Alexa Campagna's Response to Beer Commercials

Messner’s article, “The Male Consumer as Loser: Beer and Liquor Ads in Mega Sports Media Events,” examines the ways in which advertisements for alcohol are constructed in order to lure a certain population of consumers-particularly the White, “Average Joe”- to buy the products. It is disgusting and rather ironic that the target consumers are swayed to purchase these alcohol beverages through the disparaging message that these men will remain “chumps” and “losers” who will never, in their wildest dreams, be able to woo someone as attractive as the woman in the advertisements. This plants the skewed idea in the “Average Joe’s” mind that he can only regain the his sense of empowerment that he had lost after sexually fantasizing about the unattainable model if he drinks an ice cold beer. After reading how alcohol advertisements manipulate the average man into believing that they are worthless “losers,” I wondered if and how these companies manage to target other populations of beer drinking men that may not resemble your “Average Joe.” It seems that, no matter your race or class, not being made to feel like a “loser” is a losing game in itself. If the advertisement is targeting a wealthier male demographic, the advertisements tend to portray these men as susceptible to gold digging women who “subordinate [their] own pleasures (and surrender [their] pay checks)” to these greedy females. They are, like the “every man,” portrayed as individuals who need to remedy their “loser” statuses by consuming large amounts of alcohol and recapturing a sense of male entitlement.

          

  Messner’s point, that women are portrayed in these advertisements as either  “bitches” or “whores” in order convince men to be emotion- and commitment-phobes and to spend more time drinking with their buddies, is rather upsetting. Men, through these advertisements, are being conditioned to believe that women are either “bitches,” who “take away [the] freedom” that bachelorhood provides, or “whores,” whose sole purpose is to engage men in sexual, “no strings attached” relationships. Some ads encourage men to express anger over the women and girlfriends who are standing in the way of their freedom from commitment and resentment that these women will never be as attractive as the dream women in the advertisements. This is not only providing men with a fleeting illusion of empowerment, but it holds women to unattainable standards of beauty that will always lead a man to feel disappointment and “hostility towards the real women in his life.” The one ad that really stood out to me involved a man who, surprisingly enough, was showing a slight desire for commitment by meeting his girlfriend's mother. His friends forewarned him to keep in mind that his girlfriend will look like her mother in twenty years so he should pay close attention to the mother's physical appearance. After meeting the mother, who has an extremely unfortunate physique, he expresses apprehension and hesitancy towards his relationship and his girlfriend. This commercial shows that, although most beer commercials oppose the binding idea of commitment, men should only be open to the idea of a relationship if the woman is "conventionally thin and beautiful."