My topic

The topic we have been given to base our Zine on is body image, within this theme I wanted to concentrate on “gender norms”. The definition of gender norms is the “social principles that govern the behaviour of girls, boys, women and men in society and restrict their gender identity into what is considered to be appropriate”. To link this to “body image” I want to focus the photography side of my zine to my models clothing, make up, personal style and so on. I feel that in this generation gender norms are becoming more open and are allowing audiences to open up about feeling different to what we’re ‘supposed’ to whether that is within clothing, sexuality or so on. I feel that a zine concentrating on this would allow this audience to have more representation. There are plenty of magazines that represent a certain way of looking so a zine that showcase more unique characters would make people feel less alone. Although my topic is important and would be the main facture of my zine I also would want my zine to be a place where people could look for inspiration for clothing styles, makeup, art, music and photography.

To achieve my topic, I am planning on having my zine in two parts. The first part is based of male gender norms, I am planning on doing a photoshoot with a male model wearing dramatic drag make up. I feel that this fits in well with the theme and breaks tradition of men having to be seen as masculine. I also think this would show great representation of a queer male. In between the photos I also want to add art that links to my photoshoot and the subtopic of males in drag make up. In the second part of the zine, I am going to base it of female gender norms. I didn’t want the zine to come across too repetitive so I want to focus the second photo on my model as a character herself. To achieve this I focused on the fact my model has tattoos and piercings, which can be seen as not feminine for a female but have her wearing a pink dress and flowers and different props that associate to being feminine. I also want to try having this model wearing a few different outfits such as blazers or things that associate to male social constructs. Again a want to include art in between this shoot that would stereotypically appeal to a male audience.