Jason Bourne Lives

Recently, while leafing through the paper, I was struck by an all too familiar sight. It was an ad for a clothing store. Though this time instead of shrugging it off and flipping to the next page, I stopped to really look at it. The reason being, this ad exemplified a point that John Berger made about art, that has been repeated for hundreds of years.

This ad was a simple one, two models, presumably in their own respective pictures. One was male and the other female, they were displaying clothing that was on sale, moreover they were displaying how the consumer could look should they go buy the clothes. What made this ad worth noting was the expressions of the models.

The male was a tough-guy / badass. He was nearly glaring at the camera, this guy looked like Jason Bourne if Bourne were just a little more revenge driven. This guy had a look in his eyes like he just robbed a bank, and was about to take you hostage, whether you liked it or not.

The female on the other hand, was nearly his opposite. She, although beautiful, was submissive and looking off the side of the picture. She, unlike her partner on the juxtaposed picture, looked more like someone who was about to be taken hostage, and perhaps required saving.

This is a perfect example of how John Berger explained men and women's portrayal in art.

"A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you." (Berger, 45)
"[A] woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her." (Berger, 46)

Now this sounds like a description of modern day advertisements. However, Berger wrote this in 1972 about a trend in art that has been going on for hundreds of years, back when representations of these people were being portrayed in oil paintings.

Though when I first read this it sounded more like feminist propaganda, more and more I seem to see this trend being exemplified. And if super models and teenage eating disorders have taught us anything, it's that when we are immersed within an ideal for long enough, our society will eventually attempt to mimic it. A rather scary prospect indeed.

Work Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. Penguin, 1990. Print.