Using an image from the media, and quotations from 'The Look' by Rosalind Coward, unpick the gaze relationship.
Tom Ford 2010 Spring Summer ad campaigns - Nicholas Hoult and Carolyn Murphy
Tom Ford 2010 Spring Summer ad campaigns - Nicholas Hoult and Carolyn Murphy
He is well known for his risque advertisements, his provocateur touch, and of course his pairings with Terry Richardson. Tom Ford advertisements are prime examples of 'sex sells', with women's bodies readily and frequently placed in the public eye, mainly for the benefit of the male audience. As noted in Roaslind Coward's The Look "Privileged in general in this society, men control the visual media. The photographic profession is no less a bastion of the values of male professionalism." Here, Coward looks at how entertainment is all about a masculine investigation of the female form - images of women for men. Tom Ford creates this relationship between both sexes, of which is to be commented on and consumed by the audience.
In many of his advertisements, there is a deep focus on celebrity status, with his 2010 Spring/Summer campaign focusing on Nicholas Hoult. After being given his own directional debut in A Single Man, Hoult became a muse of Fords, offering the 'look of an artistic intellectual'. What's interesting about the use of Hoult in these advertisements is the fact that the public's memory mainly lies with him in About A Boy, where he played an outcast child, unable to dress. This is where Tom Ford cleverly uses both genders to allow for the process of money making. He offers this transformation into a man, because of his brand of course, and this transformation into a sex symbol that has naked women hanging off of him. Evidently, the type of woman to get a man like this must be beautiful and exquisite. So on one hand, you can't have what Hoult has unless you purchase Tom Ford, and you can't have Hoult unless you look like Carolyn Murphy. Advertising is a mechanism that makes women believe they'll never be good enough unless they can match the appearance of those seen in photographs like the one's above. "Advertising in this society builds precisely on the creation of an anxiety to the effect that, unless we measure up, we will not be love". Every woman wants to be loved, so they will do anything to achieve this.
Although not as obvious as on other advertisements seen in the public domain, there is a sense of domination and subordination in the Tom Ford images. The woman is seen to be grooming and taking care of her man, whilst he simply relaxes and enjoys her presence. She is evidently naked whilst completing her tasks, purely for the male's pleasure. "In this society, looking has become a crucial aspect of sexual relations, not because of any natural impulse, but because it is one of the ways in which domination and subordination are expressed." Hoult gets to look at the female, whilst the audience also gets to view her. This links to Coward's idea of distancing yourself from the view of the female body to a place where you can stand back and simply relish in what you are seeing. "Those women on the billboards, they look back. Those fantasy women stare off the walls with a look of urgent availability." - this lets the male audience create a separation between fantasy and reality of social relations. They get to have what they want without the worry that these women may not be who they want them to be.
This strengthens the idea of 'sex-at-a-distance'.
In many of his advertisements, there is a deep focus on celebrity status, with his 2010 Spring/Summer campaign focusing on Nicholas Hoult. After being given his own directional debut in A Single Man, Hoult became a muse of Fords, offering the 'look of an artistic intellectual'. What's interesting about the use of Hoult in these advertisements is the fact that the public's memory mainly lies with him in About A Boy, where he played an outcast child, unable to dress. This is where Tom Ford cleverly uses both genders to allow for the process of money making. He offers this transformation into a man, because of his brand of course, and this transformation into a sex symbol that has naked women hanging off of him. Evidently, the type of woman to get a man like this must be beautiful and exquisite. So on one hand, you can't have what Hoult has unless you purchase Tom Ford, and you can't have Hoult unless you look like Carolyn Murphy. Advertising is a mechanism that makes women believe they'll never be good enough unless they can match the appearance of those seen in photographs like the one's above. "Advertising in this society builds precisely on the creation of an anxiety to the effect that, unless we measure up, we will not be love". Every woman wants to be loved, so they will do anything to achieve this.
Although not as obvious as on other advertisements seen in the public domain, there is a sense of domination and subordination in the Tom Ford images. The woman is seen to be grooming and taking care of her man, whilst he simply relaxes and enjoys her presence. She is evidently naked whilst completing her tasks, purely for the male's pleasure. "In this society, looking has become a crucial aspect of sexual relations, not because of any natural impulse, but because it is one of the ways in which domination and subordination are expressed." Hoult gets to look at the female, whilst the audience also gets to view her. This links to Coward's idea of distancing yourself from the view of the female body to a place where you can stand back and simply relish in what you are seeing. "Those women on the billboards, they look back. Those fantasy women stare off the walls with a look of urgent availability." - this lets the male audience create a separation between fantasy and reality of social relations. They get to have what they want without the worry that these women may not be who they want them to be.
This strengthens the idea of 'sex-at-a-distance'.
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