four-day-old miner’s singlet – even if you’re a miner wearing a singlet. It is equally unfashionable to reek of fragrance like a walking powder room. The clue for the Eighties is to feel and smell fresh, and wearing a fragrance is an excellent way to go about it. (January, 1986: 15)
This opening paragraph to an FMG grooming feature/advertorial presents a clear discursive shift in the 1980s from an ideal of traditional Australian ‘manliness’, represented as working class and naturally odorous, to a new construction of a fresher- smelling, feminised modern ‘masculinity’ which here, relies upon discourses of
189 fragrance, fashion and well-being. “Rather than selling the sex thing, we should be saying that a fragrance makes you feel better” suggested Edwards in the article, while in a later advisory on how to use aftershaves and colognes, Natalie Filatoff similarly emphasised “the sense of well-being a pleasant fragrance affords its wearer” (February, 1987: 138). Taken with discourses of skin and hair care then, this ‘feel good’ factor of men’s fragrance marketing in the 1980s was part of a broader, overall ideology of ‘care of the self’ that was characteristic of the new men’s grooming culture emerging in men’s lifestyle magazines such as FMG. Meanwhile, as men’s skin care campaigns had introduced new, more feminine languages and concerns into masculine discourses of grooming, fragrance marketing ushered in further new, previously feminine terms and concepts of its own, many of which ‘came from’ the world of fashion.
Representative of a new convergence fashion and grooming products, the 1980s was the decade of the designer aftershave. In previous decades, aftershaves and colognes had been marketed mainly by their brand name, or the name of their parent toiletries manufacturer, not their ‘creator’, but from the late 1970s, fashion designers were increasingly entering the realm of men’s fragrances and creating perfumes as part of their ‘collections’, annexing them to the 1980s boom in men’s retail and designer fashion and the new celebrity-designer-as-brand phenomenon. In editorials and advertisements, fragrances were increasingly marketed as ‘by’ renowned fashion designers such as Kouros by Yves St Laurent, Drakkar Noir by Guy Laroche, Pino Silvestre by Vidal Venezia or Grey Flannel by Geoffrey Breene, while other celebrity designers, such as Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin and Versace simply used their own name to brand personalised, and connotatively exclusive, fashionable fragrances. Along with the designer fragrance came further references to fashion, with men’s grooming products ranges themselves increasingly being branded and marketed as ‘collections’ from ‘cosmetic houses’ ‘perfume houses’ and ‘perfumeries’, all feminine fashion terms and concepts absent from traditional masculine discourses of grooming. While the men’s grooming products range itself was not a particularly new development in the 1980s – we saw these as early as the 1940s in MAN – it was increasingly rare for a fragrance to be marketed as a stand-alone product as men’s fragrance manufacturers progressively
190 diversified into skin care and shaving products. “We are introducing a lot of other products in addition to the fragrance because men are now quite prepared to take care of their skin and hair” explained Sandy Bertrand of Parfums Caron in FMG in March 1986, a statement which underlines this new economic configuration around the manufacture of men’s grooming products. Thus, the ‘collections’ of the Eighties differed quite significantly from the ranges of toiletries available to men in the 1940s and 1950s such as Hunt Club and Straight 8, or even the newer ranges such as Cobb & Co and Mennen in the 1960s and 70s, firstly through their inclusion of feminine skin care products such as cleansing and moisturising creams, facial scrubs and body lotions, but also through a new phenomenon of creating a master product – the designer aftershave, cologne, and increasingly, the more feminine ‘eau de parfum’ or ‘eau de toilette’ – and using its particular aroma to distinctively fragrance them. Unlike older discourses of masculine personal grooming then, men’s grooming products lines of the 1980s relied heavily on being ‘fashionably’ scented, and each product in the range, or ‘collection’ was designed to complement the master fragrance, including conventionally unfragranced traditional products such as shaving creams, shaving foams and hair dressings.
According to research presented in MAN, in the mid-1980s 70% of men’s scented toiletries were purchased by women (January, 1986: 16; February, 1987: 108), shedding light onto why Giagu wanted FMG to reach a female as well as male audience and why, until the emergence of specialised men’s fashion and style rather than general interest magazines such as MAN, most fragranced toiletries for men were advertised in women’s magazines. Throughout the 1960s a wide range of men’s scented grooming products appeared on the Australian market, and while MAN had featured a few brands, Baird et al.’s 2007 work on the Australian Women’s Weekly revealed that it had carried innumerably more ads for men’s toiletries than MAN had. Perfumes then, as skin care, were a relatively new concept for men, and if the industry was to achieve the boom it was looking for, they had to be educated about fragrances, ushering more new words and languages such as ‘notes’, ‘composition’, ‘classes’ and ‘accents’ into editorial discussion. “Men will be encouraged to take a more active role in deciding what they like or don’t like” predicted grooming editor Natalie Filatoff in the February 1987 edition of FMG,
191 “and will appreciate the characteristics of the fragrance they choose, as opposed to the aftershave they use”. Men then, were to be educated to become active, independent, informed consumers of their own fragrances and skin care products, and to develop their own tastes and preferences, choices which were imperative to emergent ideologies of fashion, projection of the self and image in men’s fragrance marketing discourse.
Wearing a fragrance, advised Filatoff was “an expression to others about the wearer’s sense of style and taste” (February, 1987: 138). Themes of fashion, style, taste and particularly, elegance loomed large in men’s fragrance campaigns in the 1980s and, as the advertising copy for Caron’s new Third Man fragrance suggested, the decade saw the emergence of “a new language of masculine elegance” (March, 1986: 18), characterised by campaigns such as Aramis, “created to be the most elegant men’s cologne in the world” (February, 1985: 5), Grey Flannel, “Elegance is a Ritual” (January, 1986: 18) and Cartier, “a blend of action and elegance” (June/August, 1987: 30), a description equally applicable to the product and its user. A pivotal new trend throughout the 1980s was for fragrance marketers and publicists to increasingly construct highly-coded, interchangeable user/product personalities around their fragrances, a development which was facilitated by the emergence of the grooming advertorial, a portal which provided copywriters with more line space and creative license, and a pitch to work from for grooming editors. New masculine subjectivities, such as the ‘Aramis Man’ or the ‘Grey Flannel Man’ emerged from advertorial discourse in the 1980s, and while this in itself was not all that new – the ‘Raft Man’ of the 1960s was similarly constructed as a stylish and elegant subjectivity presented through and around the product – there were significant differences. The ‘Raft Man’ had been heavily coded with discourses of sex (‘the thing you notice most about a ‘Raft’ man is the woman he’s with’), while the new ‘Fragrance Man’ of the Eighties was less about style as an avenue to sexual conquest, and more about the expression of personality, individuality and self-confidence, again part of the ‘feel good’ ideology of contemporary male grooming culture but also to do with wider social and economic discourses of individualism and personal success in the 1980s (see Edwards, 1997). Themes of sex and heterosexuality were still present in marketing campaigns for men’s fragrances, most particularly in print advertisements, but editorially, the main emphasis tended to be on the cultivation and expression of the self, with little
192 reference to sex;
It is said that the Aramis Man is a trendsetter, though not intentionally – it just turns out that he always seems to know, to have the right idea. He’s a true collector of experiences – a master creator of scenarios. A dash of the unexpected is his motto. Perhaps you’ve always longed to be just like this, but have never found the magic key to unlock your secret charisma. Could it be simply a question of uncapping a bottle of Aramis 900 Herbal Eau de Cologne?
(June/August, 1986: 26)
Clearly, what this piece is ‘selling’, beyond the actual product, is an image; but unlike the two-dimensional style and seduction ‘Raft Man’ image, a much more well-developed subjectivity or personality has been created around the fragrance and beyond the visual codes of a print campaign, offering its user an identity of self-assured individuality, unpredictability, charm and a natural eye for fashion and style. The rest of the ad/editorial is worth quoting here, because it underlines some of my above observations, and for its intertextual reference to Mickey Rourke, a popular style icon of the 1980s;
A crisp blend of herbal, subtle floral and bright citrus accents. Rich and precious woodnotes combine with warm, musky, mossy amber tones to create a contemporary feeling. Complement it with other products from the Aramis 900 collection -- including the Absolute Comfort Shave Foam and the Refreshing Body Shampoo. We’re sure that Mickey Rourke’s 9½ Weeks character uses all of these products.
(June/August, 1986: 26)
Rourke’s character in the then recently-released, steamy film 9½ Weeks was the envy of straight, red-blooded men everywhere when he bedded blonde sex siren Kim Basinger in explicit erotic scenes, so the implication of sexual reward through use of the product was there. But the cult film, revered for its art production and cinematography, as well as Rourke’s on-screen and real-life persona, was as much about men’s fashion, image and style. As an intertextual device, using Rourke – at the time the subject of regular features,
193 modelling shoots and front covers of global fashion and style magazines such as Vogue, Esquire, GQ and The Face – branded the ‘Aramis Man’ with Rourke’s traits of style, sensuality and charisma, traits which were implicitly available to the intended consumer upon use of the fragrance.
Beyond the ‘selling’ of an image, and as part of a wider trend in contemporary marketing and advertising, the new subjectivities on offer to men in advertorial fragrance marketing in the 1980s extended beyond just style and image, to the ‘selling’ of a lifestyle or identity (see for example Rifkin, 2000; Hartley 2002). And while the identities or lifestyles of particular fragrance characters differed – the ‘Aramis Man’ was a cool trendsetter whereas the ‘Grey Flannel Man’ was a boardroom executive (“Grey Flannel epitomises the mannered good taste of the boardroom”, January, 1986: 18), they shared central common characteristics and values;
The Grey Flannel man is a man of taste, successful, refined and cosmopolitan, who strives to avoid the mundane and escape to a calm and comfortable world
(January, 1986: 39),
The Eighties advertorial ‘Fragrance Man’ was urban and urbane. He was an aspirational self-confident, successful and charismatic individual who sought exciting and different experiences rather than simply sex, as the ‘Raft Man’ and his other predecessors had. He also embraced the feminine principles of consumption, particularly of fashion and style, as well as discourses of personal well-being. Ideally, he was literate in the composition of perfumes and purchased his own range of aromatically complementary fragranced toiletries. The new languages of modern masculinity emerging from fragrance marketing and advertising discourse in the 1980s then were partly informed by prevalent masculine ideologies of individualism, but more so by previously feminine concepts, concerns and ideologies, generating softer, more feminised masculine identities;
… public relations companies have been tempering their descriptions
194 of male-oriented scent – words like masculine, masterful, virile, animal and conquering are balanced by sensitive, elegant, warm … in deference to today’s more urbane man.
(Filatoff, February 1987: 108)
Filatoff’s suggestion here that advertising follows cultural trends on the ground underlines the complexity of the dialogue between the cultural and economic spheres in the production of new masculine subjectivities, which in the 1980s were increasingly constructed as more sensitive and emotional in fragrance marketing. “Sensitive, profound … true emotion” read the main - and only - copy on a full-page print advertisement for Versace’s L’Homme Eau de Toilette (see Fig. 23). Whereas ‘Raft Man’ and his generation had been constructed as masterful, virile womanisers – ‘To her, to any woman Raft says “This man is male”’ (Raft, MAN magazine: March 1969) – the new man of the 80s was less of a sexual predator and more sensual, cosmopolitan, refined and emotionally aware, attributes and themes I will address further as the chapter unfolds.
As Filatoff suggests above, newer constructions of masculinity in fragrance marketing campaigns balanced references to older forms of ‘manliness’ rather than outrightly supplanting them, and as had been evident in discourses around skin and hair care in FMG, overtly feminine ideologies in fragrance campaigns were redressed by more traditionally masculine discourses which aimed to communicate to men that using scented toiletries and cosmetics was an acceptable, masculine thing to do. For example, drawing on the masculine concept of discretion traditionally evoked in the marketing discourse of men’s fragranced toiletries, fragrances were typically described as ‘discreet’ (Grey Flannel, Third Man), ‘subtle’ (Dunhill, Aramis) and even ‘subtly masculine’ (Tuscany), a curious but useful copy line for the point I am making here. These discourses of subtlety suggest that while definitions of masculinity were opening up to allow men to be fragranced in the 1980s, there was still a certain amount of ambivalence around men and perfume, with moderation being the key to wearing a fragrance but still retaining one’s masculinity. To “reek of fragrance like a walking powder room” was not only ‘unfashionable’ (January, 1986: 15), but also too feminine.
195
Fragrance compositions offered another reassuringly masculine code to anchor perfumes to manliness. While a few of the 20 or so fragrances appearing in advertorials in the FMG sample indicated light, floral or citrus notes in their compositions, these feminine-coded scents were always over-compensated with heavier, more ‘masculine’ aromatic notes, typically from the hardier species within nature such as woody plants and trees (see also Barthel, 1992: 149). Descriptions such as ‘woodnotes’, ‘extracts of wood’, ‘woody base notes’, ‘oak moss’, ‘birch’ and ‘Indian woods’ abounded in men’s fragrance advertorials, as did references to the heavier, headier perfume essences such as patchouli, bergamot, neroli and particularly musk, a concentrate traditionally – and popularly known to be – extracted from the sexual glands of the male musk deer, making it a potent signifier of male virility and sexual attraction. Also coming from the animal kingdom, extracts or tones of leather informed numerous ‘masculine scents’, at times signifying male strength, “a warm, masculine powerful scent with tones of leather” (Chanel, February 1985) at others work, professionalism and civility, “with a light accent of leather – the boardroom touch … mannered good taste” (January, 1986) and at times both, Guerlain’s leathery fragrance Derby (and implicitly its user) described as “wonderfully wild, eminently civilised”;
… do you identify with the words “wonderfully wild, eminently civilised”? If the answer is yes, your fragrance has arrived … Derby has a full-bodied fragrance. For those in the know the composition is: patchouli, oak moss, birch, leather, tobacco, carnation, bergamot, orange-tree, spices and Indian woods.
(March, 1986: 20)
The direct mode of address here sets up an exclusive, personalised relationship with the reader/user, offering a subject position that quite aptly describes the imagined influx state of modern masculinity in fragrance marketing discourse; evolving but inherently ‘man’. While not as common as the wood, spice and leather classes, tobacco appeared in the composition list of several other men’s fragrances, not least Tabac, a fragrance so-called after the tobacco which informed its main base notes. Clearly then, men’s personalised
196 fragrances were made up of masculine-coded essences which marked them as different from women’s – leather and tobacco in particular would unlikely be found in descriptions of women’s perfumes – thus sanctioning their use by men.
Aside from its function as a ‘masculine aroma’, tobacco was implicated with men’s perfume and grooming products in a new and different way in the 1980s when cigarette and prestige smoking apparel manufacturers Dunhill entered into the realm of men’s fragrances and fragranced skin care. Until the 1960s, the British Alfred Dunhill brand was known internationally as manufacturers of high-class pipes, cigarette lighters and fountain pens. In the 1960s the company entered the luxury cigarette market, and in the 1980s diversified into the prestige end of the men’s fragrance and skin care market (Dunhill, 2007; Wikipedia, 2007), etching the distinctive the Dunhill logo onto high-class grooming products;
The House of Dunhill
Always longed for something from the elegant Dunhill range – a cigarette lighter or a pen - but afraid of losing it or blowing your Bankcard balance to purchase it? The Dunhill Edition Collection is a complete range of grooming products, divided into ‘systems’ to cater for particular aspects. Investigate the Face System and the Daily Care System – but if you’re out to create a more immediate impression, try the Dunhill Edition Eau de Toilette. Created by Alain Astori, Edition combines the freshness and light of mountain herbs and the subtle sensuality of exotic spices, touched with the masculine note of cedar and sandalwood.
(March, 1986: 26)
The Dunhill brand of fragranced toiletries throws up an interesting and complex set of new convergences between fashion, smoking and stationery, and men’s grooming products. In this advertorial, the convergence between men’s fragranced toiletries and fashion is clear in its title and reference to the fragrance designer/creator. Demonstrating my earlier points about the discursive ‘masculinising’ of skin care and fragrances, however references to skin care ‘systems’ and subtle ‘masculine notes’ aim to redress this imbalance towards femininity and fashion in the piece. Furthermore, while the coupling
197 of smoking and skin care seems rather anomalous, both smoking and stationery are historically masculine domains – and importantly, well-established and ‘approved’ domains of fashionable and stylish consumption for men – and so annexing men’s fragranced toiletries to more traditional men’s consumer goods such as stationery and smoking apparel works to sanction their use by men, branding the products themselves as ‘masculine’ and providing a more ‘manly’ counter-balance to the wider convergence of men’s grooming products with more feminine areas of fashion.
Ultimately however, in the representation of men’s grooming culture in the 1980s in FMG, feminine discourses and concepts far and away outweighed traditional or compensatory masculine themes, with ideologies of softening, nurture, care of the self, well-being, fashion and matching fragrances overwhelmingly shaping its character and form, strengthened by features on hairstyles, professional colouring and chemical processes (June/August, 1984: 141– 45) and such grooming advertorial titles as ‘Heads Up: Looking after your Locks’ (March/May, 1984: 70) ‘Tips for Flyaway Hair’, ‘Hot Tips’, (June/August, 1986: 24) and ‘Feet Facial’ (February, 1987: 48). So far, I have focussed mainly on how these new, feminine languages and concepts have entered into male grooming discourse in men’s magazines in Australia since the 1970s, offering up new, less macho masculine subjectivities, and I have introduced several textual devices which aimed to masculinise perfumes, skin and hair care for men. In the older, more traditional men’s grooming culture of the 1940s and 1950s, the three predominant masculine discourses deployed in campaigns were science, work and sport. It is to these themes I will now turn to explore how, if at all, these had changed in magazine representations of grooming by the 1980s.
Discourses of Gender: Science, Work and Sport
While the range and scope of products and procedures had changed dramatically, discourses of modern science pervaded men’s grooming products advertisements and ideologies in the 1980s in much the same way as they had in the 1940s and 1950s. Skin
198 and hair care editorials and advertisements were awash with references to ‘scientifically proven ingredients’ such as ‘collagen’ and ‘elastin’, ‘sodium RNA’, ‘pHelityl’ or ‘panthenol’, while ‘patented protein compounds’, ‘special lipophilic complexes’ and ‘unique glyprogenic properties’ informed the marketing and advertising of new hair and skin care products for men in similar ways to how medical and modern science had dominated campaigns for dandruff treatments, hair tonics and shaving creams in the 40s and 50s. But while discourses of science were consistent with older ideologies of traditional grooming found in MAN, they were no longer exclusive to the language of masculine grooming, with marketing and advertising for women’s toiletries, cosmetics and hair care products increasingly deploying discourses of popular and medical science over the last few decades, a development which demonstrates a two-way smudging of the old gender boundaries of grooming/beauty as part of broader dissolutions in gendered behaviours within postmodernity, and the rise of the information society/economy (Castells, 2000 Hartley, 2002). As I suggested earlier, while discourses of science were evoked to uphold biological differences between men’s and women’s skin and hair, by the 1980s science itself had lost much of its ‘masculine’ association. Moreover, the sales pitch for men’s cosmetics and toiletries in the 1980s was equally likely to come from nature as science, again blurring traditional gendered ideologies and feminising discourses of male grooming culture.
References to the worlds of work and sport – both heavily-represented in older campaigns for traditional products – were present in advertising campaigns and editorials appearing in FMG in the mid-1980s, but they were much less frequent and less pronounced than they had been. Whereas themes of ‘use this product for job success and promotion’ were widespread in advertising campaigns for hair and shaving products from the 1930s to the late 1950s, they were entirely absent in campaigns in the 1980s. Aside from reference to skin care routines as ‘systems’ or ‘programs’ work was rarely emphasised and if it was, it was communicated symbolically through the models’ business suit, accessories such as briefcases, and settings such as public buildings or offices rather than explicitly stated in the text, whether in the print image or in advertorials. Rather than the old promise of job promotion through the use of the product,
199 themes of image, fashion and style at work were elevated, particularly in advertisements for men’s fragrances. Similarly, whereas sport had been a popular thematic choice among grooming products marketers and advertisers throughout the 1940s and 1950s, relatively few references to sport were made in campaigns appearing in the FMG sample. Indeed, only two print advertisements out of the100s I analysed used sport as a theme; Kouros, (see Fig. 21) which drew on discourses of Formula 1 car racing and Faberge’s Partage men’s toiletries range (see Fig. 8), campaigns I will discuss in further detail shortly. And aside from an advertorial for Aramis Moisture Cream, which evoked boxing by describing the cream as ‘lightweight’ but containing ‘heavyweight ingredients’ (January, 1986: 18) and another for Clinique’s Hair Trainer Cream Rinse, described as a ‘body builder’ (June/August, 1986: 24), little was made editorially of sport either.
But while there was nowhere near the same level of representation of sport in the marketing discourse of grooming products as there had been, the 1980s saw the emergence of a new relationship between grooming and sport when popular sportswear labels such as Adidas and Lacoste entered the men’s skin care and fragrance market. Although grooming and sport have a long economic history, with sporting personalities endorsing various men’s grooming products since the 1920s, the merging of the two at production level was part of a growing trend towards the economic convergence or horizontal integration of several previously disparate industries, such as sporting goods and fashion, around the manufacture and marketing of men’s grooming products in the 1980s. Indeed, as sportswear increasingly became fashion in the Eighties, the new grooming products lines by companies such as Adidas and Lacoste brought together all three sectors; fashion, sport and grooming, and particularly Lacoste, which was marketed as a ‘designer fragrance’. This new form of economic convergence with sport opened up new ways of communicating with male consumers which drew from the cultures of consumers themselves, and new ways to ‘masculinise’ skin care and fragrances for men. By branding such previously feminine products with intertextual logos men were already familiar with from the masculine world of sport, marketers could offer the official ‘manly’ stamp of approval to skin care and perfumes.
200
Figure 7
Moreover, as fashion and style had created certain product/user personalities and subjectivites around men’s fragrances, so too did the new sportswear brands, at times leading to the product itself becoming the sporting personality;
… the familiar Adidas logo is making its break into the world of men’s toiletries, beginning with a 12-strong line up ranging from aftershave to shower gel. Our picks are the Massage Oil and the Muscle Fluid; the latter has been described as ‘a popular team-mate, a good rover, likes to circulate and improves morale after hard play, stirs the blood when in action’
(Adidas: ‘On the Toiletries Track’, March/May 1987: 42)
Like the ‘Aramis man’, the ‘Adidas man’ likes to socialise, but unlike Aramis man, a subjectivity constructed mainly around discourses of fashion and style, he is not narcissistic; he uses his toiletries to get clean and to soothe him after a hard game rather than to ‘unlock his secret charisma’, and he likes action on the field rather than at work. Underpinning strong cultural associations between sport and Australian masculinity, at their launch in 1987, professional and industry opinion was that these new sportswear grooming brands were expected to perform particularly well in Australia, “to cater to the sportsman” (Filatoff, February 1987: 110). The expected appeal of sportswear lines relied heavily on discourses of sport and nationality, but in industry discussions around trends in Australia, and how Australian men used toiletries and cosmetics, themes of sport were tied to wider imaginings and ideologies of national identity.
