2009 72 min (full-length version); 46 min (abridged version, edited for nudity and length) 1-932869-39-5 This film has subtitles English

The Codes of Gender

Identity & Performance in Popular Culture
Featuring Sut Jhally

or

Synopsis

Arguing that advertising not only sells things, but also ideas about the world, media scholar Sut Jhally offers a blistering analysis of commercial culture's inability to let go of reactionary gender representations. Jhally's starting point is the breakthrough work of the late sociologist Erving Goffman, whose 1959 book The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life prefigured the growing field of performance studies. Jhally applies Goffman's analysis of the body in print advertising to hundreds of print ads today, uncovering an astonishing pattern of regressive and destructive gender codes. By looking beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that tend to focus on either biology or objectification, The Codes of Gender offers important insights into the social construction of masculinity and femininity, the relationship between gender and power, and the everyday performance of cultural norms.

Contains two versions: a full length version (72 minutes) and an abridged version (46 minutes) which has been edited for nudity and length.

Sex and Gender | The Feminine Touch | The Ritualization of Subordination | Licensed Withdrawal | Infantilization | The Codes of Masculinity | Trapped in the Code | History, Power, and Gender Display

(Viewer Discretion Advisory: This program contains violence, nudity, and sexual themes.)

Release Date:2009
Duration:72 min (full-length version); 46 min (abridged version, edited for nudity and length)
ISBN:1-932869-39-5
Subtitles:English

Trailers

Watch the trailer

Filmmaker Credits

Written and Directed by
Sut Jhally
Editors
Sut Jhally, Andrew Killoy, Aaron Vega
Motion Graphics
Andrew Killoy
Script Editor
Jeremy Earp
Media Research
Loretta Alper
Additional Media Research
Scott Morris
Camera
David Rabinovitz
Audio Recording
Andrew Killoy
Sound Engineer
Rikk Desgres
Image Retouching
Shannon McKenna
DVD Authoring
Jason Young

Filmmaker Biographies

Sut Jhally View Sut Jhally 's Filmmaker Page
Director
Sut Jhally is Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Founder and Executive Director of the Media Education Foundation. He is one of the world's leading scholars looking at the role played by advertising and popular culture in the processes of social control and identity construction. The author of numerous books and articles on media (including The Codes of Advertising and Enlightened Racism) he is also an award-winning teacher (a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Massachusetts, where the student newspaper has also voted him "Best Professor"). In addition, he has been awarded the Distinguished Outreach Award, and was selected to deliver a Distinguished Faculty Lecture in 2007. He is best known as the producer and director of a number of films and videos (including Dreamworlds: Desire/Sex/Power in Music Video; Tough Guise: Media, Violence and the Crisis of Masculinity; and Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire) that deal with issues ranging from gender, sexuality and race to commercialism, violence and politics. Born in Kenya, raised in England, educated in graduate studies in Canada, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Film Festivals

Academia Film Olomouc
Czech Republic
April 12 - 17
2011

Conference Screenings

International Communication Association conference
Boston
May 26 - 30, 2011
Eastern Communication Association
Arlington, VA
April 15, 2011
Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference
New Orleans
March 10 - 13, 2011
New England Sociological Association
Durham, NH
November 6, 2010
Southwestern Sociological Association annual meeting
Houston, TX
April 2, 2010
Pacific Sociological Association annual meeting
Oakland, CA
April 8 - 11, 2010
Central States Communication Association convention
Cincinnati, OH
April 17, 2010
Console-ing Passions
Eugene, OR
April 22 - 24, 2010
American Sociological Association's annual meeting
Atlanta, GA
August 14 - 17, 2010
Mid-South Sociological Association conference
Baton Rouge, LA
October 13 - 17, 2010

Resources: Downloads and Related Links

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Praise

"Completely engrossing... For a generally jaded viewer such as I, perhaps the best measure of the effectiveness of this work is the fact that it made me see things I hadn't seen before and made me think in new ways about the ubiquitous images and messages that inundate and inform everyday life."
- Gary Handman
Educational Media Reviews Online
"...A fine, powerful, and important film."
- Jack David Eller
Anthropology Review Database
"Brilliant. Insightful. A real eye-opener. A powerful challenge to gender conventions. Watch it!"
- Roger Stole
Associate Professor of Communication
University of Illinois
"This provocative DVD provides a critical analysis of gender. Sut Jhally bases this analysis on the work of Erving Goffman as published in the book Gender Advertisement. Goffman's book was published in 1988, but his analysis of gender in the media is as relevant today as it was 23 years ago."
- lore m. dickey, PhD
Contemporary Sexuality
"The Codes of Gender will be of interest to all who question the visual images of what is deemed natural and normal. The film is well-made and presented, and it serves as a fitting tribute to Goffman (who died in Philadelphia in 1982). His work was underestimated when he was alive, but his contributions to 'the codes of gender' are as equally valid today as they were thirty years ago."
- Anna Hamling
Feminist Review
"Sut Jhally's The Codes of Gender: Identity and Performance in Popular Culture offers an in-depth analysis of how gender is portrayed and performed in advertising... Overall, The Codes of Gender is a very enlightening film that will (a) raise viewers' consciousness about the omnipresent codes of gender that, while rooted in Western culture, are repeated in concentrated form throughout media, (b) encourage viewers to question the seeming normality of these codes, and (c) understand that these codes, while presented as normal, are insidious, especially for women... The film is likely to generate much discussion among students. The Codes of Gender [will] introduce many constructs and themes essential to discuss in gender and women's studies courses (e.g., Women's Studies, Psychology of Women, Psychology of Gender, and Sociology of Women). Showing [The Codes of Gender] at the very beginning of such a course would provide an excellent introduction to material that will be discussed in more detail throughout the course, generate students' excitement and anticipation for the material, spark discussion, show students how the course topics are interconnected, and provide a visual schematic framework they could use to gradually generate a more complex understanding of the class material."
- Tracy L. Tylka & Rachel M. Calogero
Sex Roles: A Journal of Research

Press Reviews

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research
Educational Media Reviews Online

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