Traditional Interpretation of Images: Class Stratification in John Berger's Ways of Seeing and Sexual Politics in Susan Bordo's Hunger as Ideology
The proliferation of popular or mass culture following after the emergence of the Industrial Revolution in 19th century gave birth to new ideologies that seek to understand how these new social phenomena (pop culture and industrialization/capitalism) affected the life of human society over the years. One of the most popular theories that developed in light of the Industrial Revolution is the critical theory perspective, which posits that in the society, there will always be an existing conflict between the elite or bourgeois and middle class/working or proletariat classes. Indeed, this stratification in terms of race, class, gender, and even religion has become the focus of modern studies nowadays. John Berger and Susan Bordo, adopting the classical Marxist approach, attempted to analyze how popular culture has affected human society, and what underlying messages can be discerned in the process of 'de-mystifying' the mystification of images that they discuss in the texts Ways of Seeing and Hunger as Ideology.
In Bordo's discourse, the focus of analysis is on images portrayed in commercial advertisements. Ads, as an integral part of capitalism (through consumerism) and popular culture, are also media through which the ideology of the ideal female image as imposed by the society is indirectly illustrated. Bordo studies these messages for any underlying messages (through critical analysis) in commercial ads that help propagate ideologies that stratify the female gender, perhaps the most stratified gender/sex in the society. The author's main thrust in Hunger is to illustrate not only the prevailing ideologies about women, but also the power relations, or 'sexual politics,' that occur between males and society against females.
According to Bordo, images of women in ads are...
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