For my photo assignment I chose to photograph my co-worker, Austin, in our spray tan booth. A couple of weeks ago I saw an ad by Dodge where a man is being interrogated for coming out of a tanning salon wearing bronzer and getting into his brand new Dodge Dart. Here's the commercial so you can see for yourself! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ2kS_xGZ-g When I first saw this commercial I was absolutely bewildered, and then angry. Who said tanning is only acceptable for women to do? This is obviously an issue of gender roles, and another excellent example of how manipulating the media is when it comes to these gender roles. This ad struck me the most because it's the first ad that I have noticed in which someone is being punished for going outside their gender role.
I photographed Austin in this position to highlight his masculinity, when I look at him in this picture I can almost hear him saying "F*ck yeah I'm tan and f*ck yeah I'm a MAN!". I've worked at a couple tanning salons over the years and I've always HATED the stigma following men who tan. Its just one of those things I'll never understand about our culture that is so caught up in gender roles.
My whole point in this is that gender roles shouldn't exist, the only thing making us male or female is our genitalia, it shouldn't be like this. My 8 year old cousin Aiden shouldn't get bullied at school for his love of the color pink. He is the most amazing kid out there, one day he was bugging me to play monster trucks with him and I made the mistake of saying "no thank you, that's for boys" and he immediately went on a rant about "there's no such thing as boy toys or girl toys, they're just toys!" I was blown away. Aiden was absolutely right. If only everyone had the mindset of this amazingly wise young boy.
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