Critical Discourse Studies

Vol. 5, No. 1, February 2008, 55–73

Real men do wear mascara: advertising discourse and masculine identity

Claire Harrison

School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

During the past two decades, the traditional concept of masculinity has been challenged by the
pervasive spread of metrosexual attitudes and practices through Western cultures. This article
examines an extreme aspect of this trend through a multimodal reading of an online advertise-
ment for male mascara. Using social semiotic theory and methodologies based on functional
grammars, the analysis reveals that the advertisement’s producers are treading a fine line in
their verbal and visual discursive choices, trying to create a dialectic that encourages men
to be consumers of feminine-style products while also allowing them to maintain the qualities
that have traditionally been gendered as masculine.
Keywords: masculinity; metrosexuality; multimodal; social semiotics; systemic functional
linguistics; visual communications

Introduction
That’s right, girls, expect to be fighting for space in front of the mirror as metrosexual man breaches
the final frontier. Earlier this year High Street store H&M made headlines with the news that they
were stocking mascara for men. Apparently ‘customers were asking for it in stores.’
(Daily Mail, 2007, paragraphs 6 and 7)
British columnist Mark Simpson coined the term ‘metrosexual’ in 1994, but he notes that it did
not enter the mainstream vocabulary until his 2002 Salon article, in which he ‘decided it was
time to be ruthless and name names: I outed several leading metrosexuals, including David
Beckham, Brad Pitt and Spider-Man’ (2004). According to Simpson (2002),
The typical metrosexual is a young man with money to spend, living in or within easy reach of a
metropolis—because that’s where all the best shops, clubs, gyms and hairdressers are. He might
be officially gay, straight or bisexual, but this is utterly immaterial because he has clearly taken
himself as his own love object and pleasure as his sexual preference.
Although the term ‘metrosexuality’ is contested by some manufacturers and marketers (see
Colman, 2005; Miner, 2005) and considered passé by some social commentators (e.g., ABC
News, 2006), I think we can safely say the term has penetrated the English lexicon: right-of-
centre U.S. Senator John McCain, running for the 2007 Republican presidential nomination,
recently accused his handlers of ‘dressing him up as a metrosexual’ for a campaign event
(The New York Times, 2007, paragraph 1).
In fact, metrosexuality is booming in the marketplace. According to The Economist (2003,
paragraph 5), ‘the grooming market for young males in North America was worth around $8
billion last year, and is growing fast.’ That article also reported on an influential 2003 study,
The Future of Men: USA by Euro RSCG Worldwide, the world’s fifth largest advertising
agency. This study, which surveyed American men between the ages of 21 and 48, concluded


Email: claireharrison@rogers.com
ISSN 1740-5904 print/ISSN 1740-5912 online
# 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17405900701768638
http://www.informaworld.com
56 C. Harrison

that ‘30 –35% of young men in America have metrosexual tendencies: tell-tale signs include
buying skin-care cream and fragrances. Also popular is having non-leg body hair removed,
via a so-called “back, crack and sack” waxing.’ According to MSN Money UK (2007, paragraph
4), the past 10 years have witnessed ‘the rise of the metrosexual economy’ which includes ‘male-
only spas and salons . . . [and] boutique outlets selling everything from toners to lipstick
exclusively for men’ (paragraph 8) This article also referred to a 2006 study by retail analyst
Datamonitor that predicts that ‘the male grooming market will be worth £1.5 billion’ (paragraph
6) by 2008. The Age, an Australian newspaper, stated in 2003 (paragraph 3),
Men of all sexualities are taking a greater interest in their appearance. They go to hairdressers rather
than barbers; avoid using soap because it’s too harsh on their skin; visit the gym instead of playing
sport and even have difficulty deciding what to wear.
And the phenomenon is spreading beyond the English-speaking world. For example, recent
news reports from India and China demonstrate a growing interest by men in fashion and groom-
ing aids (see AsiaTimesOnline, 2006; CHINADaily, 2004; India eNews, 2007).
Clearly, the concept of masculinity is undergoing significant social change as many men
re-evaluate their appearance, re-position themselves as consumers of fashion and style products,
and ultimately re-construct their idea of what it is to be male. This change has been explored in a
variety of scholarly disciplines, including masculine studies (e.g., Stern, 2003; Stibbe, 2004),
gender studies (e.g., Bordo, 1999; Gill, 2001), psychiatry (e.g., Pope et al., 2005), and sociology
(e.g., Alexander, 2003; Rohlinger, 2002). The discursive construction of male identity has been
and continues to be of interest to critical discourse analysts. Thus, for example, Edley and
Wetherell (1997, p. 215) examine how students at a male-only school who are not in the domi-
nant social group—that of the rugby players—demonstrate ‘active and highly creative rhetorical
work’ in constructing identities through differentiation from rugby types while still framing their
thoughts and actions within traditional concepts of masculinity. Traditional masculinity includes
such social constructs as self-sufficiency, activity, mastery, courage, toughness, autonomy,
rationality, competitiveness, technological skill, stoicism, and emotional detachment
(see Brod, 1987; Carrigan, Connell, & Lee, 1987; Connell, 1992, 1995; Connell &
Messerschmidt, 2005 for discussions of traditional, or hegemonic, masculinity). And Coupland
(2007, p. 42), in discussing skin cream advertising for men, notes that recent cultural construc-
tions of men as metrosexuals have
[unsettled] traditional notions of masculinity, the public gaze has turned on men, and men’s gaze has
turned toward the mirror. But there is still a problem for men, if they appear to be bodily self-
absorbed or narcissistic, in maintaining appropriate ‘manliness.’
I mention Edley and Wetherell (1997) and Coupland (2007) in particular because both note the
‘pull’ of traditional male qualities and traits on men no matter what their situation or how they
are positioned by the media. As this paper will demonstrate, the advertising of male grooming
products for men demonstrates a ‘push –pull’ effect – a ‘push’ to make men more aware and
critical of their faces and bodies in order to promote sales while, at the same, respecting the
‘pull’ of values identified as traditionally male.
Changes, such as those that are occurring around the concept of masculinity, are driven by
what Giddens (1991, pp. 196– 197) calls ‘commodity capitalism,’ which seeks to standardize
consumption patterns on a global scale and, in turn, enables the capitalist drive for constant
economic growth. Advertising is one of capitalism’s primary tools for controlling, directing,
and shaping consumerism to enhance this growth. It does so by presenting consumers with ‘con-
sumption packages’ which enable each individual’s ‘project of the self to be translated into one
of the possession of desired goods and the pursuit of artificially framed styles of life.’ As Tinic
(1997, p. 14) observes,
 Critical Discourse Studies 57

