Writer Tom Nakayama examines and analyzes advertisements and the thought process of the creators of advertisements with the help of the men’s cooperative group OASIS (Men Organized Against Sexism and Institutionalized Stereotypes) to get a definition of how the media defines a man. With the careful examination of many ads, they come to the conclusion that advertising “narrows the definition of what it means to be a man.” There seemed to be only two dimensions to the media’s definition of men in advertisements: one of the dimensions depicts a single aggressive male, and if accompanied, exerting his dominance over the other, and the other dimension shows the exact opposite; a man that is gentle, sensitive, caring, and can be seen sometimes with a child. The argument is that both images completes the true definition of man, and until this two-dimensional definition is broken to show the complexity of man, the media’s image will be unjust and incomplete.
Citation: Nakayama, Tom. "Images of Men in Advertising". Center for Media Literacy. 27 Nov 2009
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