Marilyn Monroe

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magazine features Marilyn Monroe as the covergirl. By decoding
meaning from this magazine cover, the visual and written text becomes a
communicator for both obvious and subtle meaning conveyed through her image.


Marilyn Monroe's image is communicated through signs and their codes. The
paradigm (her facial expression, gesture, body language, positioning,
written text, background, dress, colours, lighting and camera angle)
carries meaning and can be considered signifiers. In the second order
semiological system, the signifiers become signs which then signify
'preferred meanings' with signification that draws from metasigns and
ideologies.

The slogan 'Entertainment for Men' is a signifier for the down classing of
females as nothing more then sexual objects in our society. As a sign, the
written text can be categorised as an icon as it directly connotes Marilyn
Monroe as being 'Entertainment for Men', a playmate valued only for her
body. This sign heavily draws on the ...

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which became vital to her image. These
idiosyncrasies of her facial expression are signifiers which help to create
her marketable and sexual image. The open mouth and bared teeth become
overt signs of sexual allure, playfulness and seductiveness. This
contributes to the ideologies that females have to appear as a sexual
object to remain a marketable image in society. Marilyn looking upwards,
together with the photograph taken from a camera below her(angled upwards),
becomes a sign of a male's superiority over a female. Marilyn Monroe's way
of tilting her head, implies she is looking upwards seductively at a male
reader. This is significant as it becomes a super-real embodiment of ...

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