[I]t is no longer sufficient to discuss advertising solely in terms of ‘use’ versus ‘exchange’ values
because goods no longer need to be promoted for what they can do for us, but rather how their pur-
chase will allow us to represent or express ourselves.
And media representations have enormous influence on self-image. Schroeder and Zwick (2004,
p. 23) note: ‘Advertising imagery constitutes ubiquitous and influential bodily representations in
public space, incorporating exercises of power, surveillance and normativity within the consu-
mer spectacle.’
However, advertising is not simply a top-down form of communication directed at a passive
audience whose members go out and purchase whatever is advertised. Rather, advertising can be
ignored, challenged, and resisted. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to address the
vast amount of scholarship in the area of advertising effects, Kates and Shaw-Garlock (1999,
p. 47) describe the advertising –consumer relationship in a way that aligns with critical discourse
research:
The paradox of interpretation [of advertising] implies a socially and historically positioned subject-
consumer who can construct webs of meaning of her own by shifting among different interpretive
positions in the reading context and by understanding text and self in relation to various discourses.
Consumers are the arbiters of meaning making, but simultaneously are subject to the limitations
imposed by the (con)text and by relevant social and commercial discourses. We contend that the
web metaphor suggests that people become immersed and entangled in webs of ideological
meaning, implying the discursive constitution of the consumer subject.
The purpose of this paper is to explore how men are being ‘entangled’ in such webs of
meaning through an analysis of a multimodal advertisement for male mascara on the website,
studio5ive (2007). This advertisement was chosen because of the website’s stability (it has
been in existence since 2000) and the site’s broad approach (it promotes skin care and cosmetics
to all men as opposed to those websites that cater explicitly to actors, dancers, and transgendered
men).
This paper undertakes to fill two gaps in the critical discourse analytical (CDA) literature on
male grooming aids. The first is a lack of in-depth discussion on the most extreme aspect of the
metrosexual trend – the selling of cosmetics to men (e.g., Daily Mail, 2007; The Guardian,
2007; The Observer, 2004). The second is the lack of a close multimodal analysis of such adver-
tising. Practitioners of discourse analysis use a variety of approaches to analyze multimodal texts
(see Hill & Helmers, 2004; Hocks & Kendrick, 2003; van Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2001); a number of
researchers draw on social semiotic theory and methodologies to research multimodal discourses
such as newspapers (e.g., Knox, 2007), scientific discourse (e.g., Lemke, 1998), art displays
(e.g., Macken-Horarik, 2004), and hypertext (e.g., Kok, 2004). In this paper, I add to this
latter approach by partnering systemic functional linguistics (SFL), based on the work of
Halliday (1985, 1994) and Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), to its ‘sister’ methodology:
visual social semiotics (VSS), based on the work of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006). As this
multimodal analysis will demonstrate, current advertising discourse for cosmetics for men
encodes two seemingly contradictory types of masculinity: traditional and metrosexual. The
aim of this discourse is to create a dialectic that encourages men to be consumers of
feminine-style products while allowing them to maintain the qualities that have traditionally
been gendered masculine.

Analyzing multimodal discourse

As many scholars have noted, multimodal discourse in media of all sorts, from textbooks to
newspapers to the Internet, has increased dramatically in the past two decades. Theoretically,
a discourse can communicate in a variety of modes; verbal, visual, sound, music, scent, and
58 C. Harrison

touch. Moreover, the verbal mode can be written or spoken, and the visual mode can be static or
moving, monochromatic or coloured, and/or two-dimensional or three-dimensional (pop-out or
holographic). In this paper, I will be describing one version of multimodal discourse: verbal –
visual. This discourse includes a changing montage of photographs of male faces and body
parts, a photograph of a mascara bottle and wand, and a verbal text which itself is multimodal
as the typeface, layout, colour, and design provide a visual context for the words themselves (see
Kirschenbaum, 2003; Shriver, 1997; van Leeuwen, 2005). Horn (1999, p. 27) calls this type of
multimodal mix visual language:
the tight coupling of words, images, and shapes into a unified communication unit. ‘Tight coupling’
means that you cannot remove the words or the images or the shapes from a piece of visual language
without destroying or radically diminishing the meaning a reader can obtain from it.

It has become increasingly clear that studying verbal text alone is not sufficient for scholars with
a critical agenda. Rather, CDA researchers need to understand and articulate how images and
text relate to one other semantically, in order to: describe contemporary social institutions,
organizations, and practices better; determine more accurately how people construct their iden-
tities within larger social structures; and provide more in-depth accounts of how the ‘structure,
organization, and functioning of human societies . . . cause suffering, injustice, danger, inequal-
ity, insecurity, and self-doubt’ (Fairclough, Graham, Lemke, & Wodak, 2004, p. 1).
As noted above, this paper takes a social semiotic approach to critical discourse analysis.
Briefly, social semiotics assumes that, first, people see the world through signs they have
created, and the meaning of these signs does not exist separately from them and the life of
their social/cultural community. As Chandler (2001) explains,
Although things may exist independently of signs we know them only through the mediation of
signs. We see only what our sign systems allow us to see. . .. Semioticians argue that signs are
related to the signifieds by social conventions which we learn. We become so used to such conven-
tions in our use of various media that they seem ‘natural’, and it can be difficult for us to realize the
conventional nature of such relationships.
Second, social semiotics assumes that signs exist within semiotic systems such as language,
which provide people with many resources for making meaning. Thus SFL, as a social semiotic
methodology, allows discourse analysts to research how people use the resources of language to
create meaning while visual social semiotics (VSS) involves resource use in the visual field,
namely ‘what can be said and done with images (and other visual means of communication)
and how the things people say and do with images can be interpreted’ (Jewitt & Oyama,
2001, p. 134). Both SFL and VSS help researchers analyze the ‘rules’ by which certain
verbal/visual resource choices are made while also demonstrating how these choices may main-
tain the rules, break the rules, and even create new rules such that new ways of using language or
visuals will join the already existing resources of meaning-making. As Chouliaraki and
Fairclough (1999, pp. 139, 141) note, ‘SFL theorises language in a way which harmonizes far
more with the perspective of critical social science than other theories of language . . .
[because] it sees language dialectically as structured and structuring’—a statement that is
equally true of the social semiotic study of the visual. It is this aspect of both SFL and VSS
that enables CDA researchers to better understand the ways in which ideologies and hegemonies,
dominance and discrimination, power and marginalization, and control and passivity are made
manifest through language and visual imagery.
SFL and VSS, as methodologies, are harmonized in ways that assist the analyst in multimo-
dal discourse research. First, both have a grammar as their basis. A grammar is a set of rules,
conventions, and usages that explain the forms of a semiotic system and the way these forms
relate to one another, such that the speaker/writer/producer can create coherent discourse
 Critical Discourse Studies 59