201
Discourses of Nationality
Figure 8
The shift to symbolic communication in contemporary grooming products advertising is clear in this advertisement, with the images largely narrating the occasion, function and rewards of the products rather than the actual text. The model is photographed in five different sporting scenarios which potentially damage or clog up the skin, allegorically communicating that the products will solve these problems; the Superior Cleansing Bar for example, will remove grime left from dirt bike racing and sweat from playing tennis and the Face Saving Moisturiser will protect the skin from the effects of the wind, rain, cold or sea air whist fishing, boating or skiing and it will soothe sore, red sunburned skin after surfing or a day at the beach. Clearly, the ad is aimed specifically at Australian men, featuring sporting scenarios they would be familiar with and particularly for its use of the iconic red and yellow of the Australian surf lifesaver swimming cap, evoking discourses of surfing and the beach, both strong signifiers of traditional Australian male culture and
202 national identity. This was the only grooming products campaign in the three year sample to signify specifically Australian masculinity, and it is significant is that it did so primarily through discourses of sport, an important continuity in representations of ‘Australian-ness’ in men’s grooming products marketing and advertising. Moreover, it is clear that the type of masculinity constructed in this text is similar in many ways to the Adidas persona, displaying a practical as opposed to a narcissistic approach to the use of toiletries and cosmetics, which are again framed mainly as preparations to clean and soothe the skin after outdoor and sporting activities. When perfume company Caron launched their men’s skin and hair care products in 1986, president Sandy Betrand explained in an interview for a grooming feature in FMG that they were doing so because;
… men are now quite prepared to take care of their skin and hair. In Australia especially, its self-protection not vanity. Many Australian men spend a lot of time in the water, on boats, on the golf course and so on, and they need to protect their skin the same as women.
(Bertrand, April/May, 1986: 18, my emphasis)
Bertrand’s remarks here underscore historical (and continuing) constructions of Australian masculinity as practical and active rather than vain or passive and again, skin care is annexed to discourses of sport, not style or fashion. Taken with discussions in the contemporary press, particularly Martyn-Jones’ justification of men using moisturiser after ‘going bush’, four-wheel driving and surfing (The Sydney Morning Herald, 2003: 11), and the invariable representation of men in a sport/outdoor context in grooming products ads, what is interesting about how sport and grooming are connected in an Australian context, is how these discourses of national identity dictate that Australian men must be engaged in some kind of approved national physical activity such as sport in order for it to be acceptable, or ‘Australian’ for them to use fragranced toiletries and skin care products. To use them otherwise would be considered vain, effete and crucially, un- Australian.
203 Australian MAN magazine had been modelled closely on American Esquire and throughout its publication it had taken its cues mainly from America and Britain. In the 1940s, 50s and 60s the men’s grooming products which were available on the Australian market – and the advertising campaigns for them – also generally came from Britain or America, or were produced locally for British or American parent companies. Many of these campaigns had relied heavily on discourses of sport but by the 1980s, themes of sport in print advertisements for grooming products were negligible, replaced by elevated discourses of fashion, style, elegance and cosmopolitanism, while at the same time a shift had occurred in where men’s grooming products on the market ‘came from’. From the 1970s grooming products – and fragrances in particular – increasingly came from Mediterranean Europe, and above all from Italy and France. Throughout the whole of MAN’s publication, only one men’s grooming product, the French Pinaud anti-dandruff treatment, had ‘come from’ Europe. While FMG was an Italian-influenced magazine which likely attracted or sought Italian grooming products advertisers, producing what may have been an over-representation of European products and campaigns, the fastest- growing new fragrances of the 1970s and 1980s such as Pino Silvestre, Lagerfeld, Drakkar Noir and Kouros did actually come from Italy and France. This shift from the representation of mainly British and American grooming products and models of masculinity to more European-influenced campaigns and ideologies in discourses of grooming as they were presented to Australian men in magazines ushered in, both literally and discursively, some new languages around nationality and masculine narcissism.
Few British or American brands were featured in the FMG sample; Cussons, The Body Shop, Dunhill, Jan Stuart and Geoffrey Breene (Grey Flannel) were the only US or UK names to appear among a sea of much more regular campaigns for product lines from French brands such as Clinique, Lagerfeld, Guerlain, Caron, Yves Saint Laurent, Guy Laroche and Pierre Cardin, and Italian brands such as Rossi, Lancetti, Trussardi, Azzaro, Versace and Gucci. Clearly then, as many of the brands here carry the names of leading fashion designers, the convergence of fragrances and grooming products with fashion I discussed earlier originated in Europe, and was organised around discourses of
204 Mediterranean fashion and style. With these French and Italian brands came the introduction of European languages to grooming products campaigns. Rarely did the English words ‘man’ or ‘for men’ appear in ads and product descriptions, replaced with the French and Italian ‘homme’, ‘uomo’ and ‘pour homme’. Indeed, eight fragrances or fragranced product lines advertised in the FMG sample were actually called ‘Pour Homme’, with each of the leading designer houses – Pierre Cardin, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci and Versace – all marketing their own Pour Homme fragrance, while other ‘pour hommes’ included Arrogance Pour Homme, Anataeus Pour Homme, Azzaro Pour Homme and Lapidus Pour Homme. French perfumers Caron, who created arguably the first Pour Un Homme in 1934, launched their third men’s fragrance in 1986 which they called Le Troisieme Homme – The Third Man’ (March, 1986: 18), while from the Italian ‘man’ brands came Dimensione Uomo, Lancetti Uomo and Trussardi Uomo.
Grooming products which came from Europe often featured the French or Italian product description, such as ‘gel pour le bain’, ‘mousse a raser’, ‘apres rasage’ or ‘crème a double effect’ before or above its English translation, lending them an air of European taste, modernity and elegance, while print campaigns often featured whole sentences in French or Italian.
Figure 9 Figure 10
205
This ad for Monsieur Carven Eau de Toilette for example featured the words ‘the only gift’ in English, but aside from the cologne itself, the main image was a hand-written note in French from a woman called Sophie, while along the bottom of the ad the details of the gift set were also in French; ‘coffret contenant: un flacon eau de toilette Monsieur Carven 120ml, un porte-cartes cas’. An ad for Drakkar Noir (Sept/Nov 1985) similarly utilised the French language in the sentence ‘La douce violence d’un parfum d’homme’, which roughly translates as ‘the soft violence of a perfume of man’, presumably emphasising the sensuality of the fragrance (and hence its user) over the more violent lust. While neither of these ads offers an English translation, they assume that the reader will ‘get’ the visual themes of French sexuality, passion and spontaneity, offering their user the allure and sexiness of the stereotypical Frenchman, while their bold emphasis on Paris as their city of origin, a device commonly deployed in campaigns for fragrances from the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, evokes ideologies of Parisian style, fashion and sophistication, again qualities on offer to the user of the products.
Emphasis of place, and in particular southern Europe, informed campaigns for Tuscany, the new men’s fragrance from Aramis in 1987, named after the region in Italy where it was created. The print campaign featured an extreme close-up photograph of the cologne, the page drenched in the rich oranges and deep reds of the Mediterranean and terracotta roofs. Across the top of the page are the words ‘from the land where man was born’, and below the product they are translated into Italian, ‘Dalla Terra dove enato l’Uomo: A new fragrance for men created by Aramis. Firenze. Italia’. Implicitly, the ‘man’ or masculinity referred to here is the Italian man, typically constructed as inherently stylish, elegant and suave, while the evocation and Italian spelling of Florence and Italy support the themes of ancient tradition and specifically Italian cosmopolitanism which the ad sets up. A subsequent Tuscany ad used the same imagery but different text;
‘Ecco Tuscany! The new fragrance inspiration for men from Aramis – Tuscany. Subtly masculine. Tuscan in spirit … virile, fresh, lively. Ours alone. Non c’ e un altro negozio come David Jones’
206
Again, a user/product subjectivity has been constructed around the fragrance, this time organised around discourses of gender and Italian-ness, alluding to both Italian masculinity and Italian culture itself. As a non-Italian speaker, my first assumption was that ‘non c’ e un altro negozio come David Jones’ meant ‘only available at David Jones’, an Australian department store which sells upmarket fragrances, cosmetics, clothes and home furnishings. However, the phrase actually translates as ‘there’s no other store like David Jones’, the media marketing slogan for the store itself. While this brands David Jones with Italian cosmopolitanism and style, the sentence itself can be fully understood only if the reader is, or speaks Italian and the reader will only ‘get’ the intertextual reference if he/she is familiar with both Australian culture and the Italian language, presenting an interesting example of a global campaign which has been localised for an Australian audience, but in particular for an Australian/Italian audience. Meanwhile, as the Tuscany campaign had created a discursive subjectivity around the fragrance endowed with Tuscan qualities, the Pino Silvestre men’s fragrance was given a ‘dynamic and vital’ personality of its own in a print ad which appeared in the February 1985 issue of FMG, and this was the ‘personality’ of the Italian city of Venice;
It was born thirty years ago in a traditional Venetian perfume house. Rapidly it became part of the Italian way of life. Conceived from a formula dating back to ancient times, vetyver, lavender, sandalwood, sage and citrus combine to create a fragrance dynamic and vital. A fragrance that, like Venice itself, possesses unique qualities that are never quite forgotten.
In chapter 2 I demonstrated how many contemporary Australian popular journalists imply that the new, feminised grooming culture for men ‘comes from’ overseas rather than from within Australian culture itself. Tracing historical discourses of nationality in representations of men’s grooming in two Australian men’s magazines does suggest that new grooming products and practices did actually come from overseas, both discursively and literally. From the late 1930s through to the 1960s grooming products, ideologies of good grooming and discursive models of masculinity had ‘come from’ Britain and America, as did most industrial and cultural products and, in the case of Britain, most
207 people. By the 1980s, the older grooming culture represented by masculine unfragranced, functional products for shaving and hair control had given way to one led by fragrances and skin care, and these new products and procedures ‘came from’ Italy and France – as did many more cultural goods and, in the case of Italy, people – supported by discourses of traditional French and Italian style, sophistication and authenticity connected to a long history of male narcissism, fashion and perfume-making.
Discourses of Class
FMG was a high class, upmarket magazine geared towards middle to upper class men. It featured exclusive designer fashion available from ‘gentlemen’s outfitters’ and select stores, and so it is inevitable that it would also feature the most exclusive and high-class grooming products stocked at perfume counters in upmarket department stores and exclusive salons. In the first issue’s skin and hair care editorial (March/May, 1984: 65), the products of “the most reputable cosmetic houses” were introduced and recommended to readers, and these included upmarket brands such as Clinique and Aramis, both regular upmarket advertisers in the magazine, and the exclusive Ella Bache and Dunhill men’s skin care systems, while other comprehensive exclusive skin care brands featured in FMG included Erno Lazlo, Clarin’s and Jan Stuart. Fragrances and fragranced toiletries at the prestige end of the market such as Lagerfeld, Pino Silvestre, Lancetti, Aramis and Kouros ran regular print campaigns in the magazine and these brands also featured heavily in fragrance industry feature articles/advertorials, appearing with other top-end names such as Grey Flannel, Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin and Guerlain. Fragrances and fragranced grooming products in the mid-price or mass market on the other hand were comparatively under-represented, with only a single ad for the Imperial Leather brand appearing in the three year sample, and no representation at all of other popular, more downmarket brands such as Brut, Old Spice, Mennen or Blue Stratos.
208
Figure 11
Featuring simply the products lined up against a black background without props or ‘frills’, the austere, dark setting of the Imperial Leather ad frames the range as traditionally masculine, while the main copy ‘luxury for every man, every day’ denotes the brand’s ‘class-less’ character and appeal, although noticeably, fashion has extended its reach into products pitched at ‘manly’ men of all classes, including working class men, the range being promoted as a ‘men’s collection.’ Moreover, unlike most of the upmarket brands advertised in FMG, more often available from exclusive stockists and department stores, the Imperial Leather range was on sale at ‘leading pharmacies and supermarkets’. Aside from explicitly marking the class status of cosmetics brands, the actual point and place of sale, whether the supermarket aisle or the department store beauty counter, offers up quite diverse shopping environments. Supermarket brands can be casually picked up and thrown into the shopping basket with other mundane groceries such as food, washing powder and toilet rolls for example, whereas the department store brand, situated among more luxury and expensive consumerables, invites a much more personal and involved (as well as expensive) purchasing decision, and particularly if undertaken at the Clinique counter in David Jones or Grace Bros’ Myer which offered men a free skin analysis while they browsed through their products (see figs 2-4).
209
Returning to the ‘Confessions’ skin and hair care advertorial, the author supposed that most men’s experience of buying hair care products was to choose “the nearest bottle to hand as he walked down the supermarket aisle” (March/May, 1984: 70), a statement which suggests that the supermarket mode of purchase – non-committal, mundane and disinterested – is an inherent or essential trait of masculinity and men’s ’natural’ approach to cosmetic toiletries, and which tells us something important about gendered consumption as well as about class; that the supermarket arena offers men not only a cheaper, but a more casual, less serious and distant relationship to narcissism and the consumption of beauty products. This goes some way to explaining why, despite the predominance of discourses of middle and upper-classness in most grooming products advertising campaigns I will address in a moment, 70% of all sales of men’s fragrances were precisely among the mid-price brands such as Brut 33, Old Spice and Blue Stratos in the mid-1980s (January, 1986: 16) and why the supermarket brands of mid-range and downmarket men’s skin care products and fragrances such as Nivea for Men and Lynx have experienced the strongest growth in recent years.13
Furthermore, alongside its more ‘practical’ shop floor environment, and supporting themes of class and masculinity, the 1980s supermarket or mass brand of men’s toiletries tended to feature only the more traditional men’s grooming product categories and not the newer, more feminine skin care preparations. The Imperial Leather line-up, typical of other the mid-price ranges, consisted of ‘splash-on’ (not ‘cologne’ or ‘eau de toilette’ or ‘parfum’), after-shave, anti-dandruff shampoo, deodorant stick, anti-perspirant and shave cream. In the 1980s then, before the introduction of mid-price ranges such as Nivea for Men in the 1990s, and with the exception of the new Adidas line, the specialised men’s skin care products which were on the market were available only from expensive, prestige brands and so essentially, skin care for men ‘came from’ the upper classes, not the masses;
13 Sales of Nivea for Men grew by 32% between 2002 and 2003 (Burbury, 2003a: 47) and Lynx has the largest share of the Australian deodorant-fragrance market (Gare, 2000)
210 Its difficult to ignore the pin-striped packaging that surrounds these Aramis products – its obviously designed to impress similarly dressed people but the important thing is that the products comprise a skin care system that will work for every man – including the labourer and the desk clerk. You don’t have to look like the fragrance ads to enjoy the benefits of the skin care products!
(February 1987: 44)
Despite an attempt to normalise skin care for men of all classes in this advertorial for Aramis skin care products, Aramis’ own print campaigns and the magazine’s other leading grooming advertisers made few attempts to appeal specifically to working class men, and skin care and fragrance campaigns in particular were shot through with discourses of wealth and elitism, drawing on a long tradition of middle and upper class- ness in grooming products marketing and advertising.
In advertising campaigns in MAN in the 1940s and 1950s, class was often annexed to wider discourses of nationality, communicated primarily through sport – upper class British fox-hunting, or more middle class English sports such as golf, cricket and tennis for example – and work, with a heavy representation of middle to upper class British and American business and executive masculinities, such as Bill from the Palmolive shaving cream campaigns, or the various Gillette models of masculinity. In the 1980s FMG sample there had been a clear shift from mostly British and American representations and definitions of class and wealth in grooming products advertising to more European models and specifically, French and Italian class, style and elegance. Campaigns such as ‘Lancetti Uomo: Elegant Expensive’, and Rossi’s ‘Italian Collection: Fine Fragrances from Italy for the Man of Today’ featuring top-end designer brands such as Dimensione, Lancetti, Arrogance and Pino Silvestre, communicated specifically Italian class;
211
Figure 12 Figure 13
In these ads for Trussardi fragrances while there are important continuities with 1940s and 1950s British and American campaigns in their allusion to class and wealth through signs such as the fragrance’s leather casing and clothing such as formal evening wear, bow ties and cufflinks, the setting and the name of the fragrance expressly signifies Italian class. Meanwhile, the exclusivity of the fragrance, its import status and the ideologies of classic Italian style are re-signified through the pointed reference to the ‘sole’ Australian and New Zealand distributor, Italian Style Diffusion.
212
Figure 14
This double page advertisement for Lagerfeld cologne was the first advertisement to appear in the new magazine, and is suffused with the codes and discourses of class, urban style and exclusivity common to most campaigns for men’s fragranced grooming products in the 1980s. The setting and the model’s clothing suggest that he is a white collar city professional, conforming to older representations of masculinity in men’s grooming products advertising. On the opposite page the same model is dressed again in traditional formal evening wear of tuxedo with a stiff-collared shirt and bow tie, the images symbolically communicating that the high-class cologne is suitable for both day and evening wear, supported by the elegant black and white font. Yet while the model’s designer clothes and accessories signify class and style, the text ‘Parfums Lagerfeld · Paris’ works to align these with ideologies of nationality to signify specifically, French class and style.
213
Figure 15 Figure 16
These print campaigns for Aramis which appeared regularly in FMG are very clearly heavily-coded with discourses of 1980s class, communicated first and foremost through the models’ styling and formal evening wear, the traditional signifier of class and quality in grooming products campaigns. Wealth and elitism are also communicated here through the placement of the champagne glasses and ice bucket, the plush apartment building lobby setting and the pedigree Chinese Shar-Pei dogs, which draw the viewer’s eye to the fine carpet. But while discourses of class, style and elegance are elevated, strong themes of heterosexual seduction also predominate, the dual discourses clearly expressed in the marketing copy; ‘Aramis was created to be the most elegant men’s cologne in the world. Somewhere along the way it also became the most provocative’.
Discourses of Sexuality
As I suggested earlier, much advertorial fragrance and skin care marketing relied on themes of self-expression, individuality and feeling fresh and confident rather than on
214 discourses of sex, which I suggested were more typically found in print campaigns. However, even in print advertisements for men’s grooming products in the 1980s, representations of sex and heterosexuality were relatively few, with the majority of the ads instead featuring solitary male models, the products themselves, or both. Aside from the example ads I have used above for Trussardi (Figs 12 and 13) and Aramis (Figs 15 and 16), there were only two more print campaigns in the FMG sample which elevated themes of heterosexual sex;
Figure 17
While imagery of the Drakkar Noir ad is suffused with codes of heterosexual sex and powerful lust, both for the product and its user, the text describes ‘soft violence’, alluding more to themes of sensuality, a discourse increasingly evident in men’s fragrance advertising in the 1980s and crucially, one which was accompanied by the introduction of the semi-naked and sexualised male body in men’s grooming products campaigns:
215
Figure 18
In this Pino Silvestre ad, the elegant, bejewelled female model, again dressed in formal evening wear, signifies the class of the fragrance. Her presence and positioning heterosexualise the scenario while communicating the qualities of sexual attraction the fragrance will bring its user. Holding open a bottle of the perfume, the narrative suggests that the woman will apply it after her partner has finished shaving. The headline ‘PINO. Don’t let him wear anything else!’ refers to the fragrance itself – and implicitly to the cultural norm of women choosing or buying fragrances for men – but importantly, it also attracts the reader to the male model’s semi-naked state. Moreover, the landscape lay-out of the ad dramatically increased the size of the models beyond the more conventional portrait double-page spread, and meant that the reader had to turn the magazine around to
216 fully observe it, inviting an even closer and more intimate look. Aside from the late 1960s Mennen ad I discussed in the previous chapter, from the very beginning of advertising for men’s consumer grooming products, male models and hand-drawn illustrations had overwhelmingly, if not entirely, featured men clothed, either in suits or covered by pyjamas and dressing gowns in imagery depicting the morning shave. In the 1980s, print advertisements for men’s grooming products increasingly revealed the male form, becoming a key site in the sexualisation of the male body and opening it up to the social gaze, and significantly, to the gaze of other men within the new genre of men’s style and lifestyle magazines. Gone were the respectable pyjamas and staid dressing gowns of the Forties and Fifties which concealed the male body and upheld masculinity’s visual/looking power over women and gay men; by the 1980s, men were increasingly exposed, appearing in only towels wrapped around their waist while they shaved.
Figure 19
This ad for the Jan Stuart skin care range features a well-toned model naked to the waist
217 and shot in full-frontal, revealing his abdomen and torso. The text itself supports many of my earlier points about nationality and gender; the products are pointedly ‘now available in Australia’, the emphasis on their foreign-ness giving them an air of cosmopolitanism, modernity and exclusivity, the latter re-signified in the referral to the magazine’s stockists directory. The products are ‘naturally based’ and adapted to different ‘skin type’, yet these allusions to feminine concepts of nature and beauty are balanced by references to science – ‘formulated especially for men’ – and to the masculine world of work, the range being promoted as a ‘five-phase programme’. As these discourses of gender attempt to naturalise skin care for men, other codes are at work to anchor discourses of heterosexuality. The placement of a wedding ring on the model’s finger and main headline ‘For Men Only’, an intertextual reference to pornography, serves to heterosexualise an otherwise effeminate ideology and image of vanity and nakedness, while the choice of a hirsute as opposed to a hairless model presents a ‘manly’ rather than effeminate masculinity which attempts to de-feminise and heterosexualise skin care and narcissism. But while skin care print ads revealed the male body, fragrance and fragranced products campaigns were the main site for its sexualisation and again, particularly those which came from, or drew on discourses of southern Europe.
Figure 20
218 Shot from below to emphasise the product, but also the bronzed, muscular arms of a toned, shirtless and highly styled model, the full-page ad for Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Kouros’ eau de toilette was an arresting campaign, both for the sheer enormity of the fragrance bottle on the page and for its sexualised display of the male body through the product (Mort, 1988: 204). The image is more sensual than aggressively sexual; the model’s strong arms are not grasping the product as seen in the ‘Drakkar Noir’ or ‘Clinique’ campaigns, but cradling it. The ad offers up an ideal of a discursive youthful, sensual and athletic masculinity that again ‘comes from’ Europe, in this instance France and Greece. The Saint Laurent signature and the use of the words ‘parfum’ and Paris evoke discourses of French style, fashion and perfume-making, while the headline ‘For the living gods’, the name and packaging of the fragrance clearly mark the sensuality on offer as Greek, the model presented as a living Greek (sex) god anointed with the precious scent in a discourse which draws on the ancient associations of fragrances and the gods.
