In
reading the article, “The Male Consumer as a Loser: Beer and Liquor
Ads in Mega Sports Media Events” I was extremely bothered by the
section titled: Real friends, scary women. The two authors, Messner
and Montez de Oca, describe ads from Sports Illustrated and the
Superbowl which depict and encourage male bonding through alcohol
consumption and have captions like, "Unlike your girlfriend,
they never ask where this relationship is going". The ads
present women as demanding and constantly seeking emotional
commitment from guys. This is seen as undesirable female trait and
adds to the idea of the annoying, needy girlfriend that men need to
get away from. The ads reinforce the idea that cracking open a
brewskies with your boys is "exciting. emotionally comfortable,
and safe" and boy's nights out are necessary. A picture that
came to mind while reading this article was the image seen in media
of Joe Biden and Barack Obama bonding and talking over beers. It was
such an all-american male moment that America absolutely loved. Both
middle-age men were smiling and clinking beers as if they were in one
of the beer ads that Messner and Montez de Oca were describing.
When
boys are not in the comfort or sharing beers with their other male
companions, they are depicted as going solo and hitting on girls at
bars and other places. Messner and Oca describe an ad, where a
semi-attractive woman is talking about her problems at a bar while a
guy sits across from her. He is obviously uninterested in what she is
saying to him. His glance is focused over her shoulder where he is
actually watching a football game as he drinks his beer. After she's
done talking, she exclaims, "You're such a great listener"
and the "Budweiser TRUE" logo flashes on the screen. The ad
suggests, like the others, that women are needy and always needing to
talk out their problems which to guys is boring. But if he sits there
and pretends to listen, he may get lucky because we all know, all
guys care about is sex.
What
I found very disturbing in the article was how beer commercials and
ads play on insecurities of males. This is the point of Messner and
Montez de Oca's article. The tequila ad that shows attractive,
half-naked women with "We can say with 99.9% accuracy that there
is no possible way whatsoever in this lifetime that you will ever get
a date with one of these women" painted on their bodies was so
shocking to me. The ad followed with saying, "LIFE IS HARSH.
Your tequila shouldn't be". It basically telling guys they
aren't good enough to score hot women so they should just drink away
those sorrows. Like Messner and Oca talk about in this article, it
paints guys as losers who can dream about these beautiful women but
scoring one of them is unrealistic. It's much easier to go out and
buy a bottle of tequila or a six pack of Heineken because that won't
ever let you down! So men go out, buy alcohol, feel powerful, and
then take their rage out against women. It is scary how it all links
together.
Josie, your last paragraph made some really good points and I completely agree with everything you said. Beer commercials are extremely exploitive of both men and women. I tried to think of commercials targeted at women where females are told that they don't have anything going for them and I drew a blank. I think this speaks to the broader culture of masculinity, in which guys are constantly teased, tested, and put down by other guys.
ReplyDeleteJosie, I really liked the connection you made to the "All-American" nature of drinking by referencing the Obama and Biden drinking beer picture. We definitely see beer in America as the drink of the masses and as truly American which makes these ads even more disturbing.
ReplyDeleteAnd to respond to Ellie's comment, I found it really interesting you couldn't think of any commercials targeted at women where they are told they have nothing going for them. The vast majority of beauty products and also especially the diet industry ads are sold by fostering low self esteem in women. However is this the same as telling women they have nothing going for them? Or rather is it telling them they have nothing going for them but their body/beauty?
- Brooke Dinsmore
While I was reading the beginning of your post Joise, what I thought about was the two great themes in these commercials. Women are either needy and annoying girlfriends that men are constantly trying to get away from or they are these unattainable creatures of beauty that men will never have a chance with. Which is funny, because on the one hand, if the story line of the commercial involves the needy girlfriend, men need fight for their "boys night" because boys will be boys and being around men is better because, well, men are better according to society, since they won't pester you with questions and feelings. Then, on the other hand, if women are portrayed as crazy beautiful, men are put down and told that they are no where near worthy or capable of getting it in with one of those women. It seems like a little bit of mixed messaging to me in terms of those things, to both men and women, but mostly for the former.
ReplyDeleteRy Hormel Comment:
ReplyDeleteJosephine I really liked your post, and the part titled “Real friends, scary women” is also what seemed to catch my eye the most. It is very disturbing how these commercials are enforcing gender stereotypes and causing much insecurity in men. It is funny how men are never shown as insecure, when really they are, and the beer/alcohol commercials put these insecurities to a new level. When I think of insecurity and beer commercials I think of Miller Light. The Miller Light commercials show men who order a light beer other than Miller Light being feminine, or a “wussy”. They do this buy putting the man ordering the beer in skintight jeans, or they have a lower back tattoo. Josephine like you said, these all link together and the cause of it are men flipping the insecurities in the wrong way and taking their anger out on women. This leads me to my final question: is there another way to advertise beer and still have people buy it in the quantity they do?