and the reader/listener/viewer/user can comprehend what is said, spoken, seen, or done. Thus,
for example, in the grammar of Internet design – another social semiotic system – the symbol of
a house has become, through convention, a form that is understood by users to be a link to the
home page of a website. Grammars enable and inform analysis of the semiotic systems to which
they belong. As Halliday (1994, p. xvi) points out with reference to verbal language,
The current preoccupation is with discourse analysis, or ‘text linguistics’; and it is sometimes
assumed that this can be carried on without grammar—or even that it is somehow an alternative
to grammar. But this is an illusion. A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analy-
sis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text; either an appeal has to be made to some set of
non-linguistic conventions, or to some linguistic features that are trivial enough to be accessible
without a grammar, like the number of words per sentence . . . or else the exercise remains a
private one in which one explanation is as good or bad as another.
Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p. 3) describe the grammar of visual design as ‘a quite
general grammar of contemporary visual design in “Western” cultures, an account of the explicit
and implicit knowledge and practices around a resource, consisting of the elements and rules
underlying a culture-specific form of visual communication.’ As such, they demonstrate how
units of visual design – represented participants (RPs) such as people, places, and things –
combine into meaningful ‘visual statements.’
A second element of the harmonization between SFL and VSS is that their grammars are
functional: components are not studied for their form alone but for the way they function to
make meaning. As Butt, Fahey, Spinks, and Yallop (1995, p. 30) explain of SFL,
Functional grammarians do not reject, discard or replace the terminology of traditional grammar; but
to capture what goes on in language we need to build on and refine our notions of traditional
grammar in several ways. The first is to recognise that words have functions as well as class, and
that how a word functions can tell us much more about the piece of language where it occurs,
about the person who chose to use it in that function and about the culture that surrounds the
person and the message, than any description of words in terms of class can do.
SFL has been used to analyze a wide variety of verbal texts, including news reports, advertising,
conversations, speeches, classroom discussions, and so on.
Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p. 1) note that traditional visual semiotics has ‘concentrated
on what might be regarded as the equivalent of words . . . on the “denotative” and “connotative,”
the “iconographical” and “iconological” significance of the elements in images, the individual
people, places and thing,’ and while all such approaches are valid, ‘not much attention has
been paid to the meanings of regularities in the image elements used . . . at least not in explicit
or systematic ways.’ In other words, Kress and van Leeuwen do not wish just to examine RPs on
their own but also to study how they connect to one another and the design in which they are
placed. By focusing on design rather than on individual imagery, Kress and van Leeuwen are
able to analyze a broad range of the visual, including photographs, cartoons, maps, diagrams,
and graphs.
The third element of harmonization between SFL and VSS is that both methodologies are
based on the three assumptions. These assumptions are that discourse simultaneously represents
the producer’s world, is designed to engage its audience, and is organized in a coherent way (see
Table 1). It is this third assumption that provides the analyst with the means to undertake a social
semiotic, multimodal analysis that is not, to paraphrase Halliday above, merely a subjective
commentary with no solid basis. Rather, given the strong concordance of metafunctions
between the two separate grammars, the analyst can match verbal metafunction to visual meta-
function to demonstrate ways in which the verbal text supports or undermines the visual text, and
vice versa. There is a caveat, however: both SFL and VSS are complex methodologies which
lend themselves to different levels of analysis, metaphorically from coarse- to fine-grained.
60 C. Harrison

Table 1. SFL and VSS metafunctions.

systemic functional linguistics (SFL) visual social semiotics (VSS)

Ideational metafunction: Refers to a speaker’s experience
of his/her internal and external worlds. Through the
unit of the clause, it creates representation by the
naming of participants and the use of different types of
verbal processes.
Interpersonal metafunction: Refers to the way text acts as
exchange between the speaker and audience through
modality and Mood – declarative, interrogative, and
command.
Textual metafunction: Refers to the way in which the
ideational and interpersonal metafunctions integrate to
create a coherent and unified text.
Representational metafunction: Refers to the producer’s
experience of his/her internal and external worlds.
Through the depiction of RPs – people, places, and
objects – within a design, it constructs this experience
as either narrative or conceptual.
Interpersonal metafunction: Refers to the way the image
engages the viewer, using such aspects as gaze, social
distance, and perspective.
Compositional metafunction: Refers to the way the
representational and interpersonal metafunctions
integrate in the image to create a meaningful whole.

Note: SFL has been successfully applied to a variety of different languages; VSS is limited to the meaning
of visual signs within Western culture.

It would be impossible in a paper of this scope to use a fine-grained approach for either
the description or the analysis of all six metafunctions. Rather, it is my intention to provide
the reader with a basic understanding of how the metafunctions work together to support the
message of this discourse, dipping deeper only in those areas where more analysis is fruitful.
Here there is a second caveat: I assume that readers of Critical Discourse Studies have more
familiarity with SFL than VSS and will undertake explanations accordingly. The word
‘speaker’ will be used to represent speakers and writers, ‘producer’ to represent image-
makers and graphic designers, and ‘viewer’ to represent viewers, users, listeners, and readers
of web pages.