Figure 21
219 Again shot against the blue sky of the Mediterranean, the print advertisement for the ‘Kouros’ skin care range was similarly heavily-coded with European themes, using the French spelling of ‘Formula 1’ and Greek iconography in the products’ packaging. The main image is again a shirtless male model, cropped and shot from below with an emphasis on well-toned arms and chest, signifying strength and athleticism. Yet his eyes are closed; he is deep in meditation rather than in action, or specifically signified as having been in action, a device used in campaigns such as those for ‘Partage’ or ‘Adidas’. His feminine passivity however, and the strong feminine associations of the products – tanning gel, softeners and moisturisers – are balanced by the masculine discourses of Formula 1 racing in the supporting imagery and text at the bottom of the page, which draws on the languages of car and engine oil campaigns in its descriptions of the products as ‘high performance’ and formulated for ‘optimum grooming’. But despite these ‘masculine’ signifiers, themes of cars and racing take up only a quarter of the page at the foot of the ad, subordinated to the main image of the model, the actual subject of the narrative, and so the overall, dominant image is one of sensuality, passivity and absorbed narcissism, further strengthened by the model touching his face. Accompanying the increasing amount of toned male flesh on display in men’s grooming products campaigns in the 1980s, there was an increasing tendency for models to be posed touching themselves, and significantly, outside of the actual use or application of the product itself. In older representations of men’s grooming, fully-clothed men had rarely touched themselves beyond holding a razor to their face or briskly applying astringent aftershaves, and so images of men applying softeners such as moisturiser or face masks were new in itself (see Figs 2 and 3), but even more transgressive to traditional representations of masculinity were depictions of semi-naked male models touching, even hugging themselves in grooming products advertisements.
220
Figure 22 Figure 23
In the full-page ad for the Lagerfeld range of fragranced grooming products (Fig 22) the highly groomed shirtless model hugs himself, and a bottle of the fragrance while gazing at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, openly displaying his narcissism. The products spread out before him however, and by implication the model himself, are explicitly coded as French by the evocation of Paris and the French product names, communicating historical discourses of authentic perfume and cosmetics-making, but more importantly, constructing French masculinity as traditionally uninhibited about vanity, sensuality and the use of perfumes and skin care. The barefoot model in the Versace ‘L’Homme’ ad (Fig 23), coded as Italian/French through the brand and product name of the fragrance, is dressed only in loose-fitting Thai pants and is similarly posed hugging himself. Again he is meditative rather than in action, crouching balanced on a wooden block in an image representative of an increasing tendency towards themes of solitary self-absorption, introspection and a more sensual display of the male body in men’s fragranced grooming products campaigns;
221
Figure 24
In representations of grooming presented in MAN throughout the 1940s and 1950s, discourses of sexuality had revolved around themes of heterosexual love and romance. By the 1960s, old-fashioned themes of love and romance had largely given way to more overtly-sexually coded campaigns or ads which sexualised women’s bodies; but in the 1980s FMG sample campaigns which cast semi-naked male models in solitary, sensual and narcissistic narratives by far outnumbered those which principally elevated themes of heterosexual sex. Mort and Nixon suggested that the imagery which came out of the revolution in men’s fashion in the 1980s ruptured traditional ways of representing masculinity, sexualising the male body while blurring the representational distinction between gay and straight men, offering new, more ambivalently-coded sexual subjectivities (Nixon, 1996: 202). I would suggest however, that advertisements for fragrances and grooming products in the new genre of men’s style magazines were a much more prominent and central site for the exposure and sexualisation of men’s bodies in popular culture, and that alongside fashion photography, they were a pivotal arena for the coding of sexually ambivalent masculinities.
Conclusion
222 By the 1980s, as part of wider trends within postmodern media and society, men’s traditional grooming culture had been progressively and discursively feminised, consumerised and sexualised (Hartley, 1996) and differed quite radically from the way it had been represented in MAN throughout the 1940s to the 1970s. Defined primarily by austerity, practicality and necessity, older conventional practices and norms were devoid of skin care and fragrances, the leading product categories – and fragrances in particular – which took off in the 1980s and which symbolised the feminisation of men’s grooming habits. Throughout the chapter I introduced various semiotic and linguistic textual inoculators which attempted to ‘masculinise’ skin care and fragrances for men and divorce these practices and concepts from their traditional associations with femininity, such as the evocation of discourses of sport, organisational systems, power and control over the body, compensatory masculine aromas or ‘notes’ and so on. But on the whole these were relatively marginal, and the new languages, ideologies and masculine subjectivities which emerged from men’s grooming products campaigns in the 1980s were overwhelmingly more feminine than traditionally masculine, defined by the concepts of ‘care’, self-nurture, balance, sensitivity and sensuality as well as consumption, fashion and style.
The blurring of the previously gendered spheres of ‘grooming’ and ‘beauty’ occurred on two levels in the 1980s; ideologically in campaigns which introduced the feminine concepts of care, softening, self-nurture and well-being, and economically at production level through a series of new convergences, specifically the horizontal integration of shaving, skin care and fragrances which increasingly came under the same manufacturing umbrella, and through a new economic configuration between the fashion and men’s grooming products industries, new alliances which were typical of the trend towards greater convergence between previously separate cultural industries in the new economy (see for example Jenkins, 2004; Barr, 2000). On a textual level, the convergence between advertising and editorial content creating the grooming advertorial or grooming advisory, a new site which further collapsed the ‘grooming’/‘beauty’ binary on both a discursive and economic level, for it was as much about selling the magazine’s major advertisers’ products as educating men to become active and informed consumers of feminine beauty
223 products and procedures.
The grooming advisory itself led to further new or cultural economy characteristics; symbolic communication and the trend towards the ‘selling’ of a lifestyle or identity. The constructed lifestyles or new subjectivities on offer in grooming products marketing discourse in the 1980s were not only more narcissistic, fashion and grooming-conscious, they were constructed as more sensitive, emotional and sensual than their predecessors, prone to passivity and introspection rather than traditionally masculine traits of action or sexual conquest. The dramatic decline in the dominance of themes of sport and sex in campaigns clearly suggest that these were not perceived by marketers as the most effective languages to communicate with and engage the ‘modern’ man of the 1980s. These traditionally masculine discourses were subordinated to themes of expression of individuality, self-confidence and charisma, communicated primarily through codes of class, style, fashion and cosmopolitanism, discourses which addressed a feminised readership, and which increasingly ‘came from’ Mediterranean Europe.
In my discussion around representations of nationality in 1980s grooming products campaigns in FMG however, it became clear that ‘Australian-ness’ and Australian masculinity retained its strong historical cultural connection to sport and outdoor activities, with products being promoted in the first instance as practical, after-sport grooming aids, contrasting dramatically to the exclusive and feminine discourses of narcissism, style and elegance elevated in campaigns from Europe. Throughout the thesis I have demonstrated how these qualities in men – narcissism, style and elegance – have been constructed as ‘un-Australian’ in popular culture, and many of the traits of the European-influenced 1980s ‘Fragrance Man’ clashed with traditional definitions of Australian manliness;
‘Fragrance Man’ Australian ‘Bloke’ Individualism Mateship Upper/middle class Working class Fashion Sport
224 Narcissist Practical Refined Rough and Ready Passive Active Feminine Masculine ‘Aramis/Grey Flannel Man’ ‘Adidas/Faberge Man’
The new feminised, consumerised and sexualised men’s grooming culture of the 1980s didn’t ‘come from’ within Australian popular culture as journalists of the press rightly suggest; discursively, culturally and geographically, it essentially ‘came from’ Mediterranean Europe. But the equation is not that simple, because it also ‘came from’ a whole host of other interlocking and often contradictory sites which more or less guaranteed its economic and cultural success in the 1980s. Firstly it ‘came from’ fashion, the fragrance and fragranced toiletries categories in particular becoming annexed to the wider boom in men’s fashion which was taking place in the Eighties, but it also ‘came from’ sport, again both discursively and at production level with the evolution of the sportswear label grooming brand – itself rapidly becoming subsumed into the domain of fashion. It also ‘came from’ the feminine beauty industry; but equally it ‘came from’ the traditional men’s grooming industry and more conventional men’s consumer markets such as prestige smoking apparel and stationery. It ‘came from’ the upper classes, as of course it always had, but it also ‘came from’ the blurring of the representational codes and normative practices of gay male culture with more traditional representations and constructions of heterosexual masculinities. In the following chapter, I pick up on many of these themes to problemetise the fraught relationship between ideologies of traditional Australian masculinity and the cultural acceptance of both a feminised, sexualised grooming culture for men and the notion of men’s style and lifestyle magazines.
225 Chapter 6 Australian Men’s Lifestyle Magazines in the 1990s
Introduction
… successes are often less interesting than failures, in marketing terms at any rate. Flopped products can give us insights into the cultures of consumption – why and how people buy what they do – which are hidden behind the commodity success stories.
(Mort, 1988: 211)
In this final chapter I discuss the ‘flops’ in Australian men’s lifestyle publishing before it took off in the late 1990s to consider how these early failed ventures shaped, influenced and paved the way for today’s mass-selling successful publications. I also draw on media discussion around the launch of these magazines to identify popular discourses around Australian masculinity, magazine readership and image-consciousness, and on public debates around their subsequent failure to gain insight into specifically Australian cultural norms and taboos governing men’s consumption of fashion and lifestyle magazines and to question why contemporary men’s lifestyle magazines were slower to take off in Australia compared to the UK, why they took off when they did, and what form they took.
I explore the discourses of grooming and ideologies of appearance as they were presented to Australian men in flopped titles Men’s Stuff and Amnesia and then in the first truly mass-market Australian men’s lifestyle magazines Max and Ralph in their first two years of publication. I pay particular attention to discourses of grooming in Ralph, the magazine which I suggest played a key role in opening up both the men’s grooming products and lifestyle magazines markets in Australia through a successful mediated cultural dialogue with its imagined readership. Finally, I suggest that the ‘bloke-ish’ men’s magazines genre itself, and how attention to grooming and appearance was communicated in these magazines resolved some of the historical tensions around narcissism between British and Australian masculinities via the commonality of the constructions of the ‘lad’ and the ‘larrikin’.
226
Men’s lifestyle magazine launches in Britain and Australia 1980 – 2005
Title Launch country Year
i-D Britain 1980 The Face Britain 1982 Follow me Gentlemen Australia 1984 Arena Britain 1986 GQ Britain 1988 Sky Britain 1988 Esquire Britain 1991 FHM Britain 1994 Loaded Britain 1994 Men’s Health Britain 1995 XL Britain 1995 Maxim Britain 1995 AFR Magazine Australia 1995 Men’s Stuff Australia 1995 Metropolitan Style Australia 1995 Stuff for Men Britain 1996 Amnesia Australia 1996 Max Australia 1997 Ralph Australia 1997 Men’s Health Australia 1997 FHM Australia 1998 Front Britain 1998 Men’s Style Australia Australia 2004 GQ Australia 1998/2004
Table 2
The Failure of Follow me Gentlemen
While Follow me Gentlemen remained in circulation for seven years, it could hardly be considered a success, selling around 15,000 copies a month and mainly in Sydney when Giagu sold his magazine stable to Northern Star Holdings in February 1987 (Wright, 1987: 15). MAN had achieved double this circulation figure within six months of its launch in 1936, reaching circulations of 100 - 200,000 in the 1940s and early 1950s
227 (White 1979: 147) and so FMG had a relatively small, localised circulation and arguably survived until 1991 through subsidy from its more successful stable mate publications Follow Me and youth culture magazine Hero (Wright, 1987: 15). Moreover, FMG struggled to find acceptance as a heterosexual publication, presenting problems with attracting a wider readership beyond perhaps Sydney’s gay, Italian and high class metropolitan male markets. James Cockington wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that upon his becoming editor of FMG in 1989 when Giagu sold the magazine, one of Martin Fabinyi’s toughest jobs “will be to convince homophobic advertisers that the magazine is not catering for a predominantly gay readership, even though it features lots of photos of heavily-gelled hunks wearing boxer shorts” (Cockington, 1989a: 24). But while FMG did actually feature some imagery of men in their underwear and swimwear in fashion shoots and as editorial illustrations, the majority of images which revealed the male body actually came from the magazine’s advertisers, in particular in the campaigns for fragrances and skin care lines I discussed in the previous chapter, for exclusive swimwear and underwear and above all in campaigns for men’s underwear and swimwear for David Jones; so Cockington’s statement actually tells us more about the perceived homophobia of wider Australian culture than that of advertisers themselves. Furthermore, advertisers did not have to be ‘convinced’ to advertise in FMG, it had plenty of advertisers, particularly when the well-connected Giagu was at the helm, again suggesting that the problem must have been one of attracting a homophobic readership, not homophobic advertisers.
Moreover, from the late 1960s MAN had also featured advertisements and fashion shoots comprising styled ‘hunks’ in boxer shorts, as well as in briefs and tight, revealing swimwear, with shots often cropped around the crotch, thighs and backside; but its abundant supply of semi-naked women, including on its covers, had served to re- masculinise and heterosexualise the magazine itself. FMG on the other hand rejected outright sexual representations of women – it had no ‘glamour’ shoots and its covers and content illustrations featured mainly images of healthy, handsome and often shirtless young male models, so while the male body was quite regularly exposed in the magazine, there was no fetishization of women’s bodies to anchor its heterosexuality. When Fabinyi
228 took over the editorship of FMG in 1989, he set out to heterosexualise the magazine. Five months after his initial comments about FMG, Cockington wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that;
The new editor of Follow Me Gentlemen magazine, regular guy Martin, has reacted to the “misconception” that his magazine is aimed at a predominantly gay readership. The first issue under Fabinyi's control … immediately dispels the publication's “gelled hunks in boxer shorts” image with a tastefully raunchy cover featuring people of opposite sexes engaging in a primitive form of unarmed combat. I am assured there are very few pairs of boxer shorts to be seen in this issue.
(Cockington, 1989b: 24)
Following Giagu’s sale of the magazine in 1989, it slowly drifted into obscurity (Alcaron, 2005). Follow me Gentlemen was Australian publishers’ only foray into the fashion- based men’s style press arena in the 1980s and it met with little success, never really becoming mainstream and remaining a relatively localised, Sydney-based publication with a meagre circulation and perhaps a ‘gay’ brand image. In Britain on the other hand, the men’s style press mushroomed during the late 1980s, and magazines such as Arena, GQ and Sky – similar in appearance, style and format to FMG – met with much more success and cultural acceptance, partly because they had the advantage of several important forerunners which opened up the market and ‘normalised’ style and lifestyle magazine consumption among men.
Launched in 1980, i-D was the first magazine in a new British genre dubbed the ‘style press’. Dedicated to fashion, music, art and urban youth culture the success and format of i-D both influenced the style and paved the way for the 1982 appearance of The Face, the style, fashion and popular culture magazine which reached iconic status and which played a crucial role in shaping the specifically men’s style press which developed later in the decade. Although the majority of readers were male (Gill, 2003: 44), both i-D and The Face were aimed at a unisex market. Sean Nixon suggests that this was a significant part of The Face’s success and appeal, for it promoted itself as a ‘style’ rather than
229 exclusively ‘men’s’ magazine but crucially, in doing so it opened up new representational opportunities in men’s fashion photography and in advertising for men’s grooming products, displaying the male body and paving the way for the much more explicit ‘new man’ iconography found in the later 1980s and early 1990s men’s style press represented by Arena, GQ and Esquire (Nixon, 1996; Gill, 2003: 44; Chapman, 1988: 230). The Face then, created a conceivable idea that fashion-based style magazines aimed exclusively at men could work in Britain, and it opened up a space for a permissible style-conscious, heterosexual consumer masculinity to emerge in later publications.
The ‘new man’ imagery in magazines such as Arena or GQ argued Nixon, sexualised the male body and “sanctioned a highly staged narcissism through the codes of dress and grooming” blurring traditional boundaries between the representation of straight and gay masculinities (1996: 202). Follow me Gentleman had clearly embodied the iconography and ideology of the 1980s ‘new man’, a subjectivity constructed in the media as openly narcissistic, a keen consumer of designer fashion and high class grooming products, and often portrayed as aspirational, emotionally aware, sensitive and feminist friendly (Gill, 2003: 37; Benwell, 2003: 6, 13). In Australia however, Giagu lacked the advantage of any mainstream prerequisite style publications such as The Face or i-D in laying foundations for a wider acceptance of heterosexual male image-consciousness and narcissism, as well as more ambivalently-coded representations of masculinity. Beating the new major British men’s style magazines such as Arena (1986) and GQ (1988) to the presses Giagu’s 1984 launch of FMG was an innovative, trail-blazing venture but he was ahead of his time and particularly for 1980s Australian culture, which as the press discussions of the 1990s I introduce in a moment indicate, offered little sanctioning or acceptance of masculine narcissism and the ‘new man’ subjectivity presented in the magazine. So while FMG had opened up spaces for newer softer, more emotional, sensitive and image-conscious masculine representations, these were swiftly closed down by strong – and hitherto unchallenged – cultural discourses relating to sexuality, gender and attention to appearance.
In the absence of a 1980s mainstream style press and wider associated ‘new man’ advertising campaigns, which in Britain had opened up the male body to the gaze and
230 broken down at least some of the traditional taboos governing heterosexual men’s consumption of fashion, grooming products and style magazines themselves, powerful ideologies of homosexuality and effeminacy around men, style and narcissism remained firmly entrenched in Australian culture for much longer than in Britain, at least right through the 1980s and well into the 1990s. Indeed, debates in the Australian popular press around the ‘metrosexual’ phenomenon in 2003 continued to be strongly informed by discourses of sexual ambivalence and gender transgression. In 1995, just before the launch of three new men’s magazines in Australia, Belinda Parsons wrote in The Age that “Australian men’s attitudes towards fashion have been shifting rapidly over the past few years, but there are still many males who find it an unmasculine display of vanity and shallowness. For those men, caring about what you look like is a sensitive issue largely dismissed, or even cause for speculation about sexual preferences” (Parsons, 1995: 14). If discourses of homosexuality continued to shape cultural perceptions of men who paid attention to their looks in the mid-1990s in Australia, then in the 1980s aside from its heavy concentration of ‘gelled hunks in boxer shorts’, further undermining FMG’s credibility as a heterosexual men’s magazine, then was its elevation and central concern with the traditionally feminine and effeminate areas of fashion and appearance alone. The more conventional, heteronormative MAN had devoted only a few of its 140-plus pages to fashion, and both editorial and advertising representations grooming were marginal, but in FMG not only were these areas the main preoccupations of the magazine, they were the sections of the magazine where most of the ‘gelled hunks’ were to be found.
The media commentary which took place around the launch of Metropolitan Style, Men’s Stuff and the Australian Financial Review Magazine points to the persistence and tenacity of deep-rooted anxieties surrounding men’s fashion and personal style in the Australian consciousness in the mid-1990s, and taken with the character of the new magazines themselves, tells us much about ‘Australian’ ways of thinking about male narcissism in terms of gender, sexuality, class and national identity and why a popular men’s style press failed to materialise over here in the 1980s, or the even the 1990s, emerging as it did only in 2003, at least 15 years after similar successes in Britain.
231 Flops and Launches, 1995-6
The legacy of Follow me Gentlemen shaped how men’s magazine publishing unfolded in Australia, producing some unique economic as well as cultural peculiarities which defined the industry and the nature of publications over here. Firstly, unlike in Britain, where various endeavours, successful and unsuccessful, were made to establish a mainstream men’s style press throughout the 1980s, with four titles becoming well- established by the early 90s, aside from Giagu no other Australian publisher even attempted to launch a men’s fashion-based style or lifestyle magazine outside of the gay market, and following FMG’s demise the next attempt in the mid-1990s came not from a magazine publisher, but from within the newspaper industry. While not a stand-alone, nor officially a ‘men’s’ magazine, the stylish colour supplement launched by Fairfax’s Australian Financial Review in March 1995 was tailored for the newspaper’s predominantly professional male audience. As Mark Dapin, the magazine’s chief sub- editor at the time of its launch suggests, with an 80% male readership, the AFR Magazine14 was as much a men’s magazine as publications such as the popular Picture and the other soft-porn titles which dominated the Australian men‘s magazine sector in the early 1990s (Dapin, 2004: 91–92). The AFR Magazine was a unique and commercially innovative venture. In a genre which had proved (or at least was assumed, as only Giagu actually tried) to be unsuccessful so far in this country, it was less of a financial risk for an established newspaper to develop a men’s lifestyle magazine as a free supplement, while it also had the advantage of a largely captive audience, appearing in its host paper on the last Friday of each month. Moreover, with an average readership age of 37 and an exclusive AB demographic, the AFR had the youngest, most affluent and educated professional male readership of all Australian newspapers (Parsons, 1995: 14; Dapin, 2004: 91) and so it had the potential to begin to open up the elusive straight, young and well-heeled male consumer market.
The magazine seems to have inherited many of FMG’s characteristics, featuring architecture, literature, art, food, men’s health and fashion, the latter considered its most
14 Copies of the AFR Magazine are available at the NLA, but as this magazine was not a stand-alone publication it was not analysed for the thesis
232 important section by its editor William Fraser (Dapin, 2004: 93). The AFR Magazine’s high production values, art direction and guaranteed wealthy, urbane readership easily attracted advertising for prestige and high-end designer brands and boosted sales of the Australian Financial Review by 10, 000 on the day of its monthly appearance (Dapin, 2004: 93-94), so its appeal outside of the newspaper’s regular readership was similar to FMG’s average circulation. But while the fashion section featured classic, quality menswear with in-depth discussion about the fabric, detail and style of the garments (Parsons, 1995: 14; Dapin, 2004: 93), Fraser refused to use male models in his fashion shoots. In an interview in The Age just before the launch of the magazine, he suggested this was because his readers could see beyond aspirational images and would not be interested in illusions, and that a story about suits might feature pictures of tailors instead of models (Parsons, 1995: 14). Mark Dapin’s comments, however, reveal further underlying anxieties;
We never ran conventional stylist-driven fashion shoots, where male models pouted lasciviously at other male models. For Fraser, it was important not to even show a model’s face. He believed … men saw a handsome man in a suit and worried “that bloke looks like a poofter” and did not notice the clothes.
(Dapin, 2004: 95)
Dapin’s remarks here clearly suggest that cultural associations between homosexuality, style and narcissism were perceived to have retained a firm grip in Australia in the mid- 1990s, a time when in Europe and America the use of male models and the sexualisation of the male body had become increasingly commonplace in men’s magazines and in wider popular culture. The Australian publishers who entered the men’s magazine market from the mid-90s were extremely ambivalent about displaying the male body, and significantly, not just when it was in boxer shorts, but even when it was clothed.
