READING THE MUSCULAR BODY - A CRITICAL DECODING OF ADVERTISEMENTS IN FLEX MAGAZINE

This paper provides a critical decoding of advertisements in Flex, a p opular bodybuilding magazine. The analysis focuses on the visual and n arrative representation of the muscular male body and bodywork practic es in advertisements promoting bodybuilding technologies. The images o f the muscular body found in bodybuilding advertisements encourage mas culine self-transformation through bodywork. Moreover, the taken-for-g ranted representation of the muscular body as natural and desirable is rooted in an ideology of gender difference, championing dominant mean ings of masculinity through a literal embodiment of patriarchal power. The foregrounding of the muscular body as a cultural ideal offers con servative resistance to progressive change and alternative masculiniti es by valorizing a dominance-based notion of masculinity.