Studio5ive: advertising skin care and grooming aids to men

Today more than ever, men are discovering how fitness and grooming can enhance a positive self
image. As every man knows, nothing is more important for achieving this than the confidence
that comes from knowing that he’s achieved his personal best. This philosophy is at the core of Stu-
dio5ive Skin System – company dedicated to improving men’s sense of style and image awareness.
(Studio5ive, ‘About Us,’ 2007)
Studio5ive is a website for men and about men. It sells 27 skin care, cosmetic, and ‘corrective
make-up’ products that include Micro Density Scrub, Pore Diffusion Mud, Zero Reflection
Powder, Lash and Brow Gel, Deep Conditioning Lip Cream, and Double Stroke Cream
Mascara. In addition to its products, Studio5ive includes articles on topics such as ‘Cosmetics
for a Masculine Look’; provides detailed advice on regimens for skin care; and offers advertising
links to non-competing websites that relate to men’s interests such as hair loss, impotence, and
plastic surgery. In short, Studio5ive attempts to be a comprehensive, one-stop skin care and cos-
metic site for men who are interested in their health and appearance, particularly those who
possess or want to possess a ‘sense of style and image awareness.’
However, Studio5ive and its competitors are treading on unknown terrain. As ABC News
(2006) reports,
Leo Burnett, a Chicago advertising firm, conducted a global study of masculinity last year, which
found half of men say their role in society is unclear and that they feel ‘less dominant’ than in
 Critical Discourse Studies 61

previous decades. More than 70 percent of men said advertising was out of touch with men’s
‘reality,’ leading company executive Rose Cameron to recommend that advertisers ‘reassure men
of their masculinity.’

Kimmel (quoted in O’Barr, 2003), one of the founders of the field of masculinity studies, has
consulted for advertising companies and outlines the difficulties:

How do you get middle-class straight white men to buy perfumes [and cosmetics] when the only
thing they know is Old Spice? How do you associate various ideas of masculinity with the
product? Do you put it in a penis-shaped bottle? Do you give it a sexual name? Do you advertise
it with half-naked women sort of grabbing the guy who wears it?

Studio5ive can thus be seen as a marketing work-in-progress. Its discursive choices reveal inter-
esting parallels and disjunctions with cosmetic advertising to women. Visually, the represen-
tations of men on the site are photographs of faces as well as body parts such as mouths,
eyes, biceps, and torsos. This is similar to the way women’s bodies have been depicted in adver-
tising – not as a whole, but in parts which can be manipulated and, thus, objectified by the pro-
ducer. However, except for the home page which is in full colour, the Studio5ive web pages
feature a conservative colour palette of black, grey, white, and brown with a few highlights
in red – a stark contrast to similar advertising to women in which the colours are many,
vibrant, and lush.
Textually, Studio5ive mixes the discourse of advertising of female grooming aids with
language designed to appeal to the traditional male. On the one hand, the products are not
renamed to conceal their feminine roots – for example, ‘mascara’ is not ‘lash enhancer.’ On
the other hand, make-up in general is considered ‘corrective,’ that is, as addressing a health
concern rather than a beauty issue. Also, much of the discourse about the products attempts
to validate their use through scientific terminology. Thus, Velocity Moisturizer Emulsion, a
facial cream, is ‘vitamin-enriched’ with the capacity to ‘stabilize skin’s natural defenses . . .
while special humectants attract and hold additional moisture for hours.’
It is clear that, although the producers of Studio5ive are trying to market cosmetics as if they
were everyday male products, they are involved in a finely balanced act of discourse where too
much weight on the ‘beauty’ side will turn men off while too much weight on the ‘technology’
side can render product description almost incomprehensible and, perhaps, even ridiculous.
Moreover, if Studio5ive wishes to attract the largest possible number of consumers, it must
appeal to heterosexual as well as gay and bisexual men, and to black and Asian as well as
white men. That the producers are carefully fine-tuning their strategy is evident in my analysis
of the Double Stroke Cream Mascara.

Studio5ive’s Double Stroke Cream Mascara

Figure 1 is a screen capture of the Studio5ive advertisement for Double Stroke Cream Mascara.
There is not sufficient scope in this paper to discuss the web page design; suffice it to say that this
page has a relatively common design with a logo in the upper left and the page content primarily
framed by the bottom and top navigation bars. An unusually eye-catching feature is the three
photographs in the upper-right hand corner, which change continually while the page is being
viewed, shifting through facial and body part images of men. This shifting also takes place in
the main photograph on the left, in which the viewer sees three male faces rotating one after
the other: a white male with dark hair, a white male with dark hair dyed blond, and a black male.
62 C. Harrison

Figure 1. Studio5ive Advertisement for Double Stroke Cream Mascara.

Constructing the world: the SFL ideational and VSS representational metafunctions
Both the SFL ideational metafunction and the VSS representational metafunction reflect what
Gregory (1982, p. 6) calls language about life – that is, it draws upon the speaker’s/producer’s
‘experience both of the external world, and of his consciousness of his own internal world.’

SFL ideational metafunction

First, the title of the mascara advertisement, ‘Two Strokes and You’re Out,’ can be read either as
a take-off of the baseball phrase ‘Three strikes and you’re out,’ giving the text a traditionally
masculine sports slant, or as a tongue-in-cheek reference to ‘outing’ – a significant event in
homosexual life. Bordo (1999, p. 182) describes this advertising approach as a strategy that
exploits ‘the possibility and profitability of what is known in the trade as a “dual marketing”
approach’ – that is, one that appeals to both heterosexual and gay men.
Second, the advertisement’s text positions the mascara as a product that can improve male
appearance without creating a feminine look. It does this by primarily encoding the mascara as
an Actor – in this case, a ‘tool’ that gets things done in just the right way. To demonstrate how
the Actor gets realized in a text, it is necessary to examine the participants and verbal processes
in each clause. Table 2 identifies these elements: participants are in italics and verbal processes
 Critical Discourse Studies 63

Table 2. Participants and verbal processes in the mascara text.

