Influences on Masculinity

Beer advertisements typically portray masculinity in a poor light by making men seem obsessed with sex. Vive Cuervo beer had an advertisement that showed a man holding a woman while laughing and wearing bathing suits on a beach. The caption read, “Pursue your daydreams.” The woman model in this advertisement is very thin and in a bikini. Surprisingly she is not sexualized as much as most beer advertisements sexualize their models, but she is still almost naked and in a mans arms. This advertisement is saying that if you drink this beer your afternoon will be filled with a beautiful model on a beach. It is hinting that men can have sex with beautiful women if they drink Vive Cuervo beer. Similarly, Heineken had an advertisement that promoted that their beer would lead to sex for men. In Heineken’s advertisement a naked woman is on top of a naked man who is grabbing the woman’s body. The woman’s butt and part of her breasts are visible in the advertisement, while only the man’s leg is visible. Both people have Heineken logos painted all over their bodies. The Heineken advertisement sexualized the woman model more than the male by positioning her on top and in a more visible position to see more of her naked body. In 1997, Plous and Neptune “found that exposure of women’s bodies occurred approximately four times as often as exposure of men’s bodies” in print advertisements (Stankiewicz and Rosselli). It is a problem that male nudity is shown so much less than female nudity because men are almost never sexualized, unlike women. This advertisement also promotes sex by showing naked people on top of each other like they are about to have sex. Beer advertisements target men because they are shown as “the ultimate guy drink and the badge of masculinity” (Babes in brewland). If beer advertisements started targeting both men and women as potentially equal consumers of beer then there would be much less sexualized advertising featuring women. This would be a step towards greater equality because women would be seen less as men’s sexual objects. The beer industry should promote equality in their advertising so men seem less obsessed with sex and women are sexualized and objectified less.