Denna C-uppsats studerade ett urval av livsstilstidningen Vanity Fairs omslagsbilder med hjälp av en semiotisk analys. Detta för att belysa egenskaper i omslagsbilderna vilka kunde visa hur män och kvinnor representerades och vilka ideal rörande fysiska attribut de uppvisade. Detta var uppsatsens syfte och frågeställningarna beträffade hur representationen av könen såg ut, om det fanns några tydliga skillnader och hur könsrollerna såg ut då båda könen figurerade på ett omslag. Frågeställningarna rörde även vilka ideal för män och kvinnor om fysiska attribut, om några, som porträtterades på omslagsbilderna och om, och då i så fall hur, de avvek från idealen. Materialet bestod av sex omslagsbilder från Vanity Fairs utgåvor under 2011. Metoden som användes för att göra studien var en semiotisk analys där Roland Barthes analysmodell med beteckning av första och andra graden applicerades. Detta för att kunna urskilja de tecken urvalet av omslagsbilder bestod av och vilka konnotationer dessa kunde framkalla hos tolkaren. Teoridelen bestående av litteratur kring representation, stereotyper och ideal i media samt tidigare forskning om Vanity Fairs omslagsbilder mellan 1983 och 2008 diskuterades men fungerade även som stöd för tolkningarna utifrån analysen av omslagsbilderna. Analysen av urvalet av Vanity Fairs omslagsbilder visade att representationen av könen inte hade kommit så långt i den utveckling som viss teorilitteratur ansåg hade skett inom media. Utvecklingen pekade mot en mer jämställd representation av män och kvinnor, nya maskuliniteter bestående av något känsligare och komplexa män hade även setts uppträda och männen hade kommit att allt oftare placeras i rollen som passivt sexobjekt. Denna roll hade kvinnor länge tilldelats men utvecklingen hade lett till mer självständiga och aktivare kvinnor. I de två omslagsbilder där båda könen figurerade kunde man se kvinnorna placerade i en relativt likvärdig position med männen men det var inte markant. Männen på omslagsbilderna visade vissa drag av de nya maskuliniteterna men kunde inte placeras i rollen som passivt sexobjekt, anspelning på sexualitet fann man istället främst hos kvinnorna. Alla personer levde upp i stort upp till de strikta ideal om fysiska attribut som teorilitteraturen benämnde som rådande i den västerländska kulturen. Enda undantaget var antydan till pannrynkor hos en av männen, vilken upplevdes vara karaktärsstärkande och bevisade att avvikelse från ideal accepteras i högre utsträckning för män än kvinnor. Vanity Fairs omslagsbilder verkade befästa traditionella representationer om män och kvinnor där kvinnorna förväntades vara mer sexuellt utmanande än männen och där idealen de uppvisade var starkt sammanbundna med dessa traditionella representationer.

While William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair is a satire, a humoristic account of the vanities of the different characters in the fictitious society of Vanity Fair, it is also a social criticism of early nineteenth century British society. The essay examines Thackeray’s social critique, which is sometimes explicitly expressed and sometimes more implicit. His criticism is aimed both at the new commodity culture where everything is reducible to money—even people and human relations—and at the class system of the up-and-coming middle classes and the established gentry and aristocracy. When Thackeray sends Becky Sharpe off in a vain pursuit of wealth and social status, he also uses her to expose the vanities of the other characters in Vanity Fair. Their vanities derive from the prevailing commodity culture and are mainly connected to wealth and social status. The essay discusses Becky’s progress from a sociological perspective through the theories of Pierre Bourdieu. His concepts of field, habitus, capital and distinction deal with the power structure in society and what distinguishes different social classes.  Here his theories are used to demonstrate how the different characters in Vanity Fair engage in competition for social status, by using their different forms of capital, and the essay emphasizes the convertibility of these kinds of capital. Bourdieu’s theories contribute to the understanding of how Becky who comes from nowhere, manages to climb to very top rung of the social ladder, but they also demonstrate that her chameleon-like ability to fit in everywhere is an exception to Bourdieu’s general model.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the cover images of Vanity Fair magazine from the years 1983 to 2008. The study attempted to determine if Vanity Fair’s covers have become more focused on celebrities over time and also analyzed how Vanity Fair defines a celebrity. The study used grounded theory from a case study perspective. An additional research question was to determine the number of politically-based cover images versus the number of celebrity-based cover images. This research used content analysis methodology. Both open and axial coding were used. Results were entered into Microsoft Excel and analyzed for statistical significance. / Department of Journalism

This essay uses corpus linguistic methods to study aspects of the novel Vanity Fair by W M Thackeray. The aim is to study the way Thackeray chose to describe his two female protagonists, Rebecca Sharp and Amelia Sedley. This is accomplished by a closer study of keywords in Vanity Fair, created by using a reference corpus consisting of thirteen novels by Victorian authors. These keywords are used to define semantic fields related to the novel. Keywords from the semantic field closest to the protagonists are studied in context. In addition, adjectives that collocate with the names of the protagonists are analyzed to compare the characterization of each woman. The study indicates that Thackeray has used fewer adjectives to describe Amelia than Rebecca, but that he has used these more frequently, which may cause readers to form a stronger mental picture of Amelia’s character sooner than they do for Rebecca’s.

As a word, glamour is hard to define, but is instantly recognizable. Its association with Hollywood movie stars fully emerged in the 1930s in the close-up celebrity portraits by photographers like George Hurrell. The aesthetic properties in these images that help create glamour are characterized by the Modernist style, known for sharp focus, high contrast, seductive poses, and the close-up (tight framing). My essay will explore the origins of the visual aesthetics of glamour, arguing that their roots can be found in the still life photographs of the 1910s, produced by fine art photographers such as Edward Steichen. This essay will primarily focus on the photography of Edward Steichen because he used these same techniques found in his still life portraits on Hollywood celebrities when he began working for Condé Nast’s Vanity Fair and Vogue in 1923. Steichen changed the conversation on how to photograph celebrities and his practices eventually led to the creation of glamour portrait photography. This thesis documents the ways in which Steichen established the precedent for glamour photography when he applied the close-up and Modernist style on Hollywood stars. The result of Steichen’s application was photography that provided visually identifiable and mechanically reproducible glamour.