clause verbal process

1a Double Stroke Cream Mascara gently amplifies eyelashes with just two quick strokes of the Material
applicator brush on the ends of the lashes
2a Unlike clumpy and full coating mascaras for women, this smooth cream formula glides on Material
fast, making it ideal for men
2b who want handsome looking lashes without a ‘made-up’ effect Mental
3a [Double Stroke Cream Mascara is] Available in a single neutral brown shade [at a] price [of] Relational
$17.90
4a [Its] Two-stroke formula insures a natural look Material
5a [Its] Smooth cream base glides on fast Material
6a [Its] Easy to apply formula won’t clump Material
7a [It] Conditions Material
7b While it lightly covers lashes Material
8a [It is] Perfect for men Relational
8b who want more defined eyelashes Mental

Note: a indicates an independent clause; b indicates a dependent clause; bracketed content replaces
elided text.

are bolded. In addition, it identifies the type of verbal process: ‘Material’ refers to processes of
doing, ‘Relational’ to processes of being, and ‘Mental’ to processes of sensing.
This clausal analysis reveals that the mascara, the primary participant, and its variants, such
as ‘smooth cream formula’ and ‘two-stroke formula,’ are the subject of the seven independent
clauses. In six of these – 1a, 2a, 4a, 5a, 6a, and 7a – the mascara is actively achieving goals. It
‘amplifies’ eyelashes, ‘glides on fast,’ ‘insures’ a look that is natural (i.e., cannot be detected),
‘conditions’ lashes (i.e., has health benefits), and does not ‘clump’ in the manner of women’s
mascara. In contrast, the male users of the mascara – the ‘who’ in clauses 2b and 8b – are
in the wings, so to speak. They form the subject of only two clauses, and these clauses are depen-
dent and, therefore, embedded deeper in the discourse than the independent clauses. In this way,
the users are backgrounded, thereby downplaying the verb ‘want’ that is attributed to them.
Mental processes such as ‘want,’ ‘think,’ and ‘feel’ could be contested as irrational (not mascu-
line) rather than rational (masculine). Interestingly, ‘eyelashes’ – presumably the focus of the
advertisement – is a participant in only four clauses (1a, 2b, 7b, and 8b), only one of which
is not embedded. This avoidance of the term ‘eyelashes’ or ‘lashes’ is reflected in the visual
text, which has no image of eyelashes at all – a discursive feature which is usually highlighted
in mascara advertising to women.

VSS representational metafunction

The mascara product is presented in an architectural manner, with the mascara tube resembling
an upright tower while the applicator leans, in a vector of motion, at a sharp angle to it (see
Figure 2.) This visual arrangement is what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p. 59) consider a ‘nar-
rative.’ When the RPs ‘are connected by a vector, they are represented as doing something to or
for each other . . . [and these] narrative patterns serve to present unfolding actions and events,
processes of change.’ Arguably, the vertical mascara tube and its angled wand have phallic over-
tones, but Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, pp. 54 – 55) point out that straight lines and angular
designs ‘are the elements of the mechanical, technological order,’ as opposed to curves and
circles which represent natural processes. Moreover, because angularity is associated with tech-
nology, it presents ‘a world we can, at least in principle, understand fully and rationally.’
64 C. Harrison

Figure 2. The mascara tube and wand—a narrative structure.

Given that technological skill and rational thinking are traits associated with traditional mas-
culinity, it is not surprising that angularity is also replicated in the many rectangular forms on the
web page: the rectangles of the photographs in the upper right-hand corner; the four small, orna-
mental squares located in the large black rectangle that frames the left side of the page; the square
frame for the rotating faces; and the rectangular shape of the text. In the VSS grammar, the RPs
that surround the mascara tube and wand are conceptual structures realized through a symbolic
process (see Table 3.) Moreover, the text itself, with the exception of the slanted and shadowed
S in the logo, is in a sans serif typeface. Shriver (1997, pp. 256–257) describes this typeface as
uniform, clean, modern, and sparse – utilitarian, in other words, as opposed to the ‘visually
rich texture of serif faces.’ The purpose, then, of the images within the design is to align the
mascara with traditional masculinity by presenting it as a pragmatic, functional, and no-frills tool.
Finally, as noted earlier, an interesting aspect of the advertisement’s web page design is the
photographic montage of face and body parts in the upper right-hand corner. Their function is to
form, en masse, a conceptual structure realized as classificatory. These photographs are all rep-
resentations of a group which we could call ‘aspects of male beauty.’ The parts of faces are hand-
some; the body parts are buff and muscular. Thus, the montage is a tribute to the male body and
suggests that any man using Studio5ive products is either as beautiful or has the potential to
achieve such beauty with a dab of cleanser, a brush of powder, and two strokes of mascara.
In sum, the verbal and visual discourses in the advertisement work together to create a
meaning for mascara that is at odds with societal conventions that it is a product only for
women. Eyelashes and what mascara can do for them are de-emphasized. Rather, the approach
is holistic with the face emphasized, suggesting that male mascara will add to an overall effect of
health and beauty, rather than distinguishing one specific facial feature. Hence, buying mascara
becomes not a vanity purchase, but a masculine activity based on forethought and rationality.
 Critical Discourse Studies 65

Table 3. Basic structures and processes of the VSS representational metafunction.

structures processes

Narrative: Allows viewers to create a
story about the RPs.
Conceptual: Allows viewers to
consider the RPs in terms of who
or what they represent.
† Action: The narrative is created by vectors that can be bodies, limbs, tools,
weapons, roads, etc.
† Reactional: The narrative is created by eyelines (acting as vectors)
between RPs.
† Classificatory: RPs are members of a group, such as in advertisements for
beauty products which feature a group of models (e.g., Revlon).
† Analytical: RPs are displayed in terms of a ‘part–whole’ structure. In a pie
chart, the chart is the Carrier (the ‘whole’) and its segments are Attributes
(the ‘parts’).
† Symbolic: RPs are important for what they mean. In a motorbike
advertisement, the bike can be analytical (asking the viewer to check out
its attributes) and also act as symbolic of male virility. Abstract shapes also
fall in this category.

Moreover, male use of mascara bears no resemblance to female use. Instead of being a beauty
aid, it is a technology – handy and effective, yet simple and easy to use (i.e., applied with only
two strokes).

