Susan Bordo

This is a chapter from her book The Male Body. This chapter explains her thoughts on the use of the male body in advertising. Bordo explains how and why she first got interested in looking for new advertisements of males in magazines. Bordo explicitly depicts her thoughts on how people look at the male body, how it was used in advertising, movies, and our culture overall. She also goes into how over time the use of male bodies has changed in our culture. Bordo uses a lot of pictures and actual advertisements to draw you in as a reader and get you thinking about the depictions of male physique in your own way. The author uses many major clothing companies as examples for her depictions like Calvin Klein, Haggar, Dockers, and Gucci. She expresses that these companies and more have paved the way for the use of male bodies as “sexual objects” on purpose. Her idea relies on the entire belief that sex sales, which it does. Her thoughts go in depth on this subject, as far as to say gay stylists helped the world along with this idea. One of the author's main points is wrapped up in the last excerpt of the chapter. She goes into great detail about how the world is now obsessed with looking thin and muscular or fit. From this conformity she explains that advertisements and movies have changed to fit the changing population. She uses an earlier example of John Travolta and how he was depicted in Saturday Night Fever as a younger man and later leaned up and sculpted like a Greek statue for the sequel staying alive. She expresses how she is old fashioned and wished the male body could be depicted as more natural nowadays.
1) This essay by Susan Bordo is indeed a long essay. It consists of forty five pages of detailed analysis of men in advertising. However, Bordo’s writing style is unique and fun making it an enjoyable read. I feel that by breaking the reading into sections, as Susan has done makes the essay easier to understand. Also, Bordo writes in the first