Susan Bordo's essay: key arguments and analysis

Male Body

Cultural concepts of beauty have "(re)discovered the male body," according to Susan Bardo. The male body has gone underground, Bardo notes, due to a combination of homophobia and misogyny. While women's bodies have turned into objects of desire and symbols of submission, the male body has evolved into a vehicle for dominance. Thus, images of both male and female bodies in popular culture do have political overtones. In the chapter of the Male Body entitled "beauty (re)discovers the male body," Bardo explores the changing notions of male sexuality, male self-consciousness, and male sexual objectification.

Classical images of male bodies, such as those in ancient Greek and Roman art, did not shy way from raw depictions of penises and scrotums, ripping abdominal muscles, quadriceps, and perfectly chiseled buttocks. Yet Bardo's book chapter is about more than just the changing (or enduring) depictions of male bodies and male sexuality. "beauty (re)discovers the male body" explores complex and entwined themes including those related to voyeurism, narcissism, and homoeroticism. The author addresses her own relationship with images of men vs. images of women and discusses the double standards besieging both genders.

Central to Bardo's thesis is the way that underwear and other clothing advertisements have totally transformed -- reinvented and resurrected -- the classical image of the idealized male body. Calvin Klein in particular is a subject of great interest for Bardo, who studies the way underwear ads have brushed off the dust of male figures to present new nudes. Clothing designers have, as Bardo suggests, taken the lead in allowing formally forbidden "female" characteristics to be projected onto the "mainstream conceptions of manliness,"(p. 168). By this, Bardo does not suggest that there are any gender absolutes but only points out that the concepts of masculinity and femininity are socially constructed. As Bardo insists, it is absolute falsehood to say that men are more visually oriented than females with regards to getting turned on by erotic images. In fact, men may only be hardwired to respond to erotic images for the very reason that they have been taught to do so.

Bardo found it "thrilling and disconcerting" at the same time to encounter a "commercial representation of a male body that seemed to deliberately invite me to linger over it," (p. 168). It had always been images of females scantily clad, pulling stockings over taught slim legs, looking demurely away or shyly at the viewer. Now it was men placed in similar stances and situations. Far from feminize them to the degree of stripping these male models of their masculinity, such images enhance their male beauty. Their male beauty is resurrected from the idealized classical Greek vision and reinvented for modern audiences.

Sometimes male models are depicted in poses of "willing subordination," (p. 171). Their hip is "cocked in the snaky s-curve usually reserved for depictions of women's bodies," notes Bardo (p. 171). On the other hand, men are sometimes depicted in the opposite stance: as overtly dominant. The difference between the "willing subordination" and the cocky gaze is that the former is a pose formally reserved for females whereas the latter epitomizes male social roles of dominance and political control. The individual who gazes directly at the viewer is confident and in control, whereas the individual who bears his or her behind and looks away from the viewer is saying "take me, do what you want with me." Interestingly, Bardo discovers a racial and age disparity among the images. African-American males are more likely to be shown in a dominant role, whereas young males are more likely to be represented as submissive (p. 192).

Thus, Bardo explores the language of visual imagery through a direct discussion of the male body. Whereas the female body has been the de facto tableau on which artists and advertisers have projected their ideals, now the male body is similarly up for grabs. The equalization of the genders in the realm of advertising must in some way reflect an emerging gender equity.

Still, though, Bardo notes that advertisements are leagues ahead of film when it comes to equalizing depictions of male and female bodies. Bardo points out that the portrayal of male vs. female orgasms bears political messages. In movies, males are shown to be in control of their bodies to the extent that their orgasms are less outrageous and more sober than those of women. The man is shown to be in control, not letting go or surrendering. As Bardo puts it, "She's being transported to another world, he's the pilot of the ship that takes her there," (p. 191).