Engaging the reader/viewer: the SFL and VSS interpersonal metafunctions

Discourse is, to use a Bahktinian term, dialogic. That is to say, it does not stand in isolation but is
a social artifact, part of an ongoing conversation. Gregory (1982, p. 7) describes the interperso-
nal metafunction as language as life, pointing to the role of language in its communicative aspect
as creating and enacting social engagement, including ‘the speaker’s intrusion of his own atti-
tudes into what he says.’

SFL interpersonal metafunction

In SFL, the interpersonal metafunction is realized through Mood and modality. Mood indicates
the way that the speaker wishes to interact with the reader, and is determined by whether a clause
is in the declarative, is a command, or is in the form of a question. Interestingly, the first line of
the text – the title – can be interpreted in two ways: as a declarative statement (‘You make two
strokes and you’re out’) or as a command (‘Take two strokes, and you’re out’). The rest of the
text is unambiguous, as every clause is declarative. Therefore, the text does not tell the reader to
do something or pose rhetorical questions that he cannot answer. In this way, the reader is in a
position of equality with the text. It is informative; he will make his own judgments as to the
worth of the information.
Modality is a way in which the text reflects the attitudes of the speaker. Modality involves
the use of verbal modifiers that indicate negativity, positivity, obligation, inclination, possibility,
and certainty. With one exception, the verbs in the mascara text do not have modal operators
such as ‘would,’ ‘could,’ ‘should,’ ‘may,’ ‘might,’ and so on. Only ‘won’t clump’ is negative
and, through being in the future tense, indicates probability (Halliday & Mattheissen, 2004,
p. 619). To put it another way, the verbal text overwhelmingly represents the qualities of the
mascara as positive and certain – a guarantee, so to speak, for potential buyers.

VSS interpersonal metafunction

The architectural representation of the mascara tube and wand is designed to make men see
mascara use as rational rather than emotional; the producer uses the two angles of perspective
66 C. Harrison

to make the viewer feel more connected to the cosmetic (see Table 4). First, the mascara is
photographed in such a way that it is level with the viewer’s eyes. According to Kress and
van Leeuwen (2006, p. 140), if ‘the picture is at eye level, then the point of view is one of equal-
ity and there is no power difference involved.’ Here, the angle could be described as more defen-
sive than offensive, designed to elicit no negative feelings on the part of the viewer. Second, the
mascara is positioned at a frontal angle to the viewer:
The horizontal angle encodes whether or not the image-producer (and hence, willy-nilly, the viewer)
is ‘involved’ with the represented participants or not. The frontal angle says, as it were: ‘what you see
here is part of our world, something we are involved with.’
(Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 136)
A more emotional appeal is found in the photographs of faces – those on the left-hand side of the
web page. The human face is one of the most powerful resources in visual imagery, since people
are ‘hard-wired’ from infancy to study faces and their expressions (see McCloud, 1993). In
addition to being intrinsically interesting to us, faces create strong engagement on the part of
the viewer through the image act/gaze and social intimacy/distance. In Figure 1, the model
in the frame on the left looks directly at the viewer. This face makes a demand which, according
to Kress and van Leeuwen, has two functions:
In the first place it creates a visual form of direct address. It acknowledges the viewers explicitly,
addressing them with a visual ‘you.’ In the second place it constitutes an ‘image act’ . . . the partici-
pant’s gaze (and the gesture, if it is present) demands something from the viewer, demands that the
viewer enter into some kind of imaginary relation with him or her.
(2006, pp. 117 –118)
In this case, the face invites the viewer to share the enriching experience of wearing cosmetics.
However, the two other faces that also appear in the framed box are not looking directly at the
viewer, thus realizing an offer, so that the viewer can contemplate the faces and realize that these
ordinary, smiling men are wearing mascara with confidence. Moreover, the three faces are
photographed at a close personal distance – they are all head-and-shoulder shots. Spatial

Table 4. Basic features and processes of the VSS interpersonal metafunction.

feature feature processes

Image act and gaze † Demand: The RP is looking directly at the viewer, causing the
viewer to feel a strong engagement with the RP.
† Offer: The RP does not look at the viewer, becoming an object of
contemplation for the viewer.
Social intimacy and distance † Intimate distance: Head and face only.
† Close personal distance: Head and shoulders.
† Far personal distance: From the waist up.
† Close social distance: Whole figure.
† Far social distance: Whole figure with space around it.
† Public distance: Torsos of several people.

Perspective – horizontal angle and
involvement
Perspective – vertical angle and power: there
are two types of vertical angle, that
between RP(s) and viewer and that
between RPs within a visual text
† Frontal angle: The RP is presented frontally to the viewer, implying
that the RP is ‘one of us.’
† Oblique angle: The RP is presented obliquely to the viewer,
implying that the RP is ‘one of them.’
† High angle: The RP ‘looking down’ has more power.
† Medium angle: The RP ‘looking horizontally’ has equal power.
† Low angle: The RP ‘looking up’ has less power.
 Critical Discourse Studies 67

distance between RPs and the viewer is important in creating a sense of intimacy or
non-intimacy. Kress and van Leeuwen (2006, p. 126; italics in original) note, ‘The relation
between the human participants represented in images and the viewer is once again an imaginary
relation. People are portrayed as though they are friends, or as though they are strangers.’ Thus, a
head-and-shoulder shot is second only to a head shot in creating the kind of intimacy that exists
between people who are willing to touch one another physically – family members, close
friends, and lovers.
In sum, the socially active aspect of the advertisement that connects the producer, via the
RPs, to the viewer works in a more subtle manner than the verbal text to ensure that men
believe that mascara is guaranteed to have a positive effect on their lives. Arguably, the
verbal text is stronger in this metafunction than the visual text. The faces are engaging, but it
is hard to warm to a mascara tube. However, I suggest that it is important not to underestimate
the visuals on this web page, which is just one page among many. Interested viewers who have
gone through the site will find it filled with visions of male beauty, each contributing to an over-
whelming aggregate of handsome men who use skin cream and cosmetics with only the most
positive of effects.

