GQ - Language & Representation

Language: Media factsheet 

Complete the following tasks using Media Factsheet 252 - The Codes and Conventions of Print Magazines available in our Media Factsheet archive here. Answer the following questions:

1) What are the different magazine genres highlighted on page 2 and how do they link to our magazine CSPs?

General Interest -This type of magazine is published for a wider audience to provide information in a general manner, and the focus is on many different subjects. They typically cover topics like food, fashion or home and gardening. They have a combination of stories, pictures and advertising, and are bound together with a glossy cover.

Special Interest -These are niche interest magazines that offer in-depth content on a given area or topic.

Professional -A professional magazine. A periodical published by the governing body of a profession. The standard of quality of such a periodical may be similar to that of a scholarly publication.

2) Look at the section on GQ on page 2. How do they suggest that GQ targets its audience?

They are targeting men through fashion and image, but also appealing to their intelligence and needs for information about culture. Also Men’s and women’s magazines usually target their demographics in very different ways.

3) What does the factsheet say about GQ cover stars?

GQ selects their cover stars very carefully.

4) Pick out five of the key conventions of magazine front covers and explain what they communicate to an audience.

The Master head- uses san/san-serif font at the top is the publication name.

Main cover line- written content of interest not related to the central image.

Puffs-left or right hand corner that are often inside a graphic element.

Pull quotes-writing that has humour or even shock towards the audience to form relationship.

Numbers-quick read for busy or people in a rush.

5) What is a magazine’s ‘house style’? How would you describe GQ’s house style? 

The house style of a magazine refers to its conventional “look” in relation to its writing and formatting. The house style establishes brand identity and helps to distinguish one magazine from the other. This is necessary if the magazine is in a shop where the crowding of titles on the shelf means that the eyes of the consumer must be caught. i feel like the GQ  magazines uses brands and famous celebrities with good repuations to represnt their front cover in a unique way and also to easily catches the audiences eyes. 

Language: CSP analysis

Use your annotated CSP pages to help answer the following questions. You can find an annotated copy of the GQ pages here (you'll need your Greenford Google login).

1) Write a summary of our annotations on the media language choices on the cover of GQ - e.g. colour scheme, typography, language, photographic codes etc. 

 Colour scheme: Blue/black background seen as traditionally masculine man and target audience

 Photographic codes: 'Art + fashion' example of GQ new masculinity

Language :Cover lines keeping with traditional GQ

Typography : art, inky typography as if hand written

Narrative: Propps character theory of villain

Technical codes: image medium close up with high key lighting and makeup that makes him look beat up

Actor: facial expression shows aggression while costume shows muscles and strength

2) Identify three specific aspects/conventions/important points (e.g. cover lines, colour scheme, use of text, image etc.) from each page/feature of the CSP that you could refer to in a future exam. Explain why that particular aspect of the CSP is important - think about connotations, representations, audience pleasures, reception theory etc.

Front cover: Robert Pattinson image - Art & Fashion issue

He represents his fashion in a unique way as he doesn't look as masculine with the costume however he looks like he is also maybe a gang member and ready to fight which reinforces masculinity. 

Inside pages: Jonathan Bailey feature and fashion shoot

However ,The inside could also make audience wonder why GQ has made it into a story telling session where Jonathan tells his experiences as being a male in modern society rather than showing clothing/fashions. 

 3) Apply narrative theories to GQ - Todorov's equilibrium, Propp's character types, Barthes' action or enigma codes, Levi-Strauss's binary opposition. How can we use narrative to understand the way the cover and features have been constructed?

We can uses Propps character type and identify Robert Patterson as the villain which could possible showing him reinvent his celebrity persona from the twilight films.  This can also link to Todorovs equilibrium where the front cover presents a disequilibrium through his bruises and cuts shown on his face. Barthes enigma and action codes can make an audience question the various bruises on Roberts face and even hint to ideas of violence or even a fight. 

4) Analyse the cover and inside pages of GQ. Does this offer an example of Steve Neale's genre theory concerning 'repetition and difference'?

It reflects repetition alot of GQ magazines and other magazines conventions as the actor is in the middle with direct address to the target audience and it is also talking about fashion and arts.  This does reflect differences in my opinon as their is a very big contrast of subverting but reinforcing stereotypes of masculinity and even femininity inside and outside the magazine cover cover as the inside is different and is unexpected. 

Representations: applying theory

We have already covered many relevant theories in our work on Advertising and Marketing (for example, David Gauntlett's writing on Media, Gender and Identity). We now need to apply these theories and ideas to GQ and specifically the CSP pages allocated by AQA.

1) How can Gauntlett's ideas on masculinity, gender and identity be applied to the GQ CSP pages we have analysed?

He believes that Identity is becoming more fluid and this GQ magazine explicitly reinforces this as the model is not that masculine and more over wearing make up which subverts stereotypes but its also now neutralised by the media.

2) How could van Zoonen's work on feminist and gender theory be applied to GQ? Does the magazine challenge or reinforce these ideas?

Liesbet van Zoonen suggests that the media reinforces sex role stereotypes, helping to construct gender roles. She gives examples of reinforcing sex-appropriate behaviours and the use of airbrushing to change appearances. She reinforces the GQ magazine as their is a change of behaviour and looks. 

3) Does bell hooks's work on 'corrosive masculinity' apply to GQ? 

