Advertising and masculinity and how sexuality plays a role.

So far in our class we've focused on gender and the dichotomies of men/women but I also think it's important to look at how sexuality and sexual orientation plays into the mass media and the kind of advertising that are directed towards young males.

First let's take Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Mike's hard lemonade is a light alcoholic beverage brewed in the United States. It is also known as a "malternative" or flavored malt beverages which makes it not a beer nor a hard liquor. So, the main question is, how does Mike then advertise their product to men? How do they change this malt beverage from seeming "girly" or wimpy to hard and masculine. The main way that Mike's does this is in the same vein as Millers light beer. As referenced to Jackson Katz article "Advertising and the construction of violent white masculinity" Katz talks about how Miller light had to use this image of "masculinity" as being strong, powerful, and violent to make sure that men would not turn away from this new type of beer.

Mike's does the same thing but with sexuality and it's relationship to masculinity. In their series of commercials that have been airing since '08 it shows two workers, whom we presume are either manager or advertising reps, and one other worker who is approaching them with different advertising ideas. While this wouldn't be a problem usually, there is because the worker who is always pitching these ideas is type caste. This worker who is repeatedly the same character is an emasculated blond male who never gets it right. By giving him female qualities this puts an undertone of the worker being "queer" since in the United States most gay men are seen as being over the top and "fruity" which allows them to be seen as comical and not as threatening. Mike's uses this same approach of having a lovable and laughable queer character as a way to approach guys that Mike's is made for real men and that these men who laugh at this queer character are real men because they are like the two ad reps who perpetually embarrass this character.

Here is an example of these Mike's commercials. Here we see the two ad reps approached by the "queer" character and the act of emasculating him through comedy.




The second example of "emasculation" in relation to advertising is not about sexual orientation but gender and it's play on cultural identity.



This ad along side with a TV spot was created for the new Burger King Texas Whopper. In this picture we see a tall "masculine" western dressed cowboy standing next to a little person dressed as a Mexican wrestler draped in a Mexican flag. In the TV ad's the two "companions" are seen as living together and helping each other out in every day simple chores. The tv ad wants us to view the Texas Whopper as being "all American" and compared to the good old days of the wild west. The tag line reads "the taste of Texas with a little spicy Mexican" as a way to show that it is the same old all American burger and fries just with a little twist in it. By using the act of "emasculating" the Mexican character BK also "emasculates" Mexican culture as a way to make it seem lest alien. Giving it feminine qualities makes the food seem passive and ok for American males to eat and that it wont go against their gender identity of hard masculine Anglo Saxons. Not only is the ad culturally insensitive it's also ridiculous that they use this marketing ploy to get people to eat more hamburgers. For more information on BK pulling the ad and to read reactions please redirect to here.

It is crazy that gender applies to food yet it does in our society. Many different food are associated with each gender and marketed this way. So is the way food is cooked or even seen as sexually. Sadly gender stereotyping and categorizing plays an important role in our lives and in the mass media's way of advertising.