Apr 26 2008
Have the Ad men got it wrong or are we all just a bit gay?
Successful Advertising Agencies are famed for knowing their audience, they research heavily, they sample they test and produce a concept designed to appeal. So pray explain, if 95% of men are supposedly straight why are so many ads for men’s grooming products and clothing, particularly underwear, laced with a healthy dose of homoerotic imagery?
This image on the right is a perfect example, here we have David Beckham, half nude, showing a hell of a lot of flesh and he’s advertising a razor. A men’s razor, not a woman’s razor. Why do we need to see that much ribbed flesh to know that this is a good razor?
Well OK - its association, good toned healthy body, good razor leaves your skin healthy, even though we’ll be mostly using it on our face. Though other Gillette Ads have been happy for the association to just be with the celebrity and not with his body, so we associate with success of the celebrity. However, here we are clearly been asked to associate with beauty.
If as men we only had eyes for the female form as a thing of beauty this advert would be wasted on us.
Another great example is this shot of Travis Fimmel modelling Calvin Klein underwear. Its again just laced with homoeroticism, remember girls don’t buy these briefs, men do! Everything about this image, from Fimmel’s youthful looks, his toned body, to his suggestive expression and the bulge in his pants are all aimed at us men.
Now we might not all want to jump into bed with Travis Fimmel, but why use such a sexy image to sell to straight men?
OK - I can hear someone at the back shouting “its because we want to be him, not sleep with him!” - true I’ll grant you that, we all want those looks, that body and that size package, but why? Because we recognise it as beautiful and realise that women will too. If we look like that, we’ll get more chicks - simple. But we have to be able to appreciate the beauty of the male form before can make that link. That is by definition homoeroticism.
The rise and acceptance of metrosexuality has allowed straight men with an appreciation of aesthetics to take full advantage of this realisation, whereas gruff looking, middle aged skinheads with swollen beer bellies lose out, because they deliberately repress aesthetics, regarding it as an unmasculine quality.
Metrosexual men are of course not bisexual or gay, but they don’t repress the aesthetics or their appreciation of male beauty, and in my opinion herein lies the hook for the Ad-men. Most men are capable of admiring the male form as a thing of beauty, if we can admit to that, then its easy to see that bisexuality is only a stones throw away. And as a concept the bisexual man becomes a little easier to understand.
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Well, some men have a different view of what’s sexy in men, and some men like that gruff looking and/or middle aged and/or swollen beer belly look, the “bear” community comes to mind. Not all gay guys are the metro-gay (gay equivalent of the “metrosexual”) type. To me, metrosexuality is more about “metro” grooming, fashion, hair and is more akin to gender roles, than sexuality. However in our culture, gender role conformity and sexuality are often linked together. (Butch/Femme/Lipstick Lesbian/Bull Dyke/Tom Boy/Girly Man/ Metro/enough stereotypes to make your head spin). Women’s fashion advertising is much the same- I remember the line in “But I’m a Cheerleader” everyone looks, you just don’t realize that you look differently. The average heterosexual (Kinsey 0) doesn’t look at them the same way.
Of course everyone has a different idea of beauty, but Ad-men, particular when promoting products which have virtually universal appeal, eg: underwear and razors, have to appeal to Mr Joe Average.
Granted in the bear community there is little attraction to the metro-male, but equally the Gillette Ad-men don’t need to worry about hitting a mostly bearded community, where razor’s have little appeal.
What I find curious is that they successfully chose homoerotic imagery to pitch to Mr Joe Average.
For the advertising to work your average straight person must identify with these images and if its not because he can see the beauty in them, then what is it?
Advertising to joe public -
Advertisers cleverly target their ads at segments of the population that they wish to sell to, and who they believe will buy their stuff. Generic blanket advertising is mostly a thing of the past, now that consumer psychology is so big with marketeers.
So, if they are using these ads, it’s because either the purchaser or purchase influencer will be won over by the message and imagery. They will trial them with target segments, and fine tune them to get them to work, when ad budgets run to $£millions.
But the post was more about why they work - men do know what good looking attractive men look like, which is why they mostly emulate them. The discerning eye may at some level find some attraction to the guys concerned, especially where they are bi or gay. I guess we need to remember the % of men who might try/have tried some form of sexual contact with men, which is quite high, but not quite as high as the % of men who have some potential for sex with guys. So, sex does sell, and many men appreciate looking at stunning bodies etc. And advertisers target rather than push out general messages to us all.
“Because we recognise it as beautiful and realise that women will too. If we look like that, we’ll get more chicks - simple. But we have to be able to appreciate the beauty of the male form before can make that link. That is by definition homoeroticism.”
Hell no. Can’t you appreciate the beauty of a child, a landscape, a painting, a song, without being attracted to it? Can’t you find something ugly or plain but still learn to recognize when other people consider it beautiful or attractive? You like chocolate, your friend likes vanilla: do you have to like vanilla to comprehend the fact you’d better give your friend vanilla than chocolate?
There is homoeroticism there, but not because we have to demonstrate a capacity for empathy of the level found in crows. Because the male models are shown as female models are: naked and attractive. Not as clothed as possible and showing success, the kind you want to be.
I think its perfectly possible to appreciate the beauty of a tree without wanting to hump it, however a tree isn’t sending us sexual images, nor is a child or a vanilla ice cream. However, these adverts are. When we respond to these sexual images and discover an affinity or an attraction to them, then as men, we are responding to homo-eroticism.