The Script of Alcohol Ads

I don’t often think of advertising as being as pervasive as films and television - yet alcohol advertisement as a whole strongly contributed to an entire culture of alcohol consumption. The party scene and alcohol advertisements is a really fascinating, and I think persuasive, addition to Chia & Gunther’s (2006) study on the media’s effect not only on individuals’ perceptions of sex and relationships, but also on their perceptions of their peers’ perceptions. Simply put, media creates social norms that may not exist outside of media, but only because of the unified messages sent by platforms like film, television, and advertisements. Specifically, much research has shown that young people “systematically overestimate how liberal their peers’ sexual standards are,” potentially due to the unified messages in the media about sex creating social norms that are then followed despite individual objections and differences (Chia & Gunther, 2006, p. 302).

The alcohol advertisements I found for this blog post, and those that I have experienced in the past, have created social norms around drinking with two distinct messages: one is the perpetual combination of alcohol and sexual behavior, and the other is the heterosexual script discussed by Kim et al, which is prevalent in most mainstream media at this time. Alcohol advertisements present a very exaggerated version of the heterosexual script, linking heteronormative behavior and imagery with alcohol consumption. This is most obvious in ads for more “masculine” drinks, like beer.

The images above, both beer ads, show hypersexualized female imagery without the same type of objectification of men. The first shows a group of people on an island presumably after a shipwreck, but because of the beer involved it’s a celebration rather than a tragedy. The women present are all hypersexualized and objectified, while the men are, for the most part, fully clothed. The only man who isn’t fully clothed is acting on his own, not drawing the viewer’s eye; however, all the women either look to the men in the picture or the ad’s viewer. They exist to be looked at - not active in themselves. The second advertisement shows a glass of beer in the shape of a woman’s legs, perpetuating the idea that women exist to be looked at even further by cutting up a body and fetishizing a single part - while mixing the image with that of alcohol. Both beer ads are clearly targeted toward heterosexual men in terms of the heterosexual script - expecting men to be active, expecting women to be passive, and creating expectations of alcohol to make it so.

Ads for more “feminine” drinks, like wine, are more subtle but still feature the heterosexual script. The images below are hypothetically meant for women, and they do show women at the forefront, but they reflect the “passive and indirect ways in which women attract or court a male partner” within the heterosexual script that Kim et al (2007) discuss, which center around self-objectification and being seen by men (148). These women are dressed up, made up, and seem to be waiting to be seen - whether by a man represented in the ad or by the viewer. Even in advertisements meant for women, women are still passively waiting to be seen by (presumably) men.

Even advertisements that feature the harmful side of alcohol consumption perpetuate the heterosexual script and the alcohol culture created by ads in the first place. The ad below, which was quickly pulled after it was released in Pennsylvania, was meant to be a cautionary message about date rape and alcohol. Unfortunately, it failed to break out of the heterosexual norms about women being “sexual gate-keepers” who are “responsible for setting sexual limits, for thwarting men’s sexual advances, and for dealing with the negative sexual consequences of sexual activity” (Kim et al, 2007, p. 147-8). The ad clearly states, "She didn't want to do it, but she couldn't say no" - implying that if she could have said no, sexual assault wouldn't have been a problem. If a woman drinks too much, the ad implies, her guard will be down and she won’t be able to perform her role of a sexual gatekeeper. The solution implied in this ad is for women to keep themselves and other women from drinking too much, rather than to shift the discourses of sex and responsibility.

Advertising for alcohol perpetuates the heterosexual script and creates skewed expectations for social norms in its viewers. I don’t think that changing the advertising for alcoholic beverages will really change the negative outcomes of it - I definitely think there are more factors at play here. But I do think that changing the expectations for alcohol use that are perpetuated by the media might leave room for varied experiences - and divorcing sex from alcohol in the minds of media consumers might do some good for the next few generations who grow up learning from media.

References

Chia, S. C., & Gunther, A. C. (2006). How media contribute to misperceptions of social norms about sex. Mass Communication & Society, 9(3), 301-320. doi: 10.1207/s15327825mcs0903_3

Kim, J. L., Sorsoli, C. L., Collins, K., Zylbergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual script on primetime network television. Journal of Sex Research, 44(2), 145-157. doi: 10.1080/00224490701263660