Feminist writer bell hooks has highlighted the corrosive, damaging effect of toxic masculinity on both men and women. She builds on Judith Butler’s work, agreeing that gender roles are constructed, not ‘natural’. In fact, she suggests that patriarchy (a male dominated society) indoctrinates people from an early age so “gender becomes a set of connotations that have become naturalised”.

4) How does the Jonathan Bailey feature represent masculinity and sexuality? 

Most of the images of Jonathan Bailey reinforce traditional masculinity however some things like his patterned trousers go away suggesting a evolution of masculinity which can show Gauntlets idea that masculism is not in crisis. Some of the backgrounds such as the nature and flowers can support this.

Representations: wider reading - GQ and the new masculinity

Read this CNN feature on how GQ is redefining masculinity and answer the following questions:

1) Which GQ issue is discussed at the start of the article and what was notable about it? 

The start talks about the magazine cover of Pharrell Williams who is wearing a yellow coat, looking like 'an upside own flower ready to bloom'. It talks about the imagery and colour implemented making the written question if GQ is still a men's magazine.

2) How did Will Welch view GQ when he took over as Editor-in-Chief and what did he want to offer readers? 

Welch took over as editor-in-chief of GQ in January, he didn’t see the 88-year-old publication, where he’s worked at since 2007, as broken. He saw the need to redefine what a men’s magazine could be. He wanted GQ to help its readers — whether men, women, or gender non-binary — with their “personal evolution,” he told CNN Business. Men can wear dresses, put on makeup, and get pedicures. GQ shouldn’t tell anyone exactly how to be a man because there’s no one way to do it.

3) How has publisher Conde Nast responded to changes in the magazine industry and how did this impact GQ?

GQ started out as Apparel Arts, a men’s fashion magazine, in 1931, before switching its name to Gentlemen’s Quarterly and eventually GQ. Over the course of its history, GQ’s print pages have served as a bible for fashion-conscious men. In 2016, GQ launched a separate, quarterly magazine, GQ Style, to further explore fashion and luxury. Welch was named editor-in-chief of the spinoff. Despite titling his letter from the editor at launch “a new blueprint for thriving” he told CNN Business that the publications, and the brand overall, shouldn’t be prescriptive.

4) What did the GQ New Masculinity edition feature? 

Journalist Nora Caplan-Bricker had a package titled “Voices of the New Masculinity” in which actor Asia Kate Dillon, NBA player Kevin Love, rapper Killer Mike and others share their perspectives of what masculinity means today. Welch hoped the latest issue of GQ makes a statement on the matter that the voices featured in the magazine show, there’s no one definition of masculinity.

As the voices featured in the magazine show, there’s no one definition of masculinity. While Welch hoped the latest issue of GQ makes a statement on the matter, he said the conversation for him and for GQ’s audience is far from over.

5) What did journalist Liz Plank say about toxic masculinity?

Indeed, women are speaking out about toxic masculinity. Last month, journalist Liz Plank released “For the Love of Men,” a book that explores the pervasiveness of it. She writes, “No matter where I turned, masculinity wasn’t something that was intuitive or intrinsic; it was carefully learned, delicately transmitted and deliberately propagandized. Toxic masculinity wasn’t just a problem in America. I saw it everywhere.”

6) How did Welch respond to suggestions GQ was responsible for toxic masculinity?

When asked if GQ helped perpetuate toxic masculinity, Welch was quick to dismiss the notion. “It’s not like GQ was harmful until I took over. That’s definitely not the case,” he said.

Finally, read this short GQ feature on masculinity and answer the following questions:

1) What does the article suggest masculinity involved at the start of the 20th century?

At the start, masculinity was seen as stereotypical expectation for men to have strength, independence, courage, confidence and assertiveness.

2) What social change occurred from the 1930s?

From the Thirties onwards, the UK lost its industrialisation heavyweight status with manual worker jobs, and the masculinity status attached to them, in favour of an office-based deindustrialised economy. Naturally, Post-it notes, group huddle meetings and conference calls failed to marry to the historical notion of what masculinity should be (the “Wolf Of Wall Street” was the higher-profile attempt to hang on to these). It was, however, a wake-up call to society that things needed to change. And change is happening.

3) What is suggested about masculinity today?

Any boy or man who feels that they cannot showcase their emotions or, indeed, a gentleness, is one who needs re-education on what it is to be a man. Showing your softer side is not weakness or shameful. It is smart. Besides, paradoxically, the very qualities that an outdated "masculinity" parades (strength, independence, courage, confidence and assertiveness) are present in all of us – men and women. We now thankfully share a society where not only men, but women too, demonstrate these and importantly have the freedom to do so. Of course, it isn’t all a bed of roses, and while we still have some way to redress an imbalance of what is deemed acceptable traits for men and women, we are making progress. Masculinity is an outdated word for this, a new world that is attempting to dispel gender equality.

4) Why does it suggest these changes are important? 

Crucially, we still need to see change in men’s relationship with their mental health. Suicide remains the leading cause of death in men under the age of 45 years. That’s three times higher than rates in women, with 84 men losing their life a week. And in part it is justifiably dubbed the “silent killer” because we are yet to fully shift the perception that a man – a “masculine man”, a “real man”, a “man’s man” – does not speak out about his problems.