The purpose of this essay is to show how femininity is construed in a visual hipster discourse. The material used mainly consists of four adverts from the fashion company American Apparel and four blogs with the word hipster in the title. The method used is inspired by semiotics and discourse analysis and the theory is based on feminist visual culture. Focus is placed on both a deep analysis of the images and texts individually, and a review of the discourse and context in which they interact, in order to discover how femininity is construed among hipsters. Throughout the course of the analysis, gender and sexuality is a consistent focus and leads to other aspects related to power not being prioritised. The analysis section is divided into two main areas of focus where American Apparel is the first part and the hipster blogs the other. Each section begins with an analysis of images and text and is concluded with a summary. In the concluding discussion, it becomes clear that sexist images are used to represent women primarily by American Apparel, but this stereotype is also apparent in the blogs. It is also clear from the analysis of the material that unique and alternative fashion is promoted. Rather than re-contextualising femininity, the traditional objectification of women is hidden behind the hipster ideal. The essay concludes with several brief thoughts and discussion on whether it is possible to apply this ideal of women on a larger part of society than just hipsters.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-105830 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Hagelin, Anette |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Centrum för modevetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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