Mediated Images

The following paper provides overviews and reviews of several books concerning images and representation in the media, visual manipulation, and how viewers pick up on cultural cues, which enable them to identify with the images they are seeing.  After reading this you will never look at a magazine cover, a billboard or a movie advertisement the same way again!

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/ISS/ISS2602/ISS2602l.pdf

The Gaze, the Male Body, and Advertising, by JE Schroeder

In the following scholarly article JE Schroeder argues that male bodies have become the subject of "the gaze" that historically - in art, painting and advertising - focused on female objects.  The three ads that he analyzes to support this argument are by no means, as he points out, a representative sample.  They do, however, show that a meaningful shift has occurred in subjecting men to this same "male gaze" that has, until very recently, objectified only women.  The article is .doc, and so you'll have to download it to read it.  The link I am attaching is to the Google search that brings up the downloadable file ("The Gaze, the Male Body, and Advertising:  A Visual Approach," by Johnathan E. Schroeder).  Enjoy.

http://www.google.com/search?q=google+scholar&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGLL_en#sclient=psy&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us%3AIE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGLL_en&source=hp&q=the+gaze%2C+the+male+body%2C+and+advertising&pbx=1&oq=the+gaze%2C+the+male+body%2C+and+advertising&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=4388l13447l0l14113l48l30l3l0l0l1l717l10327l3-10.3.7.2l22l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=436beb31aaabf9cf&biw=1280&bih=607

Rosemary's Baby and Alien

A link to a fascinating article by Dr. A. Robin Hoffman regarding the "interest in humans' potential to incubate, literally, their own destruction," which Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Alien (1979) share:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10436928.2011.596386