In her article in The Age covering the launch of the AFR Magazine, Belinda Parsons suggested that many straight Australian men were “immediately turned off by the sight of male models posing for the cameras” and that their “definition of masculinity rules out looking at other men’s bodies” (Parsons, 1995: 14). Such popular media representations
233 of Australian men suggest that there had been little or no sanctioning of the sexually ambivalent masculine-masculine look identified by Mort (1996), Nixon (1996) and Crewe (2003a: 31) in Australia. The editors of Australia’s first wave of men’s lifestyle titles in the 1990s then faced major problems in how to overcome Australian men’s apparent reluctance to look at images of other men in magazines for fear of being labelled homosexual or effeminate. One solution to allay readers’ perceived terror of the voyeuristic gaze was to completely reject the use of male models in fashion shoots rather than risk associations with homoeroticism, but while Fraser chose not to use male models, at least he did actually elevate fashion as an important section of the magazine, unlike the other two men’s general interest titles which launched on the Australian market around the same time. Aside from, but related to its invitation of a male-to-male erotic gaze, the other leading legacy of the ill-fated FMG on the content of the 1990s men’s magazines was how much emphasis was placed on issues of fashion, style and attention to appearance. Aimed at the ‘uniquely Australian male’, the editors of Men’s Stuff and Metropolitan Style trod very carefully around these feminine and effeminate topics, well aware of the strongly-entrenched cultural discourses which deemed male narcissism and vanity of any kind as ‘un-Australian’.
Launched in May 1995 by independent Sydney publishing company Mogul Media and aimed at men aged 25-45 Men’s Stuff adopted a similar no-male-models policy to the AFR Magazine (Parsons, 1995: 14) but unlike the AFR Magazine which, excepting its reluctance to feature models was modelled closely on FMG, Men’s Stuff self-consciously projected itself as the antithesis of Giagu’s stylish 80s magazine in much the same way as British ‘lad’ magazines styled themselves against ‘new man’ publications such as Arena. Although its covers were thick and glossy, it was printed on matt paper more like the pages of a comic than a magazine, and it featured mostly hand-drawn illustrations and cartoons over photographic imagery. In its first issue, readers were offered a free pair of boxer shorts if they subscribed to the magazine. The full-page ad featured a shot from below, cropped close-up of a female backside in the underpants because “the alternatives were too horrific to contemplate – sorry, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to display photos of blokes bulging out of their boxers” (1995: 30). In its first issue then, Stuff
234 demonstrably marked its heterosexuality by evoking images of men in boxer shorts as the key signifier of gay men’s magazines, using instead an oppositional image of a sexualised female model in them. Having said this, Men’s Stuff on the whole did not tend to display the female body in the way the semi-pornographic MAN had in the 1960s and 1970s, nor as men’s lifestyle magazines do today, with their liberal helpings of ‘babes’ in bikinis. But while it did not fetishize women’s bodies, Men’s Stuff was aggressively sexist and themes of anti-feminism dominated issue 1 in particular. Indeed, its strong anti-feminist stance was chosen as the leading characteristic of how the magazine introduced itself to the market
Figure 1 Figure 2
Unlike FMG, but very much like MAN there was no grooming section in Men’s Stuff and fashion was barely visible. Indeed in issue 1, the reader had to look very closely at a feature article about its cover personality called ‘Its Not Easy Being Green: we have a few drinks with Jimeoin’ to realise that it was in fact, also a fashion shoot. The feature was presented as an interview illustrated with four photographs of Jimeoin and Australian comedian Glenn Robbins, his co-star on the popular Jimeoin comedy series airing on television at the time, dressed in casual clothes relaxing, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and playing cards in a suburban lounge room. Beside the photographs were the stockist details for the clothes – the only indication that this was indeed a fashion spread
235 as well as a feature article. Using popular comedians as ‘models’, suggesting the reader should not to take fashion too seriously, dressing them in regular clothes in an un-posed ‘blokey’ situation and playing down the fashion shoot side of the hybrid article were all textual devices deployed to masculinise the piece and to justify the inclusion of fashion in the magazine at all. Meanwhile, as the shoot was deliberately coded as masculine, various signifiers worked to firmly heterosexualise it, not least the large bold headline in the middle of the feature which described Jimeoin’s interests; “He likes girls with big tits, sinking a pint or 10 with his mates, listening to Van Morrison and playing indoor soccer once a week” (May/June, 1995: 52).
The decision to launch new men’s magazines on the Australian market in 1995 was undoubtedly stimulated by the phenomenal British success of Loaded and FHM which had been launched in the previous year, their popularity catapulting men’s publishing into a major growth sector and mass market status in the UK. These magazines, and particularly Loaded, encoded the ‘new lad’ masculine subjectivity, a construction which has been seen by various theorists and commentators as a reaction to or backlash against the feminist, narcissistic, middle class and sexually ambivalent ‘new man’ construction represented in the earlier men’s style magazines (see for example Benwell, 2003: 6, 14- 16; Gill, 2003: 37, 47-49; Bancroft 1998: 33; Jackson et al 2001: 36; Nixon, 1996: 203). The ‘new lad’ was typically working class, hedonistic, post/anti-feminist and pointedly heterosexual, traits which were signified by his obsession with drinking beer, football, sex and his profound anxiety not to appear effeminate, reflected in the “uneasy relationship to matters of men’s fashion and style” identified by Tim Edwards in the British ‘lad’ magazines of the mid-90s (Edwards, 2003: 132; Gill, 2003: 37).
In the three Australian men’s magazines launched in 1995, the ‘new lad’ ideology was most evident in Men’s Stuff, as Jimeoin’s – and implicitly, the imagined readership’s – interests stated above demonstrate.The magazine and the subjectivity it constructed were clearly positioned against the Australian ‘new man’ presented in FMG and its core narratives of attention to appearance, grooming and fashion, care of the self and health, little of which were to be found in Stuff whose fashion spreads were disguised not to look
236 like fashion spreads, and fashion advertising was stark, limited to Ray Ban sunglasses, Levi’s jeans and a single Sydney menswear retailer. Moreover, aside from a single promotional ad for Gillette ‘wet packs’, comprising antiperspirant gel, aftershave skin conditioner, shaving gel and a razor – which Men’s Stuff was admittedly loathe to feature and openly suggested that it did so only because readers could receive free samples (July/August, 1995) – no other advertisements for, or editorial about, grooming products or procedures appeared in the magazine’s first (and only) two issues.
There was also little emphasis on health and fitness in Men’s Stuff which, like its British ‘lad mag’ role models rejected notions of care of the self in favour of hedonism, drinking to excess and little exercise. Indeed, the magazine had a section called ‘Minimal Health: making slobs feel better about themselves’ which celebrated the gut, provided ten reasons not to exercise and urged readers not to feel guilty if they didn’t because “the fit ‘look’ is bullshit created by vanity” (May/June, 1995: 41), a feminine trait the hyper-masculine Stuff strove hard to avoid. Rather than ‘torturing’ themselves at the gym, readers were advised to keep fit ‘naturally’ by having copious amounts of sex “while avoiding premature ejaculation” and drinking more beer which, aside from being more slimming than sports drinks due to less sugar content, should be considered a work-out in itself featuring “arm curls with leg staggers and spontaneous abdominal contractions” (May/June, 1995: 41; July/August, 1995: 72). The cooking section, ‘Food Stuff’ similarly drew heavily on discourses of masculine hedonism, beer-drinking and recalcitrance. Issue one featured recipes for ‘meat, more meat and stews’, again evoking ideologies of male rebelliousness towards health and balanced eating, while issue two presented a manifesto of how to cook while drunk, the food section written as a feature around going to the pub.
Men’s Stuff was very closely modelled on the uber-laddish Loaded, even evoking the latter’s strapline ‘for men who should know better’ in a feature it subtitled ‘old enough to know better’ (July/August, 1995: 30). But while there were many commonalities between Loaded and Stuff there were also important differences between the two magazines based on nationality. Loaded was rooted in populist British working class culture (Crewe, 2003: 95), while Stuff celebrated Australian ‘ocker’ male culture. In its first issue, Loaded had
237 run a column titled ‘Greatest Living Englishmen’ in which it honoured the character of Dave from Minder, the 1980s British comedy/drama (Crewe, 2003a: 95). Emulating, yet ‘Australianising’ this nostalgic salute to male icons of working class popular culture, in its first issue Stuff ran a feature called ‘Great Aussie Blokes’ in which it applauded Bluey, the lead male character in the 1970s Australian police drama of the same name (May/June, 1995: 59). Australian working class-ness, or ‘ockerism’ littered the magazine, both linguistically and in features around Holden HQ utes and ‘the great Aussie shed’ although it loomed particularly large in the ‘Style Pig’ section, which was less of a style guide than a ridiculing of elements of high culture such as caviare and fois gras. Significantly, the column was written “by and for the self-opinionated tockley”, a ‘tockley’ being a euphemism for a penis created and popularised by the downmarket soft porn Australian magazine The Picture (Marx, 2006), from which Stuff also drew heavily in a graphic, sexually explicit fiction feature ‘All about Dick’ (July/August, 1995: 60).
Men’s Stuff then, self-consciously took its cues from wider Australian male working class popular culture. In press interviews around the time of its launch, its editor Gerry Reynolds stated that it didn’t attempt to replicate an overseas magazine (Jones, 1995b: 24) and suggested that previous endeavours in men’s publishing in Australia had failed because “they borrowed from the UK and US models which are not suitable for Australian men” (Parsons, 1995: 14). Upon comparison however, while Stuff was given an Australian ‘voice’, it actually very closely emulated the UK’s Loaded in many ways. What Reynolds’ remarks, as well as the nature of his magazine, suggest then is that it was the earlier, style-driven overseas men’s publications such as GQ and Esquire and not the new genre of British ‘lad’ lifestyle magazines which were perceived to be unsuitable for Australian men, and that the style-driven FMG had failed not just for reasons to do with sexuality and gender, but also with national identity.
Launched in Melbourne by independent publishers Pure Adrenalin the month before Men’s Stuff in April 1995, the bi-monthly Metropolitan Style15 was more upmarket and glossier than Stuff and it was aimed at 18-30 year old Australian “blokes with style”
15 Not available in Australian libraries
238 (Burbury, 1995: 5; Martin, 1995: 12C) although its editors were extremely ambivalent about the magazine’s fashion content. The managing director of Pure Adrenalin Martin Salter said in The Age that the magazine would be careful not to put too much emphasis on fashion because “its not what the Australian male wants” and that previous fashion- based overseas magazine formulae had failed to get a readership here because they were targeted at the American and English male and did not appeal to Australian men (Lawrence, 1995: 19). Both Reynolds and Salter agreed in statements made to the press around the launch of their respective publications that men’s magazines had failed here because they had “just aped their European or American counterparts”, and that there was something ‘unique’ about the Australian male; that he was self-consciously ‘different’ from British and American men (Lawrence, 1995: 15). This perceived essential difference centred mainly on imaginings of traditional cultural antipathy towards masculine narcissism and the comparative practicality or un-affectedness of the Australian male which I have discussed elsewhere in the thesis. According to Reynolds, “the Australian male is different from the American male and he perceives himself to be different; he’s not going to buy a magazine that just tells him what to think or what to wear” (Reynolds, cited in Lawrence, 1995: 15) unlike, implicitly, British and American men. While Salter suggested that American and European influences existed in Australia, but “its not very large. The Australian male is one of a kind. He has a certain style and stigma which is his own” (Salter, cited in Lawrence, 1995: 15). This ‘certain style’ was a stereotypically austere approach to fashion, grooming and appearance, and to be openly narcissistic carried the social stigma of being ‘un-Australian’. Gerry Reynolds suggested in The Age at the time of Men’s Stuff’s launch that;
Australian men won’t buy a fashion-driven magazine for fear of being labelled. Australian men are not going to relate to a front cover that has a very good-looking guy in a very good-looking suit. They don’t want to be seen carrying that and they don’t want to be seen that their reasoning in life is to look good in a suit”
(Cited in Parsons, 1995: 14)
Reynolds’ comments here underline a perceived deep concern among Australian men not
239 to be labelled effeminate or gay if seen carrying a men’s fashion magazine featuring good-looking male models, but equally they demonstrate powerful discourses of nationality in which it is ‘un-Australian’ to be overly interested in fashion and appearance, but also to be too aspirational. In another press interview, Reynolds said that Australian readers “did not relate to the navel-gazing, fashion-driven types that stare from the pages of British and US publications” (cited in Jones, 1995a: 19) or implicitly, European-influenced men’s fashion magazines such as FMG, which arguably failed to attract a readership because its primary emphasis on fashion and grooming was simply ‘un-Australian’. Meanwhile, what these public discussions around the appearance of men’s lifestyle magazines in the mid-1990s again reveal, in much the same way as the ‘metrosexual’ debates I discussed in Chapter 2 had, is how an authentic Australian ‘manliness’ is constantly defined, constructed and re-constructed in opposition to an imagined effete, aesthetic overseas ‘other’.
By the 1990s, a new moniker for the narcissistic and emotionally-aware Eighties ‘new man’ had entered into popular discourse. This was the decade of the SNAG or the ‘sensitive new age guy’, a phrase and acronym which was, as we saw in the ‘metrosexual’ debates in Chapter 2, easily ridiculed in the Australian media and wider popular culture for its emphasis on the words ‘sensitive’ and ‘new age’, neither being traditional adjectives in imaginings of the down to earth rough-and-ready ‘Aussie bloke’, and the fact that a ‘snag’ is an Australian euphemism for a sausage. Reynolds quite clearly stated in the press that Men’s Stuff was targeting the ‘post-SNAG male’ (Martin, 1995: 12C; Burbury, 1995: 5), but journalists often described the more upmarket Metropolitan Style as being aimed at the SNAG (Jones, 1995b: 24; Burbury, 1995: 5; Martin, 1995: 12C) mainly because of its fashion content and its feminist-friendly political correctness. Megan Jones described Style in The Age as “the men’s magazine women would like their men to read”, lacking sexualised representations of women or derogatory jokes and remarks about them and featuring editorial coverage of health, music and fashion (Jones, 1995b: 24). Indeed, as Men’s Stuff had constructed an Australian version of the British ‘new lad’ subjectivity, Metropolitan Style had apparently embodied many of the ideologies of the ‘new man’. Its promotional literature imagined
240 the modern Australian male to be “a competitive and image-conscious person in both his personal and professional aspirations” (Burbury, 1995: 5; Martin, 1995: 12C; Lawrence, 1995: 19), but while he was image-conscious and aspirational, the Australian version of the ‘new man’ constructed in Style and articulated in the media by the magazine’s editors was pointedly less narcissistic and fashion-obsessed than British or American ‘navel- gazing’ versions. Significantly though, neither magazine, whether organised around ‘Australianised’ versions of the ‘new man’ or the ‘new lad’, met with any success and both magazines met very swift deaths.
In press discussions around the failure of Men’s Stuff and Metropolitan Style, journalists agreed that Metropolitan Style had survived for two more issues than Men’s Stuff – it made it to four before it folded – mainly because of its political correctness, and therefore its appeal to women and advertisers, who abandoned the politically satirical and incorrect Men’s Stuff (Jones, 1995b: 24; Dale and Knox, 1995: 28; Shoebridge, 1995a: 78). However, while it was the first to flop after only two issues, the politically incorrect and ‘laddish’ Men’s Stuff did actually have a wider appeal among Australian men, reaching a circulation of 25, 000 and proving much more popular than FMG and twice as popular as its contemporary ‘SNAG’ alternative Metropolitan Style, which reached peak sales of only 12, 000 (Dale and Knox, 1995: 28; Parsons, 1995: 14), suggesting that the ideology of the ‘lad’ was indeed more acceptable to Australian men despite Stuff’s failure, and that it was advertising not cover sales which kept Style afloat for longer. In other words, it was marketers and advertisers who demanded political correctness, not necessarily the readership.
Because neither Men’s Stuff nor Metropolitan Style had carried sexualised representations of women, another leading question posed by journalists in their public post-mortem was whether a men’s general interest magazine which didn’t feature naked or semi-naked women could succeed in Australia (Lawrence, 1995: 19; Dale and Knox, 1995: 28), particularly in the light of the then-domination of mass market soft-porn magazines The Picture and People – the ‘p-mags’ (Dapin, 2004: 86) – in the men’s publishing sector. When Mark Dapin, who had earlier worked on The Picture and the AFR Magazine
241 interviewed three leading journalists from the ‘p-mags’ in 1996 about whether a men’s lifestyle title without women’s bodies could succeed, “we all concluded that there was no room for a non-porn men’s title in Australia. Australian men bought mags to laugh at and wank over, nothing more” (Dapin, 2004: 97).
Australian publishers were facing the same dilemma that British publishers had faced ten years earlier; how to address men in a general interest or lifestyle magazine format. When Frank Mort analysed the failure of The Hit, a men’s magazine launched in Britain in 1985 which survived for just six issues, he found problems arose with the potential of general interest magazines for men because they “baulked at being spoken to as a community of men” (Mort, 1988: 212). By 1995 in Britain, these problems had been overcome, and the men’s lifestyle magazines sector was booming, but here in Australia the comments made by journalist and market analyst Neil Shoebridge strongly echo Mort’s main contentions about the failure of The Hit in 1985;
The failure of Men's Stuff, a magazine launched in May and killed after two issues, proved how difficult it is to persuade Australian men to buy a magazine aimed specifically at them … Men read Who, Cosmopolitan and other female-oriented lifestyle magazines, but they do not want a lifestyle magazine for men only. Most Australian magazine publishers have looked at and rejected the idea of a lifestyle magazine for men.
(Shoebridge, 1995a: 78)
Around the time of the launch of Men’s Stuff and Metropolitan Style in March and April 1995, several large international publishing houses were considering launching local editions of Esquire and Men’s Health in Australia, while Conde Nast believed Australian men were ‘ready’ for a local version of the upmarket men’s fashion and lifestyle magazine GQ (Shoebridge, 1995b: 171). However, following the failure of Stuff and Style, overseas publishers decided against launching these fashion-based style magazines – already very successful in the US and the UK – over here on the premise that Australian men were ‘not ready’ for lifestyle magazines after all. A year later in 1996, Katrina Strickland wrote in The Australian that “major magazine publishers such as ACP,
242 Murdoch Magazines and Conde Naste publications have flirted with the idea of launching lifestyle men’s magazines such as Esquire, GQ and Men’s Health in Australia but have all concluded the market is not yet ready for such publications” (Strickland, 1996: 26). Since beginning their ‘flirtation’ with the idea, it was to be two years before these publishers considered the ‘unique’ Australian male ready for titles such as Men’s Health and GQ, eventually launched on the Australian market in 1997 and 1998 respectively, although GQ lasted barely eighteen months before folding through lack of sales (Hornery, 1999: 31).
Following the collapse of Men’s Stuff and Metropolitan Style and the floundering of plans to introduce Australian editions of GQ, Esquire and Men’s Health in 1995, the next attempt for a men’s general interest magazine came in the form of Horwitz Publications’ Amnesia, launched in August 1996. Apparently responding to the press and industry discussion which followed the early deaths of its predecessors and to Stuff’s greater circulatory appeal among the target market than its more stylish and upmarket counterpart, Amnesia was presented as even more ‘laddish’ and noticeably more juvenile. Its introductory statements are not ‘made’ by the editor as usual inaugural procedure, but were presented as a ‘Letter from the editor’s mum’, the address framed as a stereotypical nagging-mother-juvenile-son scenario which constructed the magazine as boyishly recalcitrant, not serious and adult like for example, Giagu’s opening statements in FMG. Pitched at ‘the average Aussie bloke’ (Strickland, 1996: 26) and much like its closest predecessor Men’s Stuff, fashion advertising was minimal in the first issue of Amnesia, limited to campaigns for casual rather than high-fashion brands and while there was a fashion section in Amnesia, it featured not men’s but women’s fashion, comprising a rather obscure and strangely out-of-place arty shoot in deep blue hues featuring an Oriental model in PVC dresses holding an octopus. Moreover, there was neither a single grooming products advertisement nor any mention of grooming anywhere in the magazine and so even in 1996 Australian publishers remained extremely ambivalent about featuring issues of vanity, appearance and style.
On the whole, Amnesia was overwhelmingly characterised by jokes, pranks and
243 schoolboy humour and despite its sophisticated, glossy exterior, the magazine was actually little more than a boy’s comic, and again like its closest predecessor Men’s Stuff, it too folded after two issues.
Australian publishers faced a major dilemma. Fashion-driven men’s magazines had not appealed to Australian men; but neither had the local attempts at Australian versions of the British ‘lad mags’. Press discussion around the failure of Amnesia again focussed on the perceived ‘difference’ between Australian men and British men. Following the failure of Stuff, which like Amnesia was closely modelled on Loaded, the archetypal ‘lad’ mag which was then selling over 130,000 copies in the UK but only ‘a mere 2, 000 copies here’, David Dale and Malcolm Knox had suggested in the Sydney Morning Herald that “our young men are not like those London lager louts” (Dale and Knox, 1995: 28) while in her inquest into the death of Amnesia in The Australian headlined ‘Amnesia mag fails after boofheads forget to buy’, Katrina Strickland similarly suggested that “Australian yobbos and boofheads are different from their British counterparts. In the UK, Loaded sells about 130, 000 copies a month. Here, Amnesia struggled to sell more than 16, 000 copies an edition” (Strickland, 1996: 26). While Britain’s men’s magazines sector boomed, signified by the successful launch of six new titles between 1991 and 1996 (Stevenson et al, 2003: 118), Australian publishers were still struggling to find a successful formula and a market. In Britain, publishers and advertisers had been searching for the ‘holy grail’ in the launch of a successful men’s lifestyle magazine in the early 1980s (Mort, 1988: 212) but in Australia, they were still searching in 1997. Tony Burrett, editor of B&T magazine suggested to Rob Johnson in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1997 that “a successful mainstream men's magazine is the holy grail of Australian publishing” (Johnson, 1997: 8); Steve Watson of Next media said in The Australian that the men’s market had the potential to be lucrative and that “the person that captures it first will get the golden egg” (Scott, 1997: 9) while Paul Davey from the Sydney office of international advertising agency DDB similarly told Richard Jinman again in the Sydney Morning Herald that “whoever cracks it will make a lot of money because it seems to be the hardest publishing launch in this country” (Jinman, 1997: 3).
244 Max and Ralph: Successful ‘Blokes’
The breakthrough came with Next Media’s Max and ACP’s Ralph, which were launched in June and July 1997 respectively. Both magazines were targeting a male readership aged between 18 and 34 with a high disposable income, both claimed to be aimed at ‘the average Australian bloke’ and both were very clearly modelled on Loaded. Just before their launch, while several Australian journalists suggested that Max and Ralph were targeting the ‘new lad’ who “knows how to pick up a chick and sink a beer or 10” or who “drinks too much, loves his sport and is enthusiastically heterosexual” (Symons and Nicholas, 1997: 13; Devine, 1997: 10), their editors were at pains to emphasise that their magazines and the reader they addressed were true-blue Australian ‘blokes’ not English ‘lads’. For example, Judy Scott remarked in The Australian that at first glance, Max looked very similar to Loaded, but that its creators defensively suggested that its readers were not ‘lager lads’, but ‘down-to-earth Aussie blokes’ and the magazine was “packed with ‘blokey’ humour” (Scott, 1997: 9), again constructing notions of ‘difference’ between the English ‘lad’ and the ‘Aussie bloke’ although descriptions of the two actually reveal few, if any differences in their main interests and characteristics;
He religiously drinks beer with the boys on a Friday night. There is absolutely no doubt that he loves women, fast cars and sport. He earns a decent salary and wants to look good. He is the young Australian bloke - and from today he is being pursued by the nation’s magazine publishers.