Making the message coherent: the SFL textual and VSS compositional metafunctions
Both the SFL textual metafunction and the VSS compositional metafunction reflect
what Gregory (1982, p. 7) describes as language as itself; Gregory notes ‘language’s potential
for organizing messages, drawing attention to one part rather than another, and relating messages
and parts of messages to each other.’ These metafunctions are also the enablers of the other
metafunctions because they allow the speaker’s/producer’s experiences and attitudes to be
delivered in a coherent manner (Halliday & Mattheissen, 2004, p. 30).

SFL textual metafunction

In the SFL textual metafunction, the clause is analyzed in terms of its thematic structure: ‘One
part of the clause is enunciated as the theme; this then combines with the remainder so that the
two parts together constitute a message’ (Halliday & Mattheissen, 2004, p. 64). The starting
point, called the Topical Theme, is where the speaker sets out the topic for the rest of the
clause. When we consider the clause as an information unit, the Topical Theme often acts as
what is Given – what is present and obvious. The rest of the clause, called the Rheme,
usually includes the verbal process and other content – information that is often considered
as New. Of particular interest for the Theme/Rheme analysis of the mascara advertisement is
Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004, p. 100) suggestion that embedded relative clauses should
be ignored because their ‘thematic contribution to the discourse is minimal.’ Thus, as Table 5
indicates, such clauses have been relegated to the Rheme of the independent clauses to which
they belong. Notably, the result is that every clause except for 2ab has either the name of the
mascara, the pronoun ‘it’ acting in anaphoric reference, or one of the mascara’s characteristics
as a Topical Theme, demonstrating the producer’s unrelenting focus on the importance of
mascara. Moreover, this consistency foregrounds the only oddity, the Theme of 2ab, i.e.
‘Unlike clumpy and full coating mascaras for women.’ By placing this adverbial clause first,
the producer emphasizes the difference between men and women’s mascara but also reveals a
significant conundrum for sellers of mascara for men – potential buyers do not want to
appear to be wearing any.
68 C. Harrison

Table 5. Topical Theme and Rheme in the mascara text.

Topical Theme Rheme

1a Double Stroke Cream Mascara gently amplifies eyelashes with just two quick strokes of the
applicator brush on the ends of the lashes
2ab Unlike clumpy and full coating mascaras for this smooth cream formula glides on fast, making it ideal
women, for men who want handsome looking lashes without a
‘made-up’ effect
3a [Double Stroke Cream Mascara] [is] Available in a single neutral brown shade [at a] price [of]
$17.90
4a [Its] Two-stroke formula insures a natural look
5a [Its] Smooth cream base glides on fast
6a [Its] Easy to apply formula won’t clump
7a [It] Conditions Conditions
7b (while) it Lightly covers lashes
8ab [It] [ is] Perfect for men who want more defined eyelashes

Note: a represents the independent clause in a sentence; b indicates a dependent clause; bracketed content
replaces elided text;  represents the Textual Theme.

VSS compositional metafunction

At first glance, the visuals suggest that the mascara advertisement has an information-value
system of Given/New that makes it identical to the information structure of the text (see
Table 6). The mascara tube and wand are the Given, ‘presented as something the viewer
already knows, as a familiar and agreed-upon point of departure for the message,’ and the
text is the New, ‘something which is not yet known . . . to which the viewer must pay special

Table 6. Basic systems and elements of the VSS compositional metafunction.

system elements

Information value: The placement of
RPs allows them to take on
different information roles.
Salience: Refers to the ability of an
RP to capture the viewer’s
attention.
Framing: How RPs are framed affects
whether they are seen as connected
or separate.
† Given/New: RPs on the left side of an image have the value of
being ‘given’ knowledge while RPs on the right are ‘new.’
† Ideal/Real: RPs at the top of an image have the value of being
‘ideal’ while RPs below represent the ‘real.’
† Centre/Margin: RPs in the center provide the nucleus of
information to which surrounding elements are subservient.
† Size: The larger the RP, the greater the salience.
† Sharpness of focus: Out-of-focus RPs have less salience.
† Tonal contrast: Areas of high tonal contrast have greater
salience.
† Colour contrast: Strongly saturated colours have greater
salience than ‘soft’ colors.
† Foreground/Background: An RP in the foreground has
greater salience than an RP in the background.
† Framelines: Lines within the image that divide RPs or hold
them together.
† Pictorial framing devices: Stronger lines around the image
increase connection.
† Empty spaces: Areas of ‘nothingness’ can cause
disconnection.
† Colour: More continuity in colour means greater connection.
† Visual shapes: More continuity in shapes throughout the
image means greater connection.
 Critical Discourse Studies 69

attention’ (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006, p. 181). The composition is the same for all product
pages on the Studio5ive website; the large block of white space is designed to carry the
product information. The fact that the only red on the page, other than in the S in the logo, is
in the writing on the mascara tube, in the first four words of the text, and in the five bullets,
suggests that the producer intended the mascara and its text to form a closely connected
information unit.
I think it valid, in analyzing web pages, to consider that the web page design – the naviga-
tion bars and other visuals repeated page to page – can act simply as the frame for other visuals
which have a compositional structure of their own. However, the analyst may have to take the
web page design into consideration if it provides information specific to the web page content. In
the mascara advertisement, when the frame with the rotating faces on the left-hand side of the
page is added to the composition as presenting additional content, another information-value
system emerges – Centre/Margin in the form of a triptych: Margin – Centre – Margin (Kress
& van Leeuwen, 2006, pp. 197– 200). The framed photograph on the left is a Margin; the
mascara is the Centre; and the verbal text forms the right-hand Margin.
Three aspects of the web page design suggest this interpretation. First, although the frame and
photographs have no red highlights, the shifting images are eye-catching. Second, the frame for the
photographs is not completely contained within the black vertical left-hand bar. Rather, it juts into
the white space that has been left for product information. Third, the content within the frame is
specific to the mascara: the faces are of men wearing the cosmetic. On other product pages, the
content within the frame holds different information, such as a simulation of how cream is
absorbed into the skin or a photograph of a face on which blemishes are highlighted. In other
words, the frame contains non-repetitive content and, therefore, cannot just be considered as
part of the web page design.
In sum, the Margin – Centre –Margin composition supports the importance of the mascara as
it was emphasized in the verbal text. The mascara tube and wand are sufficiently large to make
them the most salient features on the page. Moreover, the more viewers scroll through the pages,
the more the repetitive web page design features – the three navigation bars, the logo, and
images in the upper right-hand corner – fall into the background. Thus, the triptych becomes
foregrounded and prominent.

