Evaluating the use of the male gaze in Calvin Kleins 'Eva Mendes'

We have analysed the picture on the right and tried to understand how the male gaze could be associated with this picture. First of all I have chosen to concentrate on Eva Mendes's face. Her face is slanted and slightly faced away, her eyes are closed and her teeth are showing a little. Choosing to keep the models eyes shut is clearly to avoid eye contact with the audience, if her eyes were to be  opened it may well give her a look of innocence and ruin her overall look of being in control and possesing power. The look of her smile is a mix between the 'chocolate box' and the 'invitational' look. This gives her an element of mystique and keeps the audiences attention on the product.

The next thing that seems to quite striking is her posture. It is not particularly feminine as she is standing with her legs open and her hands on her hips. As her stance is fairly masculine it gives a stereotypical look of domination.  The way her hands are positioned almost points the viewers in the direction they should be looking. Also on her hands we notice there is no ring which suggests she is available. This could lead the audience of this advert to beleive young adults are wearing this brand and that they are still sexually active and having fun. Stereotpically unlike married couples who are thought to not be having as good life as these young adults.

The items she is wearing are firstly all Calvin Klein. This is obviously to advertise this brand to the maximum. She is wearing suspenders which are thought to be attractive and sexy to men. The heels are used to make the models legs look slimmer and longer. Her upper clothing is very plain bra which we could perhaps see as being 'masculine' as it is not a stereotypically feminine one such as lace. Her skin is also very oiled up which gives her the look of being wet. This could suggest to the audience she has just come out of a shower and is getting ready to go out somewhere.  The look of being wet is also appealing and attractive to the opposite sex.

In conclusion I feel this advert is aimed at both women and men however, I do feel their are different purposes aimed at each gender. For example, to women, I feel this picture is aimed to aspire to;as most women are looking at other women to compare themselves to (relating back to Laura Mulvey's male gave theory) I think by looking at this advert women can understand how men could find it appealing and aspire to look like this, they also get the impression wearing this brand gives  them a more sexy and powerful look. However it could also be slightly intimidating and make women feel bad about them selves as the majority of women do not give this overall impression when wearing this type of underwear. To males this could simply be eye candy; this is just something to look at. However Calvin Klein could be using this as a technique for men to buy this underwear for their partners as it looks attractive on this particular model.