(Scott, 1997: 9)
While Ralph was the most ‘laddish’, it was also the most self-consciously Australian of the two. Under its pre-launch working title Burn Out, Mark Dapin suggested that the magazine “looked similar to modified car magazine Street Machine, but with a Batchelor-&-Spinster-bumper-sticker, cold-slab-of-XXXX, two-packs-of-Winnie-Blue, meet-youse-at-the-wet-t-shirt-stage feel” (Dapin, 2004: 98). When it launched, Ralph – edited in the beginning by the creator of Performance Bikes Geoff Seddon (Dapin, 2004; Close, 1997) – lost its prime focus on cars, but none of its emphasis on working class ‘ocker’ male culture.
245
As Scott’s description above demonstrates, media definitions of the ‘average Australian bloke’ at the time of the launch of the new crop of men’s magazines had changed since those of the ‘unique Australian male’ that the editors of Men’s Stuff and Metropolitan Style were hoping to attract two years earlier in 1995. The ‘bloke’ was now concerned with ‘looking good’ and increasingly, he was defined in the press through discourses of sex and drinking, characteristics which were absent in earlier press portrayals of young Australian men and which brought the ‘bloke’ into a closer alignment with the ‘lad’. But although the ‘average Australian bloke’ was represented in the press as becoming more image-conscious, publishers were still ambivalent about how much emphasis was put on fashion, and how fashion was represented in a magazine aimed specifically at him. Craig Mathieson told Judy Scott in The Australian that Max would present “accessible fashion”, that its fashion spreads would be “deliberately low-key” and that they would feature “average-looking models appearing less than perfect, if not slightly hung-over” because the magazine was aiming to “appeal to the average bloke rather than highbrow or fashion-conscious inner-city types” (cited in Scott, 1997: 9). Before the launch of either magazine, the editor of Ralph Jeff Seddon promised that his magazine, also aimed at ‘the average Aussie bloke’, would be even less fashion-oriented than he has heard Max would be (Scott, 1997: 9) while Ralph’s fashion co-ordinator Amanda Berry said in a later interview that “there's only one rule about the male models in Ralph and that is they can’t look like models. Normal, everyday blokes react against that” (cited in Gare, 2000). At the launch of the new men’s magazines in 1997 then, and even into the new millennium, publishers were still concerned that their magazines not be interpreted as ‘un-Australian’ by over-stating fashion, or seen as ‘gay’ by ‘normal’ (heterosexual) readers by avoiding the use of attractive male models in their shoots.
Max, which had as its strapline “For men who like to stay on top” introduced itself as an unmistakably heterosexual (and sex-obsessed) publication with its $200 000 launch advertising campaign, which featured “some rather risqué advertisements” framed as personal ads columns with images of naked women and lines such as ‘The magazine that gives good head’ and ‘I just fucked your best friend’ (Hornery, 1997: 36; Bryden-Brown,
246 1997: 3). Unsurprisingly, the ads scheduled to run in Who Weekly and newspapers in Sydney and Melbourne were pulled on account of being “too shocking” and the print campaign ran out the rest of its life mainly in the men’s toilets in bars and hotels (Bryden-Brown, 1997:3; Burbury, 1997: 28). ACP spent $700 000 on the launch campaign for Ralph, which ran on television as well as in the print media (Hornery, 1997: 36). The campaign also introduced Ralph as a firmly heterosexual and sexist magazine, featuring a woman in a negligee on her hands and knees cleaning a filthy room as her boyfriend watched television. The headline asked readers ‘what’s wrong with this picture? … He isn’t watching the footy’, while the television commercial featured a voice-over which asked ‘Tired of political correctness? Then pick up a copy of Ralph. Because inside every sensitive new age guy, there isn’t one’ (Dapin, 2004: 102). Ralph then was self-consciously constructed in opposition to ideologies of the SNAG, and presented to the general public as a politically incorrect, ‘humorous’ and specifically Australian men’s magazine.
Despite its ‘uber-blokish’ media image and advertising campaign, early Max was actually a sophisticated magazine which, reflecting the ambiguous position of Australian publishers looking for a successful model (Men’s Stuff and Amnesia had been too ‘boofy’, but Follow me Gentlemen had been too ‘poofy’) embodied many elements and characteristics of earlier ‘new man’ fashion magazines as well as laddishness, presenting a hybrid SNAG/lad magazine and available subjectivity. With its thick, glossy cover, bold silver headline and female celebrities in bikinis, Max ushered in the more contemporary style of 1990s glossy men’s magazine publishing, and with its high production values it was the first men’s magazine since MAN and FMG to look and feel like an adult magazine rather than a boy’s comic.
Contradicting the magazine’s image – and his own statements – in the press, in his inaugural editor’s introduction, Mathieson described Max’s formula as “a mix of beautiful women, incisive articles, humour and top fashion” (August, 1997: 6). Fashion then was clearly a priority section of the magazine, so we can assume that Mathieson’s remarks in the media before the launch of the magazine aimed to play down its fashion content in order to reassure the public (and potential readers) that it was neither ‘gay’ nor
247 gender transgressive. But as far as Australian men’s magazines were concerned, and particularly those aimed at the mass market or the ‘average Australian bloke’, Max’s elevation of fashion and style to a priority category in its self-promotional literature and to a substantial, clearly marked part of the magazine was actually very new and transgressive. MAN may have featured fashion, but it never made it into the editor’s monthly address. The fashion shoots in Max reflected the magazine’s overall mix of ‘new lad’ and ‘new man’ ideologies, represented by a constant to-ing and fro-ing between ‘laddish’ spreads featuring casual fashion, topless female models and Mathieson’s ‘average-looking’ male models looking ‘slightly hung-over’ or still drinking from the night before, and more sophisticated studio shoots featuring high class designer brands such as Diesel, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana and Calibre modelled by male models who at times looked androgynous or effeminate and who blurred traditional distinctions between gay and straight masculinities (Nixon, 1996). The first grooming ad to appear in Max was for the designer men’s fragrance Hugo which appeared on a page called ‘Fashion News’ introducing the new spring menswear collections from Calvin Klein, Peter Morrisey, Ralph Lauren and Giorgio Armarni, the page illustrated by shots of male catwalk models – not the ‘average’ looking models Mathieson described in the press – and offering a clear representation of the increasing convergence between men’s colognes and designer fashion (August 1997: 95).
While Max belied its bloke-ish, no-fashion media image in many ways, Ralph unequivocally lived up to its, featuring more and much more raunchy images of ‘babes’, more lurid stories about sex and more emphasis on drinking than Max. Unlike in Max, there was no discussion about relationships or health in Ralph, but plenty of gory imagery of wounds, accidents and ‘freaks’ and irreverent ‘how to’ sections such as ‘how to land a 747’ if the pilot fell unconscious, ‘how to tap a keg of beer’ or ‘how to skull a yard glass’ (Close, 1997; Scott, 1997: 9). Early Ralph lacked the high production values of its competitor; it was smaller in size, printed on semi-gloss paper and stapled not bound. It particularly lived up to its ‘blokey’ media reputation in the area of fashion, a section which it named ‘Clobber’ rather than ‘fashion’ or ‘style’. Ralph fashion featured blonde topless females modelling men’s jackets, sneakers and ties draped over or covering huge
248 breasts (December, 1997; February, 1998), female models in bikinis hanging men’s shorts and shirts on washing lines and sunbathing among clothes laid on the ground (March, 1998), overweight bikers modelling leather wear, (March 1998) and ageing Australian singer/actor/comedian Barry Crocker modelling old-fashioned golf wear and dated 1970s football strips (December, 1997; Maypril, 1998), demonstrating a sexist and/or tongue-in-cheek working class ‘ocker’ humour, but importantly an abject terror of inviting either a homosexual voyeuristic gaze or a ‘gay’ reputation.
So while the first advertisement for a grooming product – the designer fragrance Hugo – appeared in Max on a fashion page bearing images of catwalk male models and upmarket high-class designer fashion, the first in-text advertisement for a grooming product in the resolutely anti-fashion, anti-grooming early Ralph was for Brylcreem on a ‘Clobber’ page bearing images of an average-looking ‘bloke’ emerging from the surf wearing a Hawaiian shirt and white trousers missing one leg, the copy “aw bugger it – me great whites ruined!” suggesting it had been bitten off by a shark (November, 1997). The spread also featured an inset photograph of two ‘babes’ in bikinis posed as lesbians, and a dangling prosthetic leg ‘modelling’ a training shoe. The clothes were from Australian workwear brand King Gee, K-Mart brand Route 66 and Hush Puppies (on the still-attached foot) available from Australian department store Gowings, while the Brylcreem and men’s comb were pointedly on sale at Australian supermarket Woolworth’s. Early Ralph then took a humorous, sexist and ‘ocker’ rather than serious approach to fashion and grooming.
Both Ralph and Max attracted much more advertising than any of their mass market predecessors, and both magazines also featured campaigns for men’s grooming products, but while this was a departure from none at all in Men’s Stuff and Amnesia, the volume of ads was nowhere near as large as in FMG in the 1980s. Surprisingly, Ralph featured slightly more grooming advertisements than Max; for four months between August 1997 and January 1998 Max had carried no grooming campaigns at all and throughout its publication, there were never more than two ads in the same issue. Having said that, grooming campaigns in Ralph averaged only two or three per issue for the first 18
249 months of its publication, bringing both magazines into line with the number of grooming ads found in the more traditionally ‘masculine’ MAN from the late 1950s. Moreover, only two grooming products advertisers – the Australian hair regrowth centre Ashley and Martin and the American fragrance Navigator – regularly placed ads in both Max and Ralph, with no ads appearing for skin care products.
Max was the first Australian men’s magazine aimed at the mass market, or ‘the average Australian bloke’ to include a grooming editorial, which appeared in its October 1997 issue, and it was concerned with men’s fragrances. It was an informational piece rather than an advertorial for any specific brands, and its author Peter James seemed to be well aware that he might be entering dangerous waters, immediately setting out to ‘masculinise’ fragrances for an imagined heterosexual readership. Called ‘Face Value: yes there is a purpose to aftershave’, its title aimed to convince readers that aftershave was not simply just ‘perfume’, which would implicitly be too feminine or effeminate, but that it had a practical purpose, a much more masculine-friendly concept and one which was appropriate in an address to Australian men, who as I discussed in Chapter 5 were perceived in the industry as being ‘practical’ users of toiletries and cosmetics. The opening lines of the feature further attempted to distance fragrances from femininity and stereotypical homosexuality; “the modern world of aftershave isn’t just for fashion slaves or experimental-dance instructors” wrote James, “it is a rugged, manly landscape” (October, 1997: 110). This is a good example of what Jackie Cook (2000) identifies as the “re-appropriation of resistance” whereby James anticipates and validates possible reader resistance before offering reassurance that the reader’s inherent heterosexuality and manliness remain intact. Deploying a personal, direct mode of address to invite a commonality of opinion with his male readers, James suggests that (like the reader) he’d always considered aftershave “a useless accessory created by terminally uncool corporate chemists or the cast of Beverley Hills 90210”, a dramatis personae evoked to ridicule stars of the then-cult show such as Jason Priestley and Luke Perry as affected, synthetic Hollywood girly-boys, but now he had found that it had a use, it was practical. Yet these practical qualities – that astringent, alcohol-based aftershaves closed the pores and toned ‘oily’ skin, while aftershave lotions added moisture and comfort to ‘dry’ skin – actually
250 came from ideologies of women’s beauty culture, feminine concepts which were now being framed as ‘terminally cool’ for ‘real’ men, and if readers were still unconvinced about heterosexual connotations of wearing a fragrance by the end of the piece, James colloquially reassured them that “the girls dig ‘em” (October, 1997: 110).
It was five months before Max featured another grooming editorial but in the interim Ralph underwent a facelift, increasing in size, becoming glossier, bound, and more sophisticated in its approach to fashion in particular. It also introduced a new section called ‘Not Dead Yet’ which was a mostly-satirical section about health, consisting mainly of stories about medical oddities and bizarre facts, but it contained a two-page grooming feature. Men’s fragrances were again the subject of the first grooming editorial, which appeared in January 1998 and was listed in the contents as ‘a guide to cologne and some sexy pitchers’. The piece addressed its readers through discourses of sport and nationality, demonstrating strong historical continuity of how grooming has traditionally been presented to Australian men, for these were the main discourses privileged in campaigns aimed at specifically Australian men in MAN. But the article also introduced discourses of sex which had been present in print campaigns for men’s fragrances in the past, but not in editorials. The narrative was organised around the blindfolding of “ravishing young baseball groupies” who gave their opinions of the fragrance’s smell, price, the type of ‘bloke’ who would wear it and its ‘surerootability’ – whether its wearer were sure to get a ‘root’, an Australian euphemism for sex. So while the feature evoked the old ‘female advisory’ concept often deployed in the grooming campaigns of the 1940s and 1950s we saw in Chapter 4 in MAN, it introduced overt references to (heterosexual) sex which rendered fragrances acceptable for straight-identified men and it deployed specifically Australian, or ‘larrikin’ humour in a way which spoke directly to an Australian readership.
“Summer’s here” declared the opening lines, “the girls are wearing next to nothing and you have about as much underarm charm as Trevor Chappell”, a specifically ‘Australian’ joke referring to cricketer Chappell’s underarm delivery to the final New Zealand batsman in the 1981 Cricket World Series Cup. But of course, the reader has to know this in order to get the joke, and so Ralph draws on its imagined audience’s knowledge of
251 Australian sport which, together with sex, was the main theme of the piece. Players from the Sydney Storm baseball team were chosen as the male representatives from the sporting world because “Ralph figured that these blokes would know a thing or two about trying to mask the stench when they leap the fence to pluck out their choice of clustering ball-park groupies”, a statement which again firmly establishes the heterosexuality of the reader and the ideal of achieving casual sex, but which also tells us much about gendered discourse around the contemporary marketing of perfume – it is hard to imagine themes of ‘masking the stench’ of body odour in fragrance marketing aimed at women, but this and the achievement of sex in particular were the dominant discourses of men’s fragrance marketing in the bloke-ish magazines of the late 1990s16.
However, while the feature was replete with masculine discourses of sport, ‘blokey’ humour and sex, under the column sub-heading ‘Getting it on’ it nevertheless offered advice about the application of fragrances, introducing the very feminine concept of dabbing perfumes onto the ‘pulse points’, explained to the reader as “the insides of your wrists, just under the side of your jaw, the nape of your neck and the back of your hands” (January, 1998: 99). The use of the possessive pronoun ‘your’ here invites a much more intimate and personal relationship with the skin and body than MAN’s more distancing article ‘the’, such as its 1949 advice to men to “sluice the features” or “freshen up the face” we saw in Chapter 4, and so even in the more bloke-ish magazines, men were encouraged to become more aware of their own body. Readers were advised not to spray fragrances under their arms, and to let the perfume dry on the skin rather than rubbing it in, again introducing another feminine concept of “bruising the fragrance”, although the writer immediately recoups a heteronormative masculine tone and ideology of natural aversion to such matters, adding that “we have no idea what this means but it really pisses off women and perfume-counter assistants”, relegating the foreign concept to the feminine domain but nonetheless actually advising readers against it.
The piece was illustrated by a large main photograph of a busty blonde model holding an
16 In the October 1999 issue of Max for example, readers were invited to win a grooming kit from Nu Skin in which they were to “write on the back of an envelope how much you stink and send it in. The 10 stinkiest will win”
252 armful of the fragrances on trial to her chest, and smaller images of her kneeling or bending over several baseball players ‘sniffing’ at them, her positioning revealing her cleavage, anchoring the main themes of the text but in particular the heterosexuality of the assumed reader (and fragrance-user), offering up a ‘babe’ in place of the “horrific” alternative (Men’s Stuff, 1995: 30) of a male model, or even simply the products themselves. Whereas FMG had featured male bodies in its grooming editorials, Ralph overwhelmingly used female bodies, and usually those of young blonde models.
Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5
The image in the middle here was a full-page photograph which accompanied a photo spread of men’s traditional shaving products (January, 1988), demonstrating Ralph’s extreme reluctance to include a male model even shaving his face in its neurotic denial of a homoerotic gaze, and its sexualisation of the female body to uphold the traditional gendered power relationship of the gaze.
253
Figure 6
‘Babes’ in bikinis were most often used in Ralph’s grooming features which introduced the more feminine-associated cosmetic products and procedures, such as the model in the micro-bikini used in the magazine’s feature on facials and the above article about sunscreens and self-tanning lotions, a textual device which hailed the red-blooded heterosexual reader and which again avoided the use of feminised and/or sexualised male bodies. The article on sunscreens and self-tanners (February, 1998) combined sexualised imagery of the female model’s body and bloke-ish humour, and in particular about the bronzers which were positioned around the model. Demonstrating Cook’s notion of the ‘pre-emptive response technique’ (2000: 177), the author voices the imagined resistance of his readership by suggesting he – and implicitly the reader – finds the application of a cosmetic tan from a bottle a little hard to swallow; “Baarp! Gees, that was a bit rough – should have had it with some soda. What’s that? Oh, you rub it on, huh?” his strategically ocker joke evoking discourses of drinking and ‘natural’ male recalcitrance and naivety about a strongly feminine-coded concept of cosmetic vanity. Nevertheless, despite the colloquial humour and the feminisation of self-tanning products, the article did actually inform readers that such bronzers were recommended by the Anti-Cancer Council and it gave advice about which product gave the best results. Moreover, the body of the main text about sunscreens above the self-tanners was mainly educational and informative, explaining the difference between SPF 15 and SPF 30+, what is meant by the term ‘broad spectrum’, the dangers of UVA and UVB rays and providing statistical facts about skin
254 cancer in Australia, and so alongside the humour were some serious messages about skin care and care of the self.
Although it began life as a hybrid publication, caught between typical ‘new man’ and ‘new lad’ magazine characteristics, Max became progressively more bloke-ish, more ocker, more irreverent and more politically incorrect. In other words, it became more like Ralph. Early Max had featured more tasteful shoots of ‘beautiful women’, but it began to feature more and more ‘babes’ shot in more risqué, more compromising positions and wearing less and less clothing, so much so that from early 1998 it began to resemble more of a soft-porn title than a general interest magazine. The shift to more sexualised images of women in Max as a whole, and its emulation of its stronger competitor, included a greater reliance of women’s bodies in its grooming editorials. In March 1998 it ran a feature on fragrances which was similar in many ways to Ralph’s “baseball groupies” fragrance article, involving grooming editor Jason Davis taking 21 brands of men’s colognes, eau de toilettes and aftershaves to the beach for four “super-taut competitors” in the recent Ironwoman Series to test. The piece over-sexualised the women – or ‘girls’, for the ‘bloke’ magazines rarely acknowledged women as adult women, infantilising them mainly as ‘girls’, ‘babes’ or ‘chicks’ – who were described as “Speedoed to within an inch of their lives” and at times posed on their hands and knees in the sand, again addressing men through discourses of sex, but also through the traditional culturally-specific Australian sport and beach culture.
Figure 7
255 Meanwhile, as Max became more ‘bloke-ish’, Ralph was increasingly presenting more feminine grooming products and practices in its editorials. As I demonstrated above, it had featured self-tanning lotions, and in its March 1998 issue, Ralph moved on to a whole new territory in heterosexual men’s grooming culture with a feature called ‘Gorillas in their midst’ which introduced the ‘average Australian bloke’ to chest hair removal, a procedure hitherto powerfully associated with homosexuality in particular, and the removal or waxing of body hair with femininity in general;
Do people come up to you and poke bananas in your mouth when you take your shirt off at the beach? Embarrassed when you find old chicken bones in your chest rug? Tired of your lover requesting you wear a high-collared shirt when you have sex? There’s no shortage of methods to get you smooth as a cue ball …
(March, 1998)
The opening lines to the feature introduce the main themes of ‘blokey’ humour, sex and to a lesser extent sport, which are again used throughout the piece to masculinise and heterosexualise chest hair removal, a particularly new and gender transgressive practice and ideology entering into magazine and wider popular cultural discourses of male grooming in the late 1990s. The opening imagery to the feature comprised a shot of the six products and procedures which were trialled for the piece, surrounded by dark male chest hair clippings. A quick commutation test here tells us that this is not the kind of imagery we would find in a women’s magazine; its hard to imagine dilapatory creams, waxes and shavers set amongst piles of dark shaved hair in an ad directed at women and so the image presents a particularly ‘masculine’ brand of humour. However, the main visual of the feature transgressed Ralph’s no-male-models policy and featured a shirtless, but ordinary-looking man in his 20s with shaving foam smeared over his chest, looking dubious as the ubiquitous blonde model in revealing top and mini-skirt holds a kitchen knife to his foamy chest. While the image firmly heterosexualises the ‘bloke’ who waxes or shaves his chest, the jokey catch line ‘Anyone for another slice of blancmange?’ suggests that the article takes an irreverent approach to the procedure.
256 However, alongside the humour in the captions, serious information and advice was on offer to the ‘average Australian bloke’ about how to achieve a hairless chest, and readers were made aware that the procedures all involved “time, expense, pain and regrowth”. Providing information about the price of each product, how to use it, how easy it was to use, the amount of pain involved and the overall results, the piece was actually a seriously-written and educational step-by-step advertising tutorial on chest hair removal. In the discussion around the Nads waxing kit for example, men were advised about how to apply the wax, how to rip off the strips in the correct direction, and while there was a ‘bit of sting’ the results were “excellent – we’re talking a human bowling ball here”, the verdict being that the procedure “takes a bit of time but its worth it”. The discussion around Aplon wax similarly explained the procedure, the results being “the dog’s balls” and the overall verdict that the product was “fiddly, time-consuming, but does the job well”. Despite the gendered, jokey address then the article was highly transgressive of the gendered norms of attention to appearance, for ‘ordinary blokes’ were being encouraged to invest time, undergo pain and to learn the feminine/effeminate skills of body waxing in order to achieve the desired new hairless ‘look’ and crucially, they were being encouraged to do so by the most ‘laddish/blokish’ of the new crop of Australian men’s lifestyle magazines.