Conclusion
The body – what we eat, how we dress, the daily rituals through which we attend to the body – is a
medium of culture. The body . . . is a powerful symbolic form, a surface on which the central rules,
hierarchies, and even metaphysical commitments of a culture are inscribed and thus reinforced
through the concrete image of the body.
(Bordo, 1993, p. 165)
Feminists have long criticized advertising and other popular media for their manipulation, eroti-
cization, and objectification of the female body, noting that the construction of women as thin
and beautiful is an ideal generally unattainable by ordinary women and, thus, detrimental to
their mental and physical well-being. In other words, body image is more than what one sees in
the mirror. As Cash (2004) points out, ‘[I]ndividuals’ subjective experience of their appearance
is often even more psychosocially powerful than the objective or social “reality” of their appear-
ance.. . . It encompasses one’s body-related self-perceptions and self-attitudes, including thoughts,
beliefs, feelings, and behaviours.’ In cases where self-disgust and shame with one’s body is
intense, leading to social anxiety, depression, and hopelessness, people can suffer from body dys-
morphic disorder (BDD), which Veale (2004) describes as a ‘preoccupation with an imagined
70 C. Harrison

defect in one’s appearance or, in the case of a slight physical anomaly, the person’s concern is
markedly excessive.’
Scholars who have turned their gaze onto the construction of men in advertising and other
popular media are now sounding the alarm. Hidden behind the glossy images of handsome faces
and toned, muscular bodies – enabled, as advertisements suggest, by grooming aids – are an
increasing number of adolescent males and grown men with body image dissatisfactions and
dysfunctions such as BDD. The psychiatry literature paints a particularly unhappy picture.
Pope et al. (2000, pp. 1300, 1301) report that men want, and also believe that women would
prefer, ‘a [male] body with at least 27 lb (12 kg) more muscle than they actually had,’ which
suggests that there is ‘a widening gulf between the average Western man’s body and the
more muscular ideal to which he aspires.’ Leit, Gray, and Pope (2002, p. 334) warn that this
new ideal ‘may be especially dangerous because some male images in the media may not
even be attainable without drugs such as anabolic steroids.’ And Pope et al. (2005, pp. 395,
399) identify an emerging male illness as a result of this ideal: ‘Muscle dysmorphia, a preoccu-
pation with the idea that one’s body is insufficiently lean or muscular, appears to be a relatively
new form of body image disturbance in men’ that requires them ‘to attend to a meticulous diet
and time-consuming workout schedule.’ This study also notes that men with this condition ‘had
a remarkably high rate of substance abuse.’
Social and cultural commentators place the blame on capitalism. Bordo (1997, p. 221)
states, ‘There is a consumer system operating here that depends on our perceiving ourselves
as defective and that will continually find new ways to do this. That system . . . is masked by
the rhetoric of personal empowerment.’ In the same vein, Giddens (1991, pp. 5, 7) notes that
the recruitment of the physical body into narcissistic lifestyle regimes enables an ongoing cre-
ation of new purchasing needs and desires, thereby keeping the consumer culture alive and well.
However, he does point out that what seems to be self-absorption is the ‘reflexive project’ of
modern self-identity, which requires constant monitoring in the face of multiple consumer
choices: ‘What might appear as a wholesale movement towards the narcissistic cultivation of
bodily appearance is in fact an expression of concern lying much deeper actively to “construct”
and control the body.’ Kimmel, quoted in an interview (Gillis, 2005), sums up the general
academic stance on the emerging social, physical, and psychological effects of the metrosexual
trend: ‘[Men are] not quite as screwed up about appearance as women, but we’re closing
the gap.’
The research in this paper has been designed to explore metrosexuality and the construction
of masculine identity through a multimodal analysis of the advertising discourse of male
mascara. By focusing on a specific advertisement, this paper has illuminated what Foucault
(1978/1995, pp. 26 – 27) calls ‘localized episodes’ of power –knowledge relations. Such epi-
sodes occur because societal power, which is diffuse, subtly works through people by providing
them with knowledge that they come to believe is true and normative. Localized episodes of
power– knowledge relations are not significant individually; their impact is felt in the aggregate.
Thus, eventually, the purchase of male mascara may become a commonplace event as opposed
to an anomaly. No one advertiser, or one influential role model, could have the power to effect
such a pervasive change in masculine identity. Rather, the validity of metrosexuality will be
established via millions of small actions and discourses, each of which is a node in a
complex and continuously shifting network of power – knowledge relations that contributes to
the creation of cultural traditions, mores, and understandings.
The commercial success of male grooming products demonstrates that the dialectic created
between the two discourses of traditional masculinity and metrosexuality found in contemporary
advertising has played a significant role in the (re)construction of masculine identity. Although I
have noted here some of the adverse physical reactions to this re-shaping, more research has to
 Critical Discourse Studies 71

been done before we understand the full scope of its social repercussions. How, for example,
does the metrosexual trend affect male – female relationships, family dynamics, and work situ-
ations? What splits are there between generations, urban and rural populations, married and
unmarried men – and why? Some newspaper articles quoted in this paper demonstrate a back-
lash, but how strong is it and what forms does this resistance take?
While much still needs to be known, it is clear from the endurance of male mascara in the
marketplace that traditional masculinity is a construct that cannot account either for the wide
variation of attitudes that could be at odds within a single individual male, or for the many simi-
larities that heterosexual, white men share with black men, gay men, and women. Arguably, as
seen from this perspective, metrosexuality is not diametrically opposed to traditional masculi-
nity as the advertising discourse of grooming aids would suggest, but is merely one aspect of
the complex, multi-faceted, and continually changing face of gender that feeds the beliefs and
behaviours around body, image, fashion, and style that are exhibited by both men and women.

Notes on contributor
Claire Harrison is a doctoral candidate at the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton
University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Her research interests include narrative theory, rhetoric, semiotics,
and critical discourse analysis. She has published articles on visual communication, web content, and pro-
fessional writing. She has also co-authored articles on leadership communication as well as co-edited
Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis: Studies in Social Change (Continuum,
2000).

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