The advertisement in which I have chosen is Gucci’s campaign for their “Top of the Tier” clothing line. This advertisement shows a man sitting on a wooden cabinet, with a woman lying on the man on her front, and the man placing his hands on the woman’s bottom. This advertisement reinforces the traditional gender norms and stereotypes of men dominating and overpowering women, and also putting women in a provocative and sexual position.
The reinforcement of the traditional gender norms is being portrayed by both the models’ clothing, postures, and expressions. In the advertisement, the man is wearing a suit and the woman is wearing a tight-bodied dress and high heels, which reveals the norms of men being dominant as they are in charge of working and doing businesses, whilst women only needed to dress up to please men using their looks and sexuality. As Kaiser writes: “Articulating the interplay between masculine and feminine style-fashion-dress, the men draw attention to the absurdity of hegemonic masculine norms.” (Kasier 2012, 146) Moreover, in this advertisement, the man portrays the masculine norms by having a look of confidence and arrogance, maintaining the tough and serious image of a stereotypical man with powers. He also puts his hands on the woman as to declare the dominance and exert overpowering, almost as if the woman was an item and he was claiming his property. In contrast, the woman was put in a rather vulnerable position, where she is being objectified and looked down by the man, having zero power and superiority.