Figure 8
On the following page the lead photo of an advertorial called ‘Wax Works’ was of a tin of ‘Mr. Zog's Sex Wax’, a product used by surfers to wax their boards; yet the editorial below it had nothing to do with sex or waxing surfboards, it was again about waxing chests. Strong discourses of nationality, gender and sexuality are at play in this particular
257 choice of visual address. Evoking the sport of surfing, the iconic symbol of Australian masculinity, and using a key signifying product of the culture, the text ‘hails’ the male surfer familiar with Mr Zog’s, but the evocation of sex and wax in the same sentence, and the product’s stylish retro packaging interpellate a wider male audience to an ad which draws on the analogy of board and chest-waxing to ‘Australian-ise’, masculinise and heterosexualise a procedure that until now, was a key signifier of gay male culture, the hirsute ‘manly’ male marking macho heterosexuality in the past. The editorial below the image again evoked ‘blokey’ humour, a colloquial mode of address and casual ‘ocker’ swearing, but its overall tone and function delivered serious and educational information about waxing;
Because blokes are such hairy bastards, with thicker, coarser fur than women, waxing is the best treatment. The amount of time a waxing lasts for varies, but in general, for the first time might last three to four weeks … your hair growth will be slower and more sparse with subsequent waxings. Try to find a place that is used to waxing men – they’ll have more gutsy wax better suited to blokes, so you don’t get the ingrown hairs from using too girly a mix
(March, 1998: 95)
While there is of course, no difference in the procedure of waxing (and arguably none in the actual wax used), this advertorial for the ‘bloke’s specialist’ Bee’s Knees salon strives to uphold at least some gender difference and to masculinise waxing for men by emphasising the difference in the ‘male’ product used in much the same way as men’s skin and hair care products were claimed to be scientifically ‘different’ from women’s, but like men’s skin care, chest-waxing was a key procedure in the feminisation of magazine mediated grooming culture for men in the 1990s, a culture which was also increasingly shaped by traditionally gay men’s grooming practices and procedures.
Ralph was eighteen months ahead of Max in its grooming feature around chest hair removal, with Max not covering the procedure until October 1999. Less space was devoted to the subject than in Ralph and Max covered only waxing, whereas Ralph had
258 also presented discussion and advice about other forms of hair removal such as dilapatory creams and shaving. Max’s feature took up ¾ of a page and was dominated by an image of a female beauty therapist leaning intently over a young Max employee sent to a salon as a ‘guinea pig’, smearing his chest with wax in an image that was lightly eroticised. Compared to Ralph’s feature, the text was minimal consisting of five bullet points, the first two sexualising the procedure in a way Ralph had not; “the anticipated pain is made easier by an attractive female therapist” and “the hot wax is joy”, while the final three points suggested that the ‘pain factor’ of 9/10 was unbearable, the ‘victim’ reporting that he would “rather pass a gallstone the size of a grapefruit” than undergo the procedure again (October, 1999: 91). Unlike Ralph then, which had suggested waxing was slightly painful and time-consuming but worth it for the results, Max concluded that the procedure was far too painful and best left to ‘the women folk’.
Ralph was much more progressive in informing men about the newer, more feminised grooming products and procedures than Max; it had presented chest-waxing well before Max – or for that matter before even more style-based magazines such as GQ or the more ‘adult’ and serious Men’s Health – and it introduced its readers to the facial (November, 1998) almost a year before Max broached the subject in its last issue in October 1999. While Ralph moved into more contemporary grooming topics in 1998, Max tended to become more conservative, adhering to the more traditional areas of men’s grooming culture seen in articles covering scientific hair restoration (April, 1998), dental and oral hygiene (August, 1998) and electric shavers, and while it deployed casual euphemisms and jokey humour, littering its editorials with words such as ‘bonce’ and ‘scone’ rather than ‘head’ or ‘face’, and describing shavers as ‘whisker whackers’ which invited the reader not to take the issues it was discussing too seriously, it was not as irreverent, humorous or deliberately politically incorrect as its rival Ralph increasingly became in its grooming discourse. In June and July 1998 Max and Ralph covered the same grooming issues – hair styling and hair products, and facial hair – allowing an opportunity for a direct comparison between how the two magazines addressed their readerships.
259 In its article on new hair styling products in June 1998, Max deployed a liberal use of slang and casual humour, again opting for the stereotypical gay joke to open its piece called ‘Go for the Gunk’, subtitled ‘You don’t have to be a hairdresser called Leslie; here’s the idiot’s guide to hair goo’ which attempted to appropriate reader resistance (Cook, 2000) to ‘gay’ hairstyling and products, while framing its straight male readers as ‘naturally’ in the dark about such matters. The writer aligned himself with his imagined ‘ordinary bloke’ readership to voice their concern;
“But I know sweet f.a. about the multitude of little pots and tubes displayed hopefully in the hairdresser’s” you say. Well, outside of reaching for the Brylcreem at the supermarket and smelling like a pensioner, read on dishevelled one and say hello to the brave new world of adding sticky goo to your bonce.
(June, 1998: 126)
The mode of address here is colloquial and jocular, but the message to explore the ‘world of sticky goo’ is serious, urging readers to move on from a typically masculine austere and dated approach to hair products. The feature went on to ‘test’ various modern hair waxes, shapers, fudges, toffees and brilliantines in an educational and informative manner, and furthermore it introduced feminine concepts and words such as ‘mould’, ‘scrunch’, ‘shape’ and ‘volume’ to ‘ordinary blokes’ and advised them how to achieve various modern ‘looks’ such as the ‘shiny look’, the ‘separated look’ and the ‘slick, wet look’ (June, 1998: 126).
Meanwhile, Ralph’s feature on hairstyling and styling products provided the ‘bloke’ with advice about hairdryers, conditioners, mousses, “this season’s colour waves” and the trend for “chunky highlights” while framing the discussion with colloquialisms and allusions to sex such as “we all want good head” and with images of ridiculous hairstyles alongside the more serious recommended styles. However, the brand of humour was much more risqué than that of Max’s feature, and it relied on more than old jokes about homosexuality and ocker slang. In an important shift in the magazine’s grooming discourse, Ralph drew on the imagined lifestyle and more unashamed, ironic sense of
260 humour of its readership. The writer suggested readers use the lighter mousses on the market rather than use hair lacquer because “no longer is hair being set with lacquer of Ray Martin strength, able to withstand a nuclear attack – or a night on the piss, back to her place for rampant sex, and a ride home from an amphetamine-addled taxi driver”, evoking informal ‘laddish’ discourses of drinking, drug-taking and non-committal casual sex, but ‘Australianising’ these scripts to appeal more to the ‘bloke’ not the ‘lad’ via reference to the ageing popular Australian television celebrity Ray Martin. Moreover, another example of this shift to a more irreverent style of humour appeared further down the page in the ad copy for a hair thickening shampoo, the writer advising readers to “just be careful the run-off doesn’t settle on your pubes” (June, 1998: 111).
The following month, both Max and Ralph ran grooming features on beards and facial hair. Max’s piece implored readers to “throw away the razor blades and return to nature” by growing a beard (July, 1998: 126). This was the only grooming column in the whole of my research that was not either advertising, or advising men about commercial products or procedures, and while some areas of the feature were humorous, it was an open appeal to “rejoice in your manliness” expressed primarily through historical discourses of sport and nationality;
Australia used to be a beard-lover’s paradise. Whatever happened to the good ol’ days of league when Eric Grothe, Geoff Gerard and Noel Cleal were the height of glamour? Of Aussie Rules, when Bruce Doall, Michael Tuck and Jimmy Jess ruled the chick-chocked stands of the MCG? The Men From Ironbark would be turning in their graves if they could see what passes for an Australian bloke’s beard now.
(July, 1998: 126)
While some areas of the column were humorous, the advice provided about how to correctly grow a beard was serious, as was the advice about the amount of time and money the reader could save by doing so. The evocation of past sporting heroes and to bush poet Banjo Paterson’s poem appealed for a return to a more ‘traditional’, more ‘manly’ Australian masculinity represented by the beard, but the piece seemed dated and strangely out of place for a young men’s lifestyle magazine in the late 1990s.
261
Ralph’s July 1998 feature ‘Stubble Trouble’ on the other hand was an irreverent, ironic and tongue-in-cheek illustrated look at men’s historical facial hair fashions which was replete with sardonic humour. ‘The Scorpion’ moustache for example was described as “flash as a rat with a gold tooth” and ‘The Crowbar’ as “sidelevers with grunt … believe that and you’re just the type of wanker who’d grow these.” Readers were drolly advised against ‘The Chewbacca’ because “the impracticality and the jokes about your mother’s fondness for bestiality perhaps make it more trouble than what its worth” while wearers of ‘The Castro’ suggested to observers that “you don’t give a rat’s arse what people think of your appearance” (July, 1998: 96). The feature awarded a bronze, silver and gold medal to classic historical styles, with ‘The Walrus’ earning the bronze medal although it was advised that “there are a few safety rules to the walrus; always use a cigarette holder to avoid flash fires, and politely refuse any watermelon. And for God’s sake, steer clear of Leather Pride parades” while ‘The Burnsides’ achieved the silver award and “the monocle automatically appears once the Burnsides is fully grown.” The winner of the gold medal was ‘The Lincoln’ because;
… the lips are kept well clear of whiskers for female-friendly kissing, while the grown-out chin piece works well as a super-sopper during oral sex … [and] … as a slippery dip for any running mucous or dribbled beer slops.
(July, 1998: 97)
While it was openly politically incorrect and overtly heterosexist, the feature was carefully crafted to appeal directly to its imagined readership’s sense of humour, and the reason I have quoted it at length is because it is central to the argument I want to make about how the Australian bloke-ish magazines – and Ralph in particular – helped break open the mass market for men’s grooming products and procedures in this country precisely because they addressed their young male target audience in such an irreverent, entertaining and ironic way. In other words, Ralph spoke the language of the ‘ordinary Australian bloke’ in a way that earlier, more serious campaigns centred on discourses of wealth, health, elegance and cosmopolitanism did not, opening up the market beyond
262 stuffy middle class business executives and the sophisticated, European-influenced sensitive and serious new man to the masses, to the ‘lads’ or more specifically, the ‘larrikins’.
The shift to a more unashamedly brash and unorthodox style of grooming discourse in Ralph accompanied its abandonment of the cheap supermarket brands and conventional products it endorsed in its earlier issues in favour of more expensive, upmarket products in a new section called ‘Looking Good’ which appeared from April 1998. In this new section, Ralph began to feature short advertorials for more quality products which were written by an in-house staff writer and which employed a much more ironic, satirical style of grooming journalism that by far surpassed rival Max’s now comparatively tame wit. The first of these ads to appear was for the Schick Protector razor, which declared that “Technology is wonderful. Calculators can help people who can’t add, e-mail aids people who can’t socialise, and the Schick Protector is saviour to men who can’t blade- shave for shit” (Maypril, 1998: 131). In the staid old days of the respectable men’s grooming culture of modernity, the language used in advertising discourse had been refined, eloquent and gentlemanly, and in the 1980s in FMG grooming was a feminised, but serious affair framed by discourses of elegance, class, style and sophistication. The style of men’s grooming journalism which evolved from the pages of ‘bloke-ish’ Ralph in the late 1990s was part of the wider conventions of the genre itself, and from mid-1998 it became more and more irreverent, sardonic and increasingly droll, breaking with tradition in the descriptions of the products’ design and function. The Schick razor for example offered “the closest shave since you mixed up the addresses on Valentine’s Day cards for three different women”, injecting discourses of (heterosexual) blokey humour into previously serious advertising scripts, again evident in the copy for the shower gels ad on the same page, which emphasised the more hygienic nature of the products over traditional soap via reference to “Uncle Seth’s pubes”, which tended to stick to it (Maypril, 1998: 130). Boyish toilet humour centred on pubic hair and male genitalia abounded. “How handy is this?” asked Ralph’s advertising copy for Somerset’s Shaving Oil “A bottle small enough to hide behind your scrotum is enough for up to 90 shaves, and the new aloe vera formula is kind to even the most sensitive skin” (July, 1998: 97).
263
This shift towards juvenile humour and satire was accompanied by a much more relaxed, informal ‘ocker’ mode of address; “grab one with a fave cologne in it, or one with serious skin-conditioning properties” continued the shower gels copy, while Ralph’s subscription offer of a bottle of Drakkar Noir fragrance urged readers to “Grab a whiff of this … don’t muck around. Fill out the coupon and bang it in the mail” (Maypril, 1998: 135-136), appealing to its readership’s imagined traditionally masculine nonchalant approach to grooming but nevertheless encouraging the consumption of feminised products and procedures. An ad for the Body Collection men’s skin care range similarly drew on discourses of masculine indifference and practicality, but like the advice to ‘grab’ a ‘conditioning’ shower gel, it contained an appeal to embrace products with softening and soothing properties; “top value, this … slap on the aloe vera and witch hazel aftershave balm to heal and protect your face, spray some wheat germ and evening primrose face cream about, and thy uncle’s name becomes Bob” (July, 1998: 97). In Chapter 2, marketers and advertisers suggested that men “don't want any crap; they just want to know what it does” (Gotting, 2003: 13), hence Ralph’s suggestion that a professional pedicure “removes bastard hard skin” (October, 1998: 115) sanctioning the traditionally- feminine procedure acceptable for the young ‘ocker’ bloke. This particular segment was the subject of analysis in Jackie Cook’s 2000 paper which explored discourses of skin care marketing in men’s lifestyle magazines, and as I outlined in Chapter 1 she demonstrated how the piece sexualised and eroticised the pedicure procedure itself, inoculating it from unwanted associations with femininity and rendering its use safe by heterosexual men, and similar textual devices were at work in a Ralph ad copy for a purifying moisturising face mask in which discourses of sex and pornography were evoked to masculinise, normalise and heterosexualise another product strongly coded as feminine; “masks look like the kind of odd thing only a girl would use to enhance beauty, but they’re actually the Dirk Diggler of skin penetration” (August, 1998: 96).
Accompanying the shift towards colloquialism, larrikinism, casual swearing and a more puerile sense of humour in Ralph’s grooming advertorial discourse was an ironic
264 parodying of traditional fragrance and skin care marketing, clearly evident in the ad copy for the exclusive Cerruti fragranced products line;
Are you aware of the “rugged masculinity that pulses just below your surface”? Or has it already erupted out of your nostrils? Either way, you can trust us that Nino Cerutti is as flash with his fragrances as he is with his fashion.
(Maypril, 1998: 130)
Keith Willey described the traditional Australian humour which evolved from the harsh conditions of colonial life as “dry as a desert claypan” (1988: 156) and it was this particularly Australian sardonic brand of humour to which the grooming editorials and advertising copy in Ralph directly appealed, presenting parodies and spoofs of everything that had gone before in men’s grooming products discourse and making the issue of grooming humorous, whereas before it had been presented as deadly serious. For example, an advertorial for Matis Comfort Shaving Cream declared that “unless you’re the kind of guy who appreciates a damn good thrashing while dangling from your nipples from a butcher’s hook, you’re not going to enjoy a dry blade shave. Described by its maker as the ‘light morning caress’, this moisturising and reconditioning formula comes direct from Paris to your face” (July, 1998: 97), appropriating and ridiculing high-class grooming ads which explicitly ‘came from’ Europe and employing discourses of masochistic pain to lampoon feminine discourses of softening. Another good example of Ralph’s laconic parodying of traditional grooming discourse was its ad copy for Burbury’s new moisturiser for men; “its alcohol-free which removes any temptation for drug abuse, and its non-greasy, which means that your face won’t slip up at inopportune moments” (December, 1998: 117), while the ad copy for a men’s grooming kit called ‘Tweezerman’ advised readers that “when an overly flamboyant cuticle threatens your very lifestyle choice, Tweezerman will come to the rescue” (August, 1998: 96). The magazine’s advertorial for Tommy Hilfiger’s new ‘Athletics’ fragrance demonstrated similar satire;
Hilfiger is releasing a fragrance totally aimed at the young, sporty dude. Its got a bit of zing, its light and bright with a citrus tone akin to walking
265 around in a lemon tree grove. But without the turkey manure
(October, 1998: 115, my emphasis)
Essentially then Ralph’s representation of men’s grooming from mid-1998 was a giant parody, a send-up and most importantly, the most commercially successful dialogue with men in the history of male consumer grooming culture in Australia. Jackie Cook suggested that Ralph actively constructed reader/viewer divergence in the uptake of skin care routines (2000: 174), but I am suggesting that the opposite of this was true. Through its use of larrikin, juvenile and politically-incorrect humour, parody and satire, Ralph could and arguably did ‘sell’ high class, expensive designer grooming products to men; it could talk about and advise men to experiment with previously ultra-feminine, ultra- homosexual associated products and procedures such as fake tans, aromatherapy massage oils, perfumes, waxing, facials, pedicures, ‘soothing’ skin care and ‘conditioning’ hair products without being branded ‘gay’ or feminine because it framed them in such a way as to appeal to imagined ‘ordinary Australian blokes’ with an ocker, sexist and homophobic sense of humour. And while this clearly indicates that the principles of a socially and culturally central hegemonic masculinity remain firmly intact (Cook, 2000: 184), or that representations of beauty-conscious Australian manliness do not necessarily represent any shift in sexual politics, what is really crucial for the cultural economy of male grooming cultures here is how the producers of Ralph entered into a very specific gendered cultural conversation with its readership to open up the grooming products market to mass consumption.
Ralph made the issue of grooming irreverent, ridiculous and funny; it made it ‘a laugh’. It didn’t feature imagery of semi-naked men using the products, or smiling healthily at the camera as FMG had done; instead it satirically used images of lepers to illustrate features about skin care or ‘babes’ in bikinis to advertise fragrances – images it knew straight men were more comfortable with viewing, that wouldn’t prompt them to turn the page, but to read on and be entertained by the dry, wry text which nevertheless carried serious
266 educational advice and information about previously-coded feminine and homosexual grooming practices. .
Figure 9
Conclusion
I began this chapter with media suggestions that Follow me Gentlemen failed to achieve mass market success in Australia because its sexualised imagery of men’s bodies earned the magazine a ‘gay’ reputation, and drawing from press discussion around Australian men’s attitudes to style and appearance, I suggested that FMG’s central concern with fashion and grooming, compounded with its ‘new man’ iconography would likely have also been interpreted as ‘un-Australian’. Taken with media representations of ‘typical’ Australian masculinity and Australian cultural values, I argued that the failure of a men’s style press to materialise in this country in the 1980s suggested that powerful ideologies of homosexuality and effeminacy around male narcissism remained entrenched for much longer in Australia than in Britain, governing Australian ways of thinking about men’s attention to appearance well into the late 1990s, and even to the early 2000s in the press discussion around the ‘metrosexual’. I suggested that the debates in the media around Australian masculinity, and the reluctance of men’s lifestyle magazines in the mid-1990s to use male models or feature men’s fashion and grooming indicated that there had been
267 little endorsement of male narcissism or loosening of the representational codes between gay and straight men, nor any sanctioning of a ‘homosocial’ or sexually ambivalent masculine-masculine gaze in Australia comparable to these developments which Mort (1996) and Nixon (1996) suggest came about in Britain as a result of the 1980s ‘new man’ iconography.
At the launch of Men’s Stuff in 1995, its editor Gerry Reynolds suggested in press interviews that previous men’s magazines had failed in Australia because they had aped fashion and style magazines from Britain and America, and so he developed a magazine closely modelled on the British ‘lad’ magazine Loaded, giving it a distinctively Australian voice. It featured barely visible fashion, no male models, no grooming and non-PC humour, but flopped after two issues. Its 1995 counterpart Metropolitan Style, which also played down its fashion content lasted to four issues before its closure, while Amnesia, similar in style and content to Men’s Stuff also folded after two issues in 1996. I demonstrated then that while the men’s publishing sector boomed in Britain, Australian publishers were still looking for the men’s general interest magazines holy grail in 1997, a good fifteen years after British publishers were in a similar situation.
In the press obituaries into the deaths of Follow me Gentlemen, Men’s Stuff, Metropolitan Style and Amnesia, journalists asked whether a general interest magazine which did not feature sexualised representations of women could survive in Australia, and this is the key to understanding why Ralph and Max succeeded where Amnesia, and Men’s Stuff in particular failed, for all were modelled on Loaded, but significantly neither of the 1995 magazines carried images of semi-naked women, despite having all the other ‘lad’ or ‘bloke’ ingredients. It would seem then, particularly in the light of MAN’s inclusion of topless female models throughout its long circulation that Australian men have indeed been reluctant to buy general interest or lifestyle magazines that do not feature pornographic or semi-pornographic imagery of women or ‘babes’. In Britain, the ‘lad mag’ genre may have catapulted the men’s magazines sector to a truly mass market, but it built on an existing successful men’s style press. In Australia, things happened the other way around; a men’s style press never materialised in the 1980s, and the mass market
268 success of men’s publishing only happened with the emergence of the ‘lad mag’ genre in the form of Australian ‘bloke’ magazines Max, and Ralph in particular. Max folded after just over two years of publication when its sales fell to around 28,000 (Mistilis, 1999: 10) while Ralph went on to reach peak sales of 122,000 in August 2000, representing the highest circulation of any of the 1990s men’s magazine launches (Dapin, 2004: 188). In Australia, the men’s style press emerged only in 2003 with the re-launch of GQ and of Men’s Style Australia, with both magazines currently still surviving but with dramatically lower sales than the ‘bloke-ish’ Ralph and FHM (MPA, 2007).
I suggested at the beginning of this chapter that a commonality existed between the constructions of the ‘lad’ and the ‘larrikin’, a younger, urban version of the ‘Australian bloke’. British theorists have suggested that the ‘new lad’ subjectivity found primarily in Loaded was typically working class and sexist, addressing women only as sex objects. The ‘lad’ was homophobic and ethnically white, while he embraced the values of male camaraderie and exclusive male friendships, and his interests centred mainly around football, ‘babes’, drinking beer and hedonistic partying (Benwell, 2003: 6, 13; Gill, 2003: 37). The ‘lad’ then, clearly exhibited many traits of the Australian ‘bloke’, some of which are written into the legend on which the masculine national character rests, in particular ‘mateship’ and a celebration of ‘ocker’ working class culture. In ‘Boozers and Wowsers’ (1988: 97), David Dunstan suggested that drinking strongly informed the myth of the Australian national character, but while the ‘lad’ drinks lager, the ‘larrikin’ drinks VB. Meanwhile, although the ‘bloke’ and the ‘larrikin’ share the ‘lad’s’ homophobia and sexism, they do not share his love of soccer, embracing instead more ‘manly’ Australian sports and AFL. According to Edwards (2003: 132) the ‘lad’ had an “uneasy relationship to matters of men’s fashion and style” and I have demonstrated this was clearly the case in the Australian ‘larrikin’ magazines of the 1990s. The cultural resonance between the British ‘lad’ and the Australian ‘larrikin’ then, resolves some of the tensions around male narcissism between English and Australian masculinities which began at the founding moment, and which were written into the construction of the Australian ‘bloke’ against his aesthetic British ‘other’. Meanwhile, I would suggest that it was this cultural resonance between the subjectivities of the ‘lad’ and the ‘larrikin’ which finally broke the
269 men’s lifestyle magazines market in Australia.
