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Savannah Chiu

Professor Granillo

English 103

December 2019

Reflective Essay

Cakes are often used to symbolize or commemorate a type of celebration or ceremony.

The subject of each cake can convey many different meanings through decorations to its targeted

audience. Over time, cake has been used as a celebratory mechanism that has become integrated

with tradition and cultural values. For example, a cake that explores the celebration of a baby

being born can reveal many important ideologies that the audience may believe in​. ​In this

instance, a cake made as a satirical criticism on reinforcement of heterocentrism in American

society, can reveal a lot about the targeted audience. The cake titled “​Male or Other​”, highlights

how society has come to celebrate gender under false pretenses and is gendered toward a very

binary group; however gender and its complexities vary by culture and cannot be represented nor

celebrated by the confines of a cake. The cake insinuates there can only be feminine and

masculine traits defined by assigned stereotypes, however, these ideas reinforce heterocentric

ideologies - represented in the cake through the use of different modes: linguistic, visual, spatial,

and aural. There are still many issues surrounding gender and the cake parodies how American

society has come to marginalize the queer community through compulsory heterosexuality;

therefore society needs to work for a more inclusive and gender equal culture, even in cake

decorations.
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The cake is decorated with different types of intentionally placed decorations to highlight

the irony of gender reveal cakes. As the baker of the cake, many creative liberties were taken and

multiple changes were made during the design process that affected the final heterocentric

aesthetic of the cake. Through drafting and creating the cake, it was a process that ​“revealed the

subjective meaning of engagement in a unique and artful occupation” (Scheerer et al. 68). The

design process took into account how the intended audience would have subjective thoughts and

interpretations - this was an important factor in making the use of modes as obvious and

objective as possible to portray the satirical message. ​As gender reveal cakes increase in

popularity, it is important to note that bakers have the creative freedom to express ideas that can

help further the idea of ranging sexualities within the LQBTQ community. The gender reveal

cake can be shaped to be more inclusive, therefore in “Male or Other”, there are intentional uses

of different modes. The deliberate use of multimodal features attempts to indirectly correspond

to the audience, meaning the cake has “​the potential of different communication modes and

media and their actual use and dynamic interaction with each other and with the sociocultural

context” (​Djonov and Zhao 13). The linguistic mode is used as the cake states “male or other”.

Throughout the cake there are uses of the visual mode by way of different colors of sprinkles.

The placement of where the blue color is and where the word “male” is on the cake is a spatial

mode. Each type of mode was used to communicate the message that current gender reveal cakes

are detrimental to societal progression for the LGBTQ community. Although cakes are colorful,

certain colors are more indicative than others.

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In American society, colors have become representative of many different ideas. The

color yellow is often associated with the feeling of happiness, and the colors used on a cake are

no exception to being symbolic. The colors on a cake can reveal the perceptions of a group,

“Cake elicits judgement about both the execution of the cake and the celebratee” (Lussos 34).

The execution of using blue and pink sprinkles highlight how colors are attributed to the sex of a

baby and how the colors are judged by the audience to be representative of a “boy” or “girl”.

The “celebratee” or the baby is already being labeled into categories that are binary, furthering

the internalized prejudice of those in the LGBTQ community. The categorization of a baby into a

boy or girl “gender” only adds to “the enormous pressure to be heterosexual” (Tyson 305) and

enforces complusory heterosexuality. With an entire group in our society being neglected at such

an early age, it can only create harm to queer people. Colors are not representative of a human.

The use of color is deliberate in its “execution” not only as a visual cue, but as well as a

spatial mode. The blue colored sprinkles take up a majority of the cake and even encroach into

the other colors. The blue sprinkles are representative of the heteropatriarchy, which according to

Lois tyson, “draws our attention to the fact that patriarchy, because it is biased in favor of

traditional gender roles, is always biased in favor of hetero sexuality” (Tyson 305). This

placement of the blue sprinkles can be seen as symbolizing the preference of males in society

and once again favors a heterocentric culture. The amount of blue sprinkles used represent the

traditional gender roles. Men are cast by traditional gender roles to be perceived as strong and as

the overtly head figure of a family. The sprinkles are overtly used over the rainbow and pink

colored sprinkles - meaning society overtly favors men over women and queer people. Not only
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are the blue sprinkles more abundant, but the placement of the word “Male” is above the rest of

the colors and words on the cake. The placement of the word “male” above the choice word

“other” plays into the fact that the patriarchy dominates over all “other” groups - women and

queer people. This spatial mode is a direct comparison to men reinforcing the patriarchal agenda.

When given the choice society will leans toward reinforcing the patriarchal agenda, and

decorations on a cake are no different.

The amount of gender reveal cakes that use color or random attributes as representations

of sex are worrisome - “tutus or touchdowns”, “wheels or heels”, “guns or glitter”, “barbies or

barbells” are all real examples found with a simple google search. Each portrayal of sexuality in

the cakes, favors binary and gender conforming ideals. Gender reveal cakes only diminish the

existence of queer people. As society begins to become more aware of the LGBTQ community,

they become aware of how this group is continuously marginalized in every aspect of society.

The cake “Male or Other” was meant to highlight how harmful gender reveal cakes can be to the

identities of those who are non-binary. With time and awareness society can move toward

equality for the LGBTQ community, but it can begin by changing gender reveal cakes to

“they/them” cakes.
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Works Cited

Carol R. Scheerer, Laura G. Cahill, Kelly Kirby & Jessica Lane (2004) Cake Decorating as

Occupation: Meaning and Motivation, Journal of Occupational Science, pp. 68-74, DOI:

10.1080/14427591.2004.9686533

Chiu, Savannah M. “Male or Other.” ​Savannahchiu.weebly.com​, Dec. 2019.

Djonov, Emilia, and Sumin Zhao. ​Critical Multimodal Studies of Popular Discourse.​ Routledge,

2013, ​Researchgate, ​pp. 13–26., DOI:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sumin_Zhao2/publication/323604352_From_multi

modal_to_critical_multimodal_studies_through_popular_discourse/links/5aa01ae20f7e9b

add9a08cc2/From-multimodal-to-critical-multimodal-studies-through-popular-discourse.

pdf​.

Lussos, Rachael Graham. “Have Your Epideictic Rhetoric, and Eat It, Too.” ​Have Your

Epideictic Rhetoric, and Eat It, Too​, 2018, pp. 28–46.

Tyson, Lois. “Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism .” ​Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly

Guide​, 3rd ed., Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2015, pp. 302–342.
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Annotated Bibliography

The use of different sources were very helpful in creating an informed critical writing

piece about gender reveal cakes. After looking through multiple databases and readings, it was

determined that five different sources were needed to create the essay.

Research was done to learn about how to implement different multimodes and create a

cohesive piece on the weebly site. To learn about the process of creating cakes there was an

article titled ​ “Cake Decorating as Occupation” that was found through a database - this helped

not only with creating the physical cake, but as a source in the document. A major source of

knowledge surrounding lesbian, gay, and queer criticisms was informed by the book ​Critical

Theory Today.