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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.

Identity and performance in popular culture

Genres: Documentary

Starring: Sut Jhally

Released: October 13, 2010

Runtime: 73.0

Popularity Rating: 0.216

Media Education Foundation

United States of America

Himself Sut Jhally

Camera — Camera Operator: David Rabinovitz
Crew — Information Systems Manager: Loretta Alper
Crew — Information Systems Manager: Scott Morris
Directing — Director: Sut Jhally
Directing — Script Coordinator: Jeremy Earp
Editing — Editor: Aaron Vega
Editing — Editor: Andrew Killoy
Editing — Editor: Sut Jhally
Sound — Recording Supervision: Andrew Killoy
Sound — Sound Engineer: Rikk Desgres
Visual Effects — Animation: Andrew Killoy
Visual Effects — Imaging Science: Shannon McKenna
Writing — Writer: Sut Jhally