Finally, I have suggested in this chapter that the ‘bloke-ish’ Max and Ralph not only succeeded in breaking open the men’s magazines market in this country, but that they – and Ralph in particular – also played a key role in the opening up the new men’s grooming products markets in Australia, sanctioning the use of feminine products and procedures for the ‘ordinary Australian bloke’ via a dialogic conversation with their readerships which drew on consumers’ own values, attitudes and lifestyles and was centred on discourses of sex, sport, drinking, drug-taking, ‘ockerism’ and a typically Australian laconic ‘blokey’ humour.
270 Chapter 7 Conclusion
At the beginning of this thesis I proposed that men’s lifestyle magazines play a central role in the cultural economy of male grooming cultures, positioning the magazines as important texts for both the production of new masculine subjectivities and as a representative site for social and cultural constructions of contemporary masculinity. Throughout the thesis I have been concerned with tracking the emergence of a new masculine identity in men’s magazines in Australia constructed around discourses of narcissism and the adoption of feminised grooming practices and procedures, a new construction which has been labelled the ‘metrosexual’ in popular culture. My central research concerns have been centred on the representation of masculinity in discourses of grooming in various men’s magazines from the 1930s to the 1990s, and how masculinity itself has been defined and debated in the Australian media in popular discussions around the metrosexual phenomenon and the emergence of men’s lifestyle magazines.
In the opening chapter to the body of the thesis I explored popular press discussions in 2003 around the emergence of the ‘metrosexual’ and found that Australian masculinity was represented as traditionally uninterested in matters of grooming, style and appearance, and that the Australian metrosexual’s narcissism was constructed as ‘odd’ and ‘unnatural’ by many journalists. However, compounding with these discourses of gender transgression in public debates were ideologies of national identity, and the metrosexual was represented not as merely ‘un-manly’ but also as ‘un-Australian’. In the following chapter I traced these discourses to the nineteenth century creation of the Australian legend which idealised the ‘rough and ready’ rural bushman as the exemplar of Australian masculinity, constructing a dominant representation of Australian manliness that was ‘unaffected’, uncultured and tough, an ideology which continues to inform popular debates about masculinity, national identity and narcissism in the Australian public sphere. In Chapter 3 I also suggested that this traditional definition of working class Australian manhood was constructed against an imagined effete, aesthetic and middle-class British ‘other’ and again, I showed how this antonymic feminising of British masculinity and hyper-masculinising of Australian masculinity centred on discourses of
271 nationality, class and gender continues in the contemporary popular media. This specifically Australian public discussion around male narcissism revealed the persistence of deep-rooted and powerful cultural ideologies of resistance to male grooming that goes some way to explaining why Australian men were slower in the uptake of new feminised grooming practices than British or American men, and why the Australian ‘metrosexual’ caused such a commotion across the mediasphere in 2003. I suggested that the attention the metrosexual received, and the way in which the identity was discussed in the press indicated that the Australian metrosexual lacked any precedent compared to the British ‘new man’ subjectivity.
Chapters 2 and 3 then established the cultural and historical context for looking at how issues of grooming and male narcissism have been communicated to Australian men in twentieth century men’s general interest magazines. In my analysis of MAN, launched in Sydney in 1936 I found that while the magazine had constructed a new urban and sophisticated Australian masculinity on its fashion pages throughout the 1930s and 1940s, representing an early mediated predecessor of the metrosexual identity, it was a construction which lacked a keen interest in grooming and the use of a wide range of cosmetic grooming products and preparations, for there was a virtual editorial neglect of issues of grooming, upholding traditional notions that narcissism and attention to personal appearance were unimportant to the performance of Australian masculinity. In the absence of any editorial discussion of matters of grooming in MAN, I focused my analysis on the grooming advertisements appearing in the magazine and this revealed that marketers and advertisers addressed Australian men first and foremost through discourses of sport and working class-ness, while campaigns which elevated ideologies of style, class and sophistication came overwhelmingly from overseas. I contrasted the representation of more stylish and well-groomed British and American masculinities in grooming campaigns to the ‘Club’ man, a middle-aged overweight and unshaven advertising character who provided a clear visualisation of the imagined ideal, working class Australian ‘bloke’. Popular press discussion around the metrosexual in 2003 suggested that because the narcissistic qualities of the subjectivity were ‘unnatural’ in traditional constructions of Australian masculinity, then the new grooming cult was not
272 native to Australia and must have ‘come from’ overseas. My analysis of campaigns in MAN revealed that the newer, more feminine men’s grooming products such as fragrances appearing on the Australian market in the 1940s and 1950s had indeed ‘come from’ Britain and America, both literally and discursively.
I divided my analysis of representations of grooming in MAN into two parts; the 1930s to the 1960s and then the 1960s and 1970s. In the first part I identified an ‘old’ grooming male culture which was defined predominantly by unfragranced, practical and functional toiletries such as shaving creams and hair dressings which signified the clear separation of the masculine sphere of ‘grooming’ and the feminine sphere of ‘beauty’. In the second part I demonstrated that the grooming advertisements in MAN increasingly featured colognes and ranges of fragranced toiletries which were indicative of an emergent ‘new’ grooming culture of postmodernity characterised by the gradual dissolution of the gendered ‘grooming’/’beauty’ binary. Moreover, on the pages of 1960s and 1970s MAN, I found the first representations of a self-conscious, narcissistic Australian masculinity who embraced a range of fragranced ‘feminine’ and cosmetic grooming products. However, these campaigns which imaged ‘the Australian male’ of the 1970s again relied heavily on discourses of sport and moreover, depictions of extreme sports, hyper- masculine compensatory discourses which attempted to counter the ultra-feminine associations of the products to reinforce traditional ideologies of a rugged and ‘rough and tough’ Australian masculinity, yet which also accommodated space for a more feminised, fragranced version. Alongside these more macho images, the 1960s and 1970s had also ushered in new representations of sophisticated urban masculinities defined by style, heterosexuality and sexual attraction and these advertisements addressed a new type of consumer. MAN’s readership surveys revealed a ‘new man’ of the 1960s who, like the magazine’s discursive ‘new man’ of the 1930s embraced fashion, consumption and a sophisticated urban lifestyle but crucially, who now also increasingly embraced feminised grooming products, representing the first mediated predecessor of the contemporary Australian metrosexual.
273 In the following chapter I analysed how the evolving new, feminised grooming culture was communicated to Australian men in Follow me Gentlemen, a sophisticated 1980s men’s style magazine modelled on Italy’s L’Huomo Vogue which took many of its cues from Mediterranean Europe. Unlike the heteronormative, traditionally Australian MAN, the magazine elevated central concerns of men’s fashion and grooming, which it took seriously and communicated primarily through discourses of class and style. In FMG’s grooming editorials I traced new subjectivities such as the ‘Fragrance Man’ which were founded on the defining ideologies of the 1980s ‘new man’ – self-expression, individualism and sensuality – and on the feminine discourses of well-being, care of the self, health and nurture in the skin care advisories. I also demonstrated how the full-page, full colour advertisements for new grooming products such as men’s skin care and fragrances in particular featured in FMG were also a key site for the introduction of visual representations of the sexualised and eroticised imagery of men typical of the ‘new man’ iconography.
In Chapter 6 I demonstrated that FMG never actually achieved mass-market success, remaining a Sydney-based publication with relatively meagre sales, and I introduced discussions in the press which suggested that the magazine may have struggled to be recognised as a heterosexual publication. The launch of three new men’s magazines in 1995 generated renewed public discussion in the popular press around Australian masculinity, raising concerns that Australian men were not yet ‘ready’ for a men’s general interest magazine and in particular, for a magazine organised around discourses of fashion and style. These discussions suggested that a keen interest in fashion and grooming was considered by many Australian men as an unmasculine display of vanity and “even cause for speculation about sexual preferences” (Parsons, 1995: 14), while Australian men were depicted in the press in the mid-90s as being uncomfortable with looking at other men’s bodies. I suggested in Chapter 6 that these popular media representations of Australian men, taken with the absence of a mainstream style press, indicated that there had been little if any loosening of the representational codes between gay and straight men in Australia, nor had there been any sanctioning of a sexually ambivalent masculine-masculine look that successful 80s men’s style magazines such as
274 Arena, GQ and Esquire had engendered in Britain (Mort, 1996; Nixon, 1996; Crewe, 2003a).
The failure of FMG to find a mass market, and the representations of Australian masculinity presented in the popular press – including how editors imagined their intended readership – shaped how subsequent Australian men’s lifestyle magazines communicated issues of grooming. The short-lived magazines launched in the mid-90s simply ignored grooming and fashion altogether, and in their early issues the new successful titles launched in 1997 displayed ambivalence around representations of grooming and fashion, avoiding representations of male models altogether. However, in my analysis of grooming discourse in Max and Ralph I found that these new magazines, modelled on the British ‘lad mag’ genre presented grooming in a way which was different from any other previous magazines, and that despite being the most ‘bloke-ish’ of the two, Ralph actually became the most grooming-conscious, introducing highly- feminised grooming products and procedures to its readers. I demonstrated in Chapter 6 that Ralph was branded neither ‘gay’ nor ‘un-Australian’ in the press for its high emphasis on matters of appearance because of the way in which it communicated new feminine products to its readership, drawing on traditional discourses of sport, but also injecting ‘larrikin’ and ocker humour and parody, as well as sexualised representations of women into its grooming discourse. I suggested that Ralph in particular played a key role in the opening up of the contemporary men’s grooming market in Australia precisely because it spoke to its readers in such an irreverent, ‘blokey’ and humorous way, sanctioning the use of feminine products and procedures for the ‘ordinary Australian bloke’ via a dialogic conversation which drew on its readers’ own values, attitudes and lifestyles. Which brings me to the crux of the main argument of the thesis.
In Chapter 6 I demonstrated that it was the Australian magazines which were based on the British ‘new lad’ magazines formula – Max, Ralph and FHM – which broke open the Australian men’s magazines market. High-class fashion and style-based publications such as Follow me Gentlemen had failed to find a mass market in Australia precisely because their main emphasis on narcissism, vanity and overt attention to appearance did not
275 resonate with traditional constructions of Australian masculinity; indeed, such qualities as narcissism, vanity and cultured style were the antithesis of popular representations of traditional Australian manhood and were constructed in popular culture as defiantly ‘un- Australian’ characteristics. The ‘lad mags’ on the other hand, and the ‘new lad’ subjectivity they embodied was much closer to traditional constructions of Australian masculinity as ‘unaffected’, working class and largely uninterested in narcissism and vanity. I suggested this close cultural resonance between the British ‘lad’ and the Australian ‘larrikin’ resolved some of the historical tensions around male narcissism between English and Australian masculinities, and that it was this commonality which finally broke open the men’s lifestyle mass magazines market in Australia.
The opening up of the men’s grooming products and lifestyle magazines markets in Australia demonstrates the close relationship between the cultural and economic spheres in the success of contemporary commercial practices, for we can clearly identify an interdependent dialogism between the fields of production and consumption in which the cultures of consumers themselves inform – and indeed determine the success of – the production process. In other words, in order to take off, men’s magazines and grooming products marketing discourse had to resonate with, or invoke the existing cultures of consumers themselves, for I have shown throughout the thesis that the repeated attempts of producers to open up the Australian men’s grooming and magazines markets all failed, eventually succeeding only when the products themselves were discursively culturally realigned to accommodate the values and lifestyles of consumers themselves. In the introduction to the thesis I asked whether the emergence of new magazine masculinities constructed around narcissism and the adoption of previously feminine-coded products and practices indicates significant shifts in the cultural meanings of Australian masculinity. In conclusion, the fact that successful grooming discourse depended on the evocation of traditional gendered ideologies of sexism and homophobia suggests that there has been little change in the configuration of sexual politics, with traditional constructions of Australian hegemonic masculinity retaining its social and cultural centrality despite its being waxed, moisturised, toned and perfumed.
276 Finally, as a cultural history of Australian men’s magazines and representations of masculinity, the thesis addresses some of the issues and concerns of magazine studies I outlined in the Chapter 1. Firstly it aims to contribute to redressing the imbalance of critical analysis afforded to magazines compared to other popular media and cultural forms such as newspapers, radio, television and cinema. Related to this, it aims to demonstrate the twin themes of David Abrahamson’s (2007) concept of ‘magazine exceptionalism’; the need to recognise magazines as important sites of socio-political- cultural meaning outside of the traditional confines of political journalism of newspapers and television news, and the research opportunities offered up by the magazine form through its unique lack of journalistic distance between its producers and consumers. In terms of the isolated ‘brilliant fragments’ which characterise the contemporary magazine studies landscape, the project also aims to bridge the gap between existing Australian and British/American research on masculinity and magazines by introducing Australia into British debates, but also by introducing British debates into Australian research, for few magazine scholars across the northern/southern hemisphere divide actually share or draw on each others’ comparative research findings. Addressing Sammye Johnson’s criticism that magazine research is too focussed on historical content analysis to the detriment of contemporary analysis, and particularly for its benefits in informing the publishing industry itself, while my thesis is actually centred on an historical textual and content analysis, it nevertheless develops a better understanding about how gendered commercial cultures ‘work’ in the context of the contemporary cultural economy. But most importantly, in regards to the stimulation of further research both within and beyond the disparate field of magazine studies, the question remains that if the gendered cultural economy model can work so well the in opening up of commercial male grooming cultures, could we possibly apply the same communication model to other issues of greater social magnitude?
277 Bibliography
Abrahamson, David 2007, ‘Magazine Exceptionalism: The concept, the criteria, the challenge’, Journalism Studies, Volume 8, Number 4, pp. 667-670
Albrechtsen, Janet 2003, ‘Stop tampering with the male,’ The Australian, 11 August, 6
Albury, Katherine 1997, ‘Homie Erotica: Heterosexual Female Desire in The Picture’, Media International Australia, Number 84, pp. 19-27
Alarcon, Camille 2005, ‘New magazines on the market’, B&T, 15 March
Albinski, Nan Bowman 1996, ‘‘Greetings to the Angry Penguins’: Ern Malley, Harry Roskolenko and USA Connections’, Australian Literary Studies, Vol. 17 Issue 3, pp. 293-300
Alchin, L.K, 2005 Elizabethan Era www.elizabethan-era.org.uk, accessed 14 June 2004
Allen, Guy 2006, ‘Easy Reader – Australian post-war motorcycle magazines’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Amnesia 1996, Horwitz Publications, St Leonards, NSW August
Ashelford, Jane 1996, The Art of Dress: Clothes and Society 1500 – 1914, National Trust Enterprises Ltd, London
Baird, Barbara, Kate Borrett & Kylie O'Connell 2007, The Australian Women’s Weekly Index 1946 – 1971, Flinders University SA http://www.ssn.flinders.edu.au/wmst/WWIndex/index.php (accessed 15 June, 2007)
278 Baird, Julia 2003, ‘A Male Look Truly Adored By The Market’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 October, 61
Baker, Tony 2003, ‘There's no last word on jargon’, Adelaide Advertiser, 28 July, 18
Ballaster, Ros, Margaret Beetham, Elizabeth Frazer & Sandra Hebron 1991, Women’s Worlds: Ideology, Femininity and the Woman’s Magazine, Macmillan Education, Hampshire
Bancroft, Angus 1998, ‘The model of a man: masculinity and body image in men’s lifestyle magazines’, in John Richardson & Alison Shaw (eds), The Body in Qualitative Research, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot pp. 26-39.
Bantick, Christopher 2003, ‘One-sided pillow talk’, Courier-Mail, 19 August, 13
Barcan, Ruth 2000, ‘Home on the rage: nudity, celebrity, and ordinariness in the Home Girls/Blokes pages’, Continuum, Volume 14, no.2, pp. 145-158
Barker, Clare 2003 ‘Made Marian – Trends’, Weekend Australian Magazine, 22 November, 40
Barr, Trevor 2000, ‘Telecommunications and the new economy’ in Stuart Cunningham & Graeme Turner (eds). The Media and Communications in Australia, Allen & Unwin, Sydney
Barthel, Diane, 1992 ‘When Men Put on Appearances: Advertising and the Social Construction of Masculinity’ in Steve Craig, (ed) Men, Masculinity and the Media, Sage Publications, California
Bartsch, Phillip 2003, ‘Happy as a metro in mud,’ Courier-Mail Travel supplement, 25 October, H06
279
Baudrillard, Jean 1983, Simulations, Semiotext(e), New York
Baudrillard, Jean 1996, ‘The Masses: The Implosion of the Social in the Media’ in Paul Marris & Sue Thornham (eds), Media Studies: A Reader, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh
Beetham, Margaret 1996, A Magazine of Her Own? : Domesticity and Desire in the Woman's Magazine, 1800-1914, Routledge, London
Benwell, Bethan 2003, ‘Introduction’ in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden, pp. 6-23
Benwell, Bethan 2003, ‘Ambiguous masculinities: Heroism and anti-heroism in the men’s lifestyle magazine’ in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden, pp. 153-166
Benwell, Bethan 2007, ‘New Sexism? Readers’ responses to the use of irony in men’s magazines’, Journalism Studies, Volume 8, Number 4, pp. 539-548
Benzie, Tim 2000 ‘Judy Garland at the gym: gay magazines and gay bodybuilding’, Continuum, Volume 14, no.2, pp. 159-170
Blacker, Terence 2004, ‘Metrosexuality - an excuse to make unacceptable traits appealing’, Canberra Times, 8 January, 17
Bonner, Frances 1997, ‘Magazines’, in Stuart Cunningham & Graeme Turner (eds), The Media in Australia: Industries, Texts, Audiences, 2nd Edition, Allen and Unwin, Sydney
280 Bonner, Frances 2002, ‘Magazines’, in Stuart Cunningham & Graeme Turner (eds), The media and communications in Australia, Allen and Unwin, Sydney
Bonner, Frances 2006, ‘Magazines’, in Stuart Cunningham & Graeme Turner (eds), The media and communications in Australia, Allen and Unwin, Sydney
Bonner, Frances and Susan McKay 2000, ‘Challenges, determination and triumphs: inspirational discourse in women's magazine health stories’ Continuum, Volume 14, no.2, pp. 133-144
Bonner, Frances and Susan McKay 2002 ‘Reporting childhood illness in Australian mass-market women's magazines’, Australian Journal of Communication, Volume 29, no.1 pp. 53-66
Bonner, Frances, Susan McKay and Kathryn Goldie 1998, ‘Caring for the Family: Fifty Years of Health in the Australian Women’s Weekly’ issue 59 pp. 154-164
Bonnington, Moira 2003 Macaronis www.bonn25.freeserve.co.uk/macaroni.html, accessed 30 June, 2004
Bookrags, America 1930 – 1939: Media, Esquire Magazine http://www.bookrags.com/history/america-1930s-media/sub6.html accessed 21 February 2007
Bray, Abigail 1994, ‘The edible woman: reading/ eating disorders and femininity’, Media Information Australia, no.72, pp. 4-10
Briney, Claire 2005, Global Cosmetics Industry, HighBeam Research, http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-132841618.html, accessed 13 October 2007
Bryden-Brown, Sarah 1997, ‘Max launches with a %@#*’, Adnews, 6 June, 3
281
Burbury, Rochelle 1995, ‘Battle Of The Glossies Aims At Chic Guys’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April, 5
Burbury, Rochelle 1997, ‘Publishers put men between the sheets’, The Australian, 10 July, 28
Burbury, Rochelle 2003a, ‘Men spending more on grooming’, Australian Financial Review, 23 June, 47
Burbury, Rochelle 2003b, ‘Metrosexual: This Year's Must - Have Male’, Australian Financial Review, 30 August, 12
Burbury, Rochelle 2003c, ‘New Men's Mags Woo The Metrosexual’, Australian Financial Review, 1 September, 48
Burbury, Rochelle & David Meagher 2003, ‘The Many Faces Of The New Man’, Australian Financial Review, 23 December
Burgmann, Verity, & Jenny Lee (eds) 1988, Constructing a Culture: A People’s History of Australia Since 1788, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, Victoria
Burton, Jenny 2006, ‘Discourses of Modernity: fashion, grooming and consumption in Man: Australian magazine for men (1936-1974)’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Carter, David 2006, ‘Drawing the Line: Art in Australia and the Contemporary Modern’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Carter, David 1999, ‘Good Readers and Good Citizens: Literature, Media and the Nation,
282 Australian Literary Studies, Volume19, no.2, pp.136-151
Carter, David 1993, ‘Paris, Moscow, Melbourne: Some Avant Garde Australian Little Magazines, 1930-1934, Australian Literary Studies, Volume16, no.1 pp. 57-66
Casey, Marcus 2003, ‘Marketers define a new target: men’, Daily Telegraph, 2 September, 17
Castells, Manuel 2000, ‘Materials for an Exploratory Theory of the Network Society’ in John Hartley and Roberta E. Pearson (eds) American Cultural Studies : A Reader, Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York
Chapman, Rowena 1988, ‘The Great Pretender: Variations on the New Man Theme’, in Rowena Chapman & Jonathon Rutherford (eds), Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, Lawrence and Wishart, London, pp. 225-248
Clarke, Frank G 2003, Australia in a Nutshell: A Narrative History, Rosenberg, NSW
Close, Alan 1997, ‘Blokes on top’, The Australian, 19 July
Cockington, James 1989, ‘Spin us another one’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 June, 24
Cockington, James 1989, ‘Stop the presses, they want to get off’, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November, 24
Cotes, Alison 2003, ‘Taste of a genteel era’, Courier-Mail, 2 September, 14
Constantino, Maria 1997, Men’s Fashion in the Twentieth Century: From Frock Coats to Intelligent Fibres, BT Batsford Ltd, London
283 Cook, Jackie 2000, ‘Men’s Magazines at the Millennium: new spaces, new selves’, Continuum, Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 171-185
Collins, Jim 1989, Uncommon cultures : popular culture and post-modernism, Routledge New York
Coyle, Diane 1998, The Weightless World: Strategies for Managing the Digital Economy, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Crewe, Ben 2003a, Representing Men: Cultural Production and Producers in the Men’s Magazine Market, Berg, Oxford
Crewe, Ben 2003b, ‘Class, masculinity and editorial identity in the reformation of the UK men’s press’ in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden, pp. 91-109.
