Advertisements and Photographs in Flex & SI for Women - Britney, Stacy, Jude

The advertisements and photos in Flex magazine in comparison to the advertisements and photos in Sports Illustrated for Women were different, yet the same in that they both promoted "good looking" bodies. Of the 84 advertisements in the November 2005 issue of Flex, 81 of them were about Technologies of the body (dietary supplements, body building equipment and knowledge systems) and only 3 of them were of adornment and display of the boday (clothes, cosmetics and competitions). In technologies of the body, 54% of all the ads were of dietary supplements, 3.5% were of body building equipment and 35% were of knowledge systems. In adornment and display of the body, only 1% were clothes, 0% were cosmetics, and 2.3% were competitions. In the November/December 2000 issue of Sports Illustrated for Women issue there were 30 advertisements. 18 of them (60%) were Athletic Competence, 0 of them were Ambivelance, 10% were All-American Girl Next Door, 6% were Hyper Heterosexual, 13% were Sexy Babe and 10% of them were Soft Pornography. Most of the advertisements in Flex showed huge, bulky, muscular men and most of the advertisements in Sports Illustrated for Women showed females in action and them playing a sport, or them posing in a sports bra and athletic short shorts. The themes conveyed most dominantly in Flex were the manly man, and the big men and how to get big fast with uses of different dietary supplements. The message mostly conveyed in SI for Women was to stay fit and active and competition. SI for women didn't really convey much feminity but Flex definitly conveyed a lot of masculinity. A good example, however, of femininity in SI for Women is on page 46. A good example for masculinity in Flex is on page 110. This activity showed that sport/fitness magazines for men are all about being more manly and more masculine. The sport and fitness magazines for women are not about feminity, but more about health and competition. -Britney, Stacy, Jude.