Gender Representations - The Beauty Jungle

The beauty jungle was a film produced in 1964 by the director Val Guest. The film portrays a young woman - Janette Scott - on holiday in the sea side resort of Butlins by the sea.

The poster however holds some underlying, hidden ideologies on how they choose to represent woman at the time the woman's liberation movement was at the height of its success.

Firstly, The poster - created to promote the release of the beauty jungle - On the surface, The poster seems to align with the ideologies and concepts of the woman's movements of the 1960s. This is shown by the height if our main star possibly connoting how woman are becoming more and more free as time goes. This idea aligns with the feminist theory of van Zoonen showing that the poster is attempting to align with the ideologies of the time. It further aligns with Gauntlet's theory as the poster is giving woman a bigger platform to be represented as well as showing the woman as dominant giving the woman of the time a role model to0 aspire to be. However, It seems that the producers of this film had pulled the wool over our eyes. This could give us a new way to look at our star as the height could now connote how the woman liberation movement is something to be feared. This further aligns with the old, traditional ideologies of the 1960s. This goes in conjunction with the low shot of the star. This low shot could signify to us and reinforce the idea that they are warning their male audience of the dangers of woman rising up and fighting for an egalitarian society.

Additionally, The poster is further seen to represent woman in an extremely traditional way. This is seen by the slued, oversexualised image of the woman. The bathing suit mixed with the woman's body language could suggest how the poster is trying to show an oversexualized idea of woman in the 1960s This then acts as a enigma code and raises the question is this poster agreeing with the changing ideologies of woman or is it opposing it? This can be answered by the credits on the poster as well as the title itself. These two codes work in contrast to show how the movie is about woman and beauty - Which is a extremely stereotypical idea to relate woman to beauty - however, the poster then seems to promote more male characters then female characters with the males being in a brighter, bigger font rather than our star is seen in black, small font.

To add to the point about woman constantly being stereotyped and related to makeup, the title therefore goes in conjunction with her body strap "Miss Global" This title is used predominantly to show how she has been voted the "Prettiest girl" on the globe. Furthermore her strap stating this is also tightly clanged to her chest to eventuate the curvier of her body. This is also done with the use of shadows to show the curviness of the stars hips. These two codes then raise enigma code as well as a symbolic code not every audience member would see. The image of the woman raises the question whether the beauty is targeted towards woman - in which this case the media would then be selling an unrealistic body image to the woman consuming this advert- or whether it is targeted more towards the middle aged mean awaiting the thrill of seeing such a young well shown woman.

The background of the image then further goes in conjunction with the colour of the dress and adds a referential code as outside knowledge and context is needed to realise that the place represented is Butlins sea side resort which was a hot bed for middle class familys wanting a holiday expereiene whilst not having to travel out of the county. However this then shows how the movie poster which at first glance is used just to promote the movie, is now using an unrealistic, oversexualised imagage of a woman to promote the holiday resort. This would then somewhat oppose the Van Zoonen theory as on the surface it seems that we are shown an advert aligfning with the hanginng times in 1960s Britan however, upon closer inspection the posetr hides an unidealistic representation of woamn and shows how they are still being used as sort of promotional objects to promot ethe movie and seaside resort.

Although very briefly, at first glance we see men too represented in this poster with the use of the camera film / camera roll. The images portrayed on the camera roll do not as such align with the ideologies of changing Brittan in the 1960s, much rather the opposite. The images on the camera roll represent woman as a mans possession. a woman is there for the sole purpose for pleasing the man whether that be with cooking or other activities. This is a contrast to society at the time which was a hotbed for change in woman's rights with the introduction of the contraceptive pill and introduction of abortion laws as well as divorce laws. The advert attempts to use the woman as a place holder to hide their underlying feelings and ideologies of woman and reinforces the idea that although chance is inevitable it comes with time and during 1963 the film industry had not yet caused up with that time.

Overall, I believe that Val Guest is attempting to pull the wool over our eyes with this representation of woman. On the surface it seems they agree with the woman's liberation movement and all their ideologies however after some analogy we see that the advert is nothing less but a hoax. Another advert that may have successfully hidden their true ideological views from their audience and still manage to publish there unchanged, unhinged views of woman of the 1960s,