Dale, David and Malcolm Knox 1995, ‘Stay in Touch’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August, 28
Davis, Joan 1993, ‘Salt: An Australian Second World War journal and its contemporaries’, Australian Literary Studies, Vol. 16 Issue 1 pp. 110-116
Day, Anna 1999, ‘Australian journalism research index’ Australian Studies in Journalism, No. 8, pp. 239-333
Dapin, Mark 2004, Sex and Money: How I lived, breathed, read, wrote, loved, hated, dreamed and drank men’s magazines, Allen and Unwin, Sydney
Dennis, Anthony 2003, ‘Vive L'evolution’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 November, Supplement, 10
284 Devine, Miranda 1997, ‘New Lads mag breasts the bars’, Daily Telegraph, 17 July, 10
Devine, Miranda 2003, ‘The Pain Of The Modern Male Eunuch’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 September, 17
Dodson, Diana 2006, ‘Bloke’s grooming: Cosmetics and toiletries for men Downunder’, Euromonitor International Archive, http://www.euromonitor.com/Blokes_grooming_Cosmetics_and_toiletries_for_men_Do wnunder, accessed 25th February 2007
Dolin, Tim 2006, ‘Lawson’s collapse: Australian literary modernity and literary destitution’ paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Dollinger, André 2000, An introduction to the history and culture of Pharaonic Egypt http://nefertiti.iwebland.com/timelines/topics/cosmetics.htm, accessed 14 June 2004
Dotson, Edison Wayne 1999, Behold the Man: The Hype and Selling of Male Beauty in Media and Culture, Haworth Press, New York, London
Dow, Steve 2005, ‘Cosmetics make up the man’, The Age, 30 April, 6
Driscoll, Catherine 1998, ‘Becoming bride’, UTS Review, Volume 4, no.2, pp. 138-154 du Gay, Paul and Michael Pryke (eds) 2000, Cultural Economy: Cultural Analysis and Commercial Life, Sage, London du Gay, Paul (ed) 1997, Production of Culture, Cultures of Production, Sage, London
Dunhill 2007 http://www.dunhill.com (accessed 30 September 2007)
285 Dunstan, David 1988, ‘Boozers and Wowsers’ in Burgmann, V and Jenny Lee, J (eds), Constructing a Culture: A People’s History of Australia Since 1788, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, Victoria, pp. 96-123
Dyer, Richard 1997, White, Routledge, London, New York
Dyson, Lynda 2007, ‘Customer Magazines: The rise of the “glossies” as brand extensions’, Journalism Studies Volume 8, Number 4 pp. 634-640
Edwards, Julie and Simon Chapman 2000 ‘Using magazines for adolescent females as a vehicle for health promotion’, Health Promotion Journal of Australia, Volume 10, no.3, pp. 206-212
Edwards, Tim 1997, Men in the Mirror: Men’s Fashion, Masculinity and Consumer Society, Cassell, London
Edwards, Tim 2003, ‘Sex, booze and fags: masculinity, style and men’s magazines’ in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden, pp. 132-145
Faludi, Susan 1999, Stiffed : the betrayal of the modern man, Chatto & Windus, London
Ferguson, Marjorie 1983, Forever Feminine: women's magazines and the cult of femininity, Gower, Aldershot Filatoff, Natalie 1987, ‘Making Scents’ in Follow me Gentlemen, Follow Me Gentlemen Publications, Paddington, New South Wales, February
FitzSimons, Peter 2003, ‘Time to put the ugh boot into men who moisturise,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 June, 13
Follow me Gentlemen 1984-1987, Follow Me Gentlemen Publications, Paddington, NSW
286
Fourie, Julie 1999 A New England Dandy in King George’s Court www.jolique.com/social_status/yankee_doodle.htm, accessed 30 June 2004
Fox, Catherine 2003, ‘Culture’, Australian Financial Review, 12 September, 40
Franklin, Bob 2007, Editorial Note, Journalism Studies, Volume 8, Number 4
Gare, Shelley 2000, ‘Lads on parade / Where the boys are’ The Australian, 24 February
Garelick, Rhonda K 2001, ‘The Layered Look: Coco Chanel and Contagious Celebrity’ in Susan Fillin-Yeh (ed) Dandies : fashion and finesse in art and culture, University Press New York, New York
Gauntlett, David 2002, Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction, Routledge, London, New York
Gill, Rosalind 2003, ‘Power and the production of subjects: a genealogy of the New Man and the New Lad’, in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden, pp. 36-52
Gillette, 2006 http://www.gillette.com/company/historicaltimeline.asp (accessed 30 June, 2006)
Glover, Dennis 1997, ‘National complacency? Australia in the Later Menzies Years: The Evidence of Prospect, The Observer and Nation, 1958-64’, Journal of Australian Studies, Numbers 54-55, pp. 176-187
Goldner, Viva 2003, ‘New Wave - Everyday thongs get the flick as Coast goes for metrosexual chic’, Daily Telegraph, 27 September, Local, 1
287 Goldstein, Nikki 2003, ‘His ‘n’ Hers’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 December, 32
Gordon, Ian 1992, ‘The Symbol of a Nation: Ginger Meggs and Australian National Identity’, Journal of Australian Studies, no.34 pp. 1-14
Gotting, Peter 2003, ‘The rise of the metrosexual,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 March, 13
Grimshaw, Patricia, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath and Marian Quartly 1994, Creating a Nation: 1788 – 1990, McPhee Gribble, Victoria
Hartley, John 1996, Popular Reality: Journalism, Modernity and Popular Culture, Arnold, London, New York
Hartley, John 2002, Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts, Third Edition, Routledge, London, New York
Hayward, Catherine, & Bill Dunn 2001, Man About Town: The Changing Image of the Modern Male, Hamlyn, London
Henderson, Margaret 1999, ‘Some Tales of Two Mags: Sports Magazines as Glossy Reservoirs of Male Fantasy’, Journal of Australian Studies, Issue 62, pp. 64-75
Hermes, Joke 1995, Reading Women's Magazines : An Analysis Of Everyday Media Use, Polity Press, Cambridge
Holmes, Tim 2007, ‘Mapping the Magazine’, Journalism Studies, Volume 8, Number 4, pp. 510-521
288 Hornery, Andrew, 1997 ‘Men's Mags - It's All About Position, Position, Position’, Sydney Morning Herald, 29 May, 36
Hornery, Andrew 1999, ‘It's Bi, Not Bye-bye For GQ’, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November, 31
Hornery, Andrew & Jonathon Pearlman 2003, ‘Blatant Homersexuals’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 July, 18
Inglis K.S. and Jan Brazier (eds) 1989, Nation: The Life Of An Independent Journal Of Opinion, 1958-1972 Melbourne University Press, Victoria
Jackson, Peter, Nick Stevenson, & Kate Brooks 2001, Making Sense of Men’s Magazines, Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Cambridge
Jameson, Frederic 1984, ‘Postmodernism or, the cultural logic of late capitalism’, New Left Review, July – August, no. 146
Jenkins, Henry 2004, ‘The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence,’ in International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 7 (1), pp. 33-43
Jinman, Richard 1997, ‘Presses Roll To Entice Our Stylish New Man’, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 March, 3
Johnson, Ben 2003, ‘Male order cosmetics - Men protect their skin’, Sunday Telegraph, 13 July, 23
Johnson, Rob 1997, ‘In The Men's Room’, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 April, 8
289 Johnson Sammye 2007, ‘Why Should They Care: The relationship of academic scholarship to the magazine industry’, Journalism Studies, Volume 8, Number 4, pp. 522- 526
Johnson-Woods, Toni 2004, Pulp : A Collector's Book Of Australian Pulp Fiction Covers, National Library of Australia, Canberra
Johnson-Woods, Toni 2006, ‘Pulp Modernism: Or ho I learned to love pulp and stop worrying’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Jones, Megan 1995a ‘Magazine For 30s-something Men’, The Age, 5 January, 19
Jones, Megan 1995b, ‘Men's Magazine Not Right Stuff For Advertisers’, The Age, 17 August, 24
Jupp, J, 1994, ‘Identity’ in Richard Nile (ed) Australian Civilisation, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, pp. 74-92
Kelly, Veronica 2000, ‘‘Un Sans Culotte’: The Bulletin’s Early Theatre Criticism and the Masculine Bohemian Masquerade, Australian Literary Studies, Vol. 19 Issue 3, pp.254- 269
Koch, Philip 2003, ‘Craig Wing is the macho face of skincare’, Sunday Telegraph, 30 November, 9
Lam, May 1989, ‘Getting ‘The Edge’ on ‘Dolly”, Australian Left Review, Number 113, pp. 51-52
290 Lang, Anouk 2006, ‘Judith Wright and Frank Scott: Gendering Modernist Networks in Australia and Canada’, Australian Literary Studies, Vol. 22 Issue 4, pp. 403-416
Langford, Rachael 2003, ‘Metrophobes beware’, Courier-Mail, 7 July, 12
Lash, Scott and John Urry 1994, Economies of Signs and Space, Sage, London
Laurie, Ross 1998, ‘Fantasy worlds: the depiction of women and the mating game in men's magazines in the 1950s’, Journal of Australian Studies, Number 56, pp. 116-123
Lawe Davis, Chris 2006, ‘The Australian Women’s Weekly – a study on 1930s modernity’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Lawrence, Geoffrey and David Rowe (eds) 1986, Power Play : Essays in the Sociology of Australian sport, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney
Lawrence, Jessica 2003, ‘Designer creates make-up line for image-conscious blokes - What a little beauty, mate!’, Sunday Mail, 28 December, 25
Lawrence, Mark 1995, ‘For Men Only’, The Age, 3 May, 19
Lee, Jenny 2004, ‘Clem Christesen and His Legacy’, Australian Literary Studies, Vol. 21 Issue 3, pp. 410-412
Lloyd, Brian 1992, ‘Policing the Modern’, Journal of Australian Studies, No.32, pp. 40- 46
Luke, Carmen 1994, ‘Childhood and parenting in popular culture’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, Volume 30, no.3, pp. 289-302
291 Lumby, Catharine 1994, ‘Feminism and the media: the biggest fantasy of all’, Media Information Australia, no.72, pp. 49-54 le Masurier, Megan 2006, ‘Reading the flesh: the Cleo centrefold and popular feminism in Australia’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Leadbeater, Charles 2000, Living on Thin Air: The New Economy, Penguin, London
Lindesay, Vane 1983, The Way We Were: Australian Popular Magazines 1856-1969, Oxford University Press, Melbourne
Lovett, Ian 2003, ‘Who's dandy on the men's fashion scene’, Daily Telegraph, 8 July, 23
McCracken, Ellen 1993, Decoding Women’s Magazines: From “Mademoiselle” to "Ms" Macmillan, Basingstoke.
McGinness, Mark 2003, ‘From FOP to metroman,’ The Australian, 19 April, 19
McLaren, John 1990, ‘Liberals and Conservatives’, Journal of Australian Studies, no.26, May pp. 94-99
McLaughlin, Thomas 1996, Street Smarts and Critical Theory: Listening to the Vernacular, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison
McKay, Susan 2006, ‘Framing health information in teenage magazines’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
292 McMahon, Anthony 1998, ‘Blokus Domesticus: the Sensitive New Age Guy in Australia’, in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 56, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, pp. 147-157.
McNicoll, D.D & Emma-Kate Symons 2003, ‘Metronome of metrochic’, The Australian, 21 November, 11
McRobbie, Angela 1991, Feminism and Youth Culture : From 'Jackie' to 'Just Seventeen' Unwin Hyman, Cambridge
McRobbie, Angela 2000, Feminism and Youth Culture, Routledge, New York
Maginnis, Tara 1996, The Costumers Manifesto http://www.costumes.org, accessed 14 June 2004
MAN 1936-1974, K.G Murray, Sydney, NSW
Matthews, Jill Julius 2006, ‘A Proliferation of Magazines in Sydney 1890-1930’ paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Martin, Geoffrey Lee 1995, Global News; New Aussie Titles Vie for Men, Advertising Age, 26 June, 12C
Martyn-Jones, Matt 2003, ‘Narcissist, Metrosexual, Call Us What You Like, We're Out And Proud,’ The Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August, 11
Mason, Andrew 2006, ‘Modernity in Australian Radio Magazines’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
293 MAX 1997-1999, Next Media, Redfern, NSW
Megalogenis, George 2003, ‘The future shapers’, The Australian, 29 November, 22
Men’s Stuff 1995, Mogul Media, Balmain, NSW May/June
Melocco, Jennifer 2003, ‘Spit and polish mix of the new urbane males’, Daily Telegraph, 7 July, 19
Metcalf, Fran 2003, ‘Maid to suit man’, Courier-Mail, 8 December, 12
Mikosza, Janine 2003, ‘In Search of the ‘Mysterious Australian Male: Editorial Practices In Men’s Lifestyle Magazines’, Media International Australia, Number 107 pp. 134-143
Mistilis, Evan 1999, ‘Max no match for Ralph and FHM’, Adnews, 10 September, 10
Moore, Clive 1998a, ‘Guest Editorial: Australian Masculinities in Australia’, in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 56, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, pp. 1-16.
Moore, Clive 1998b, ‘Colonial Manhood and Masculinities’, in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 56, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, pp. 35-50
Moore, Clive 1998c ‘Behaving Outrageously: Contemporary Gay Masculinity’, Journal of Australian Studies, Number 56, pp. 158-168
Mort, Frank 1988, ‘Boy’s Own? Masculinity, Style and Popular Culture’ in Rowena Chapman & Jonathon Rutherford (eds), Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, Lawrence and Wishart, London, pp. 193-224.
294 Mort, Frank 1996, Cultures of consumption : masculinities and social space in late twentieth-century Britain, Routledge, London, New York
Müller, Hans-Jürgen 2003, http://www.muehle-shaving.com
Mulvey, Laura 1990, ‘Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema’ in Patricia Erens (ed), Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis
Murrie, Linzi 1998, ‘The Australian Legend: Writing Australian Masculinity/Writing ‘Australian’ Masculine’, in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 56, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, pp. 68-77.
Murphy, Cherelle 2003, ‘Metrosexual And Proud Of It’, Australian Financial Review, 12 July, 4
Ndalianis, Angela 1995, ‘Muscle, excess and rupture: female bodybuilding and gender construction’, Media Information Australia, Number 75, pp. 13-23
Nixon, Sean 2003, Advertising Cultures: Gender, Commerce, Creativity, Sage Publications, London
Nixon, Sean 1996, Hard looks: Masculinities, spectatorship and contemporary consumption, UCL Press, London
O'Brien, Denis 1982, The Weekly: A lively and nostalgic celebration of Australia through 50 years of its most popular magazine, Penguin, Sydney
Osborne, Roger 2006, ‘A Magazine for the 1920s: L.L. Woolacott and the Sydney Triad’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
295 Osgerby, Bill 2003, ‘A pedigree of the consuming male: masculinity, consumption and the American ‘leisure class’’ in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden
Pearce, Sharyn 1997, ‘From bush battler to city editor: Louisa Lawson and the Dawn’, Journal of Australian Studies, Number 54-55, pp. 12-21
Parsons, Belinda 1995, ‘The Bloke Is Back’, The Age, 4 February, 14
Penberthy, David 2003, ‘Gut reaction - it's a thing of beauty’, Daily Telegraph, 18 July, 20
Phillips, Liam 2003, ‘Men scrub up to join a new style trend - MAKING THE MAN,’ The West Australian, 9 July
Piccoli, Adrian 2003, ‘Meet the metrosexual's country cousin’, Daily Telegraph, 23 September, 15
Powerhouse Museum Sydney 2007, Online catalogue http://www.powerhousemuseum.com (accessed 13 January 2007)
Quinion, Michael 2007 World Wide Words, http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-tan1.htm (accessed 15 February 07)
Raftos, Maree, Debra Jackson and Judy Mannix 1998, ‘Idealised versus tainted femininity: discourses of the menstrual experience in Australian magazines that target young women’, Nursing Inquiry, Volume 5, no.3, pp. 174-186
RALPH 1997-1999, ACP Publishing, Sydney, NSW
296 Ratcliff, Carter 2001, ‘Dandyism and Abstraction in a Universe Defined by Newton’ in Susan Fillin-Yeh (ed), Dandies : fashion and finesse in art and culture, New York University Press, New York
Rickard, John 1998, ‘Lovable Larrikins and Awful Ockers’ in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 56, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane, pp. 78-86.
Rifkin, Jeremy 2000, The Age of Access: How the Shift from Ownership to Access is Transforming Modern Life Penguin, London
Ring, Anne 1999, ‘Cosmetic surgery magazines: mass mediating the new face of medical practice’, Australian Studies in Journalism, Number 8, pp. 118-138
Ring, Anne 1997, ‘Keeping the sexist flame alive: why do magazines keep doing it?’, Australian Studies in Journalism, Number 6, pp. 3-40
Rocchiccioli, Roland 2004, ‘Macho Makeovers’, The Age, 18 February, 8
Rutherford, Jonathon 1988, ‘Who’s That Man’ in Rowena Chapman & Jonathon Rutherford (eds), Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, Lawrence and Wishart, London, pp. 21-67.
Rutherford, Jonathon 1996, ‘Introduction’ in Rowena Chapman & Jonathon Rutherford (eds), Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinity, Lawrence and Wishart
Ross, Emily 2003, ‘Suit Yourself’, Business Review Weekly, 31 July, 78
Saywell, Cherise and Jeffrey Pittam 1996, ‘The discourses of HIV and AIDS in women's magazines: feature articles in Australian Cleo and Cosmopolitan’ Australian Journal of Communication, Volume 23, no.1, pp. 46-63
297 Schirato, Tony & Susan Yell 1999, ‘The ‘new’ men’s magazines and the performance of masculinity’, Media International Australia, No. 92, pp. 81-90
Scott, Joanne 1998, ‘Dear editor: women and their magazines in interwar Australia’ Journal of Australian Studies, Number 58 pp. 75-83
Scott, Judy 1997, ‘Reading the male’, The Australian, 18 June, 9
Senior, Nicole and Vanessa Lake 2007, ‘Cooking up a storm: the health implications of fats and oils used in popular magazines’, Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia, Volume 14, no.1, pp. 15-20
Sheridan, Susan 2006, ‘Australian Letters and Post-war Literary Modernism’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Sheridan, Susan 2000, ‘The ‘Australian woman’ and her migrant others in the postwar Australian Women's Weekly, Continuum, Volume 14, no.2, pp. 121-132
Sheridan, Susan, Barbara Baird, Kate Borrett and Lyndall Ryan 2001, Who Was That Woman: The Australian Women's Weekly In The Postwar Years University of New South Wales Press, Sydney
Shevelow, Kathryn 1989, Women and Print Culture : The Construction Of Femininity In The Early Periodical, Routledge, London, New York
Shoebridge, Neil 1995a, ‘Entertainment and Fruit Top The List Of 1995’s Hit Products’, Business Review Weekly, 18 December, 78
Shoebridge, Neil 1995b ‘Shoebridge’, Business Review Weekly, 22 May, 171
298 Shoebridge, Neil 2003 ‘The Metrosexual Myth’ Business Review Weekly, 18 September, 63
Simpson, Mark 1994, ‘Here Come the Mirror Men - Metrosexual Men’, The Independent, 15 November, 22
Simpson, Mark 2002, ‘Meet the Metrosexual’, Salon.com, San Francisco retrieved November 2002 from http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/07/22/metrosexual, accessed 18 September, 2003
Simpson, Mark 2003, ‘Metrosexual? That rings a bell …’ http://www.marksimpson.com/pages/journalism/metrosexual_jos.html, accessed 18 September, 2003
Smiedt, David 2003, ‘Confessions Of A Metrosexual’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11 September, 38
Stephens, Tony 2003, ‘Mate, you're a LEGEND, The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 May, 4
Stevenson, Nick, Peter Jackson & Kate Brooks 2003, ‘Reading men’s lifestyle magazines: cultural power and the information society’ in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden, pp. 112-128.
Strickland, Katrina 1996, ‘Amnesia mag fails after boofheads forget to buy’, The Australian, 7 November, 26
Strinati, Dominic 1995, An Introduction to the Theories of Popular Culture, Routledge, London, New York
299 Stuart, Lurline 1979, Nineteenth Century Australian Periodicals: An Annotated Bibliography Hale & Iremonger, Sydney
Symons, Emma-Kate and Grace Nicholas 1997, ‘Magazines show muscle’, Daily Telegraph, 12 June, 13
Tasker, Meg 2006, ‘W.H. Fitchett’s Life: A Record for Busy Folk’ paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Tom, Emma 2003, ‘Trend time - boys, wear a bra - girls, wear some vegetables’, The Australian, 2 July, 13
Travellog, 2004 Hairdressing http://inventors.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.queensnewyork.com/ history/hair.html, accessed 14 June 2004
Tregenza, John 1964, Australian Little Magazines 1923-1954 : Their Role In Forming And Reflecting Literary Trends, Libraries Board of South Australia, Adelaide
Vickery, Ann 2006, ‘Tales from the Velour Underground: Irreverence, Revolution, nd Ratification in the Little Poetry Magazines of the Late 60s and Early 70s’, paper presented at the Magazines and Modernity in Australasia conference, University of Queensland 8-9 December
Walsh, Brian 1997 A (much) Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland http://www.alia.ie/tirnanog/sochis/sochis01.html#xviii, accessed 14 June 2004
300 Webby, Elizabeth 1982, Early Australian Poetry: An Annotated Bibliography Of Original Poems Published In Australian Newspapers, Magazines & Almanacks Before 1850, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney
Wheaton, Belinda 2003, ‘Lifestyle sport magazines: constructions of sporting masculinities’ in Bethan Benwell (ed), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines, Blackwell Publishing/The Sociological Review, Oxford and Malden, pp. 193-196
White, Cynthia 1970, Women's Magazines, 1693-1968, Michael Joseph, London
White, Richard 1979, ‘The Importance of Being Man’, in Peter Spearrit and David Walker (eds), Australian Popular Culture, Allan & Unwin, Sydney
Wikipedia 2007, Alfred Dunhill Ltd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Dunhill%2C_Ltd (accessed 30 September 2007).
Wilding, Raelene 2006 ‘Locating editorials and advertising in wedding magazines’, Media International Australia, Number 119, pp. 74-84
Willey, Keith 1988, ‘A Hard, Dry Humour for a Hard, Dry Land’ in Burgmann, V and Jenny Lee, J (eds), Constructing a Culture: A People’s History of Australia Since 1788, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, Victoria, pp. 156-169
Williams, Gabrielle and Kathleen Fahy 2004, ‘Whose interests are served by the portrayal of childbearing women in popular magazines for women’?, Australian Midwifery, Volume 17, no.1, pp. 11-16
Wilson, Sarah 2003, ‘No more Mr Nice Guy ... please,’ Herald-Sun, 18 April, 18
Winship, Janice 1987, Inside Women's Magazines, Pandora, London
301 Wolf, Naomi 1991, The beauty myth : how images of beauty are used against women, Vintage, London
Wright, Lea 1987, ‘Northern Star buys Follow Me Group’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 February, 15
302