The use of Gender and Role play in LaChapelle's work

David LaChapelle’s work clearly exhibits gender and gender role play in many forms. Gender can be deffined as the widely held beliefs, expectations, customs and practises within a society that define masculine and feminine attributes, behaviours, roles and responsibilities. ’Encyclopaedia defines gender as ‘a set of characteristics that are seen to distinguish between male and female'.

In 1972 John Berger stated that women were still ‘ depicted in a different way to men- because the ideal spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the women is designed to flatter him.’ ‘Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at.' Ways of Seeing, Episode 2, The Female Nude.

Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity in David LaChapelles work with women portrayed as submissive and passive while the men in his photographs are in a position of control and power.

The Following is an example of an add that LaChapelle created. In this add he plays strongly on the  stereotypical role of women in the home.