Sex in Consumer Culture

The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing

Tom Reichert, Jacqueline Lambiase

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136684043
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Publicidad

Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing considers the use of sex to promote brands, magazines, video games, TV programming, music, and movies. Offering both quantitative and qualitative perspectives from leading scholars in a variety of disciplines, this volume addresses a range of integral issues such as media promotion, racial representations, appeals to gay and lesbian communities, content analyses, and case studies. Chapters represent diverse perspectives, addressing such questions as: *What happens when sexual content created for adults reaches children?
*What meaning do sexual words and images have within the contexts of sporting events, trade shows, video games, personal ads, or consumer Web sites?
*What effects might sex-tinged images have on audiences, and where should the focus be for new effects research?
*Where are the current boundaries between pornography and mainstream sexual depictions?Exploring sexual information as it is used in mass media to sell products and programs, Sex in Consumer Culture is an important collection, and it will be of great interest for scholars and students in advertising, marketing, media promotion, persuasion, mass communication & society, and gender studies.

Chapter 1

Peddling Desire: Sex and the Marketing of Media and Consumer Goods

Tom Reichert

University of Georgia

Jacqueline Lambiase

Texas Tech University

Today, we live in a more conservative political environment that emphasizes family and religious values. Parents, pressure groups, and lawmakers soundly criticize the media for their portrayals of sex. Yet the outlets for and diversity of sexual fare continue to grow along with the toleration of sexual imagery. We love our media sex, and we hate it, too. (Sapolsky, 2003, p. 296).

Media scholar Barry Sapolsky's observation about our culture's love for media sex could not be truer. Young men's magazines such as Maxim, Blender, Stuff, and FHM collect huge profits but are little more than scaled-down versions of Playboy and Penthouse. Similarly, network and cable programs continue to push the boundaries of provocation and decency. For example, one writer described a scene from the prime-time FX Network dramatic comedy Nip/Tuck as follows: The ‘episode features a woman, down on all fours, having rough and verbally graphic sex with a man’ (Friedman, 2003, p. 19). According to the writer, there were few complaints as advertisers hopped on board to capitalize on the program's success. So, on the one hand, it appears that marketers are giving us the sex we want and that our appetite for titillation is insatiable.

But the other half of Sapolsky's observation is evident as well, as many Americans seem to have had enough. In 2003, for instance, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received 240,342 complaints regarding television and radio programs (Peyser, 2004). The increase was exponential compared to the 111 such complaints received in 2000 or even the 13,922 complaints in 2002. In addition to complaining to the FCC, parents and other citizens are also targeting marketers that use sex to appeal to teenagers and young adults (e.g., Abercrombie & Fitch) with boycotts and letter-writing campaigns. Combined with policymakers who have upped the fines for shock jocks and music superstars—think of Bono's use of the ‘f-word,’ Britney and Madonna's French kiss, and Janet Jackson's right breast—it appears that at least for some Americans the line has been crossed.

Sex may thrive in popular culture and in promotional activities precisely because it has been sanitized from many political, educational, and religious discourses. Negation of sexual content in some spheres of life probably ensures that it will remain an active presence in others, and in our own time, this content is carried by mass media in its many forms. The collection of chapters in this book weighs in on the cultural duplicity noted by Sapolsky, by documenting and describing the nature of sexual content in America's public media and promotional spaces. That sex is present is no surprise. Far from heralding the obvious, however, the media and marketing scholars whose essays and research reports comprise this book paint an intriguing and eroticized vision of the mediated landscape. In so doing, they review pertinent research and break new ground in their analyses of sexualized media, advertising content, and promotional culture.

SEX AND PROMOTIONAL MARKETING

Most social science work that studies mediated sexuality in mainstream America falls within two related but distinct literatures. One area may be characterized as traditional content and effects investigations conducted by mass communication scholars. Typical fare includes content analyses of television programming (e.g., prime time, soaps), music videos, magazines (e.g., editorial content, covers), books, film, and video games. As a result of this work, we know that sexual information is quite common in mainstream media but that its presence varies between and among media. For example, Farrar et al. (2003) reported that 71% of prime-time television programming contains sexual language, behavior, and images. This comprehensive multiyear study, funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation, provides solid findings useful to journalists, policymakers, and those in the industry. Other mass communication scholars focus on effects research, generally characterized as microlevel investigations such as those that examine the influence of sex or beauty ideals on consumers' body images (see Bissell & Zhou, 2004; Harrison, 2000).

The second research area is commonly referred to as sex in advertising research. Research in this domain is concerned with the use of sex for promotional uses—to sell products and to influence how consumers think and feel about certain products or brands. As with media research, sexual content in ads also varies between and among media (Reichert, 2002). Academic researchers in this vein may be affiliated with mass media departments but are just as likely to reside in marketing programs.

As a metaphorical boundary exists between editorial content and advertising/marketing within these academic programs and within the professions, so too does a boundary exist between these two research areas. In an editorial-versus-advertising world, these separated fields rarely cite literature in the other area when reviewing or describing the content and effects of sexual information (for example, see Brown, 2002). The assumption is that both phenomena are distinct, although both are concerned with similar sexual content and, more importantly, both have similar goals with relation to consumers. Sex is added to programming to attract viewers, just as sexual appeals are added to advertising to attract consumers.

For example, in the media literature there is little discussion of how sex operates or functions in mainstream media beyond the implicit assumption that sex is used to attract the attention of certain audiences—those people who find sexual information pleasurable and arousing. In this sense, network promos or movie trailers can sprinkle in quick cuts of passionate kisses, erotic encounters, or disrobing as an implicit promise that more is in store. The same is true of magazine covers featuring partially clad women. As one writer put it: ‘The cover of any successful magazine is a shrewd advertisement for what lies inside’ (Handy, 1999, p. 75). And, once inside a gendered magazine such as Cosmopolitan or Maxim, readers make little distinction between sex-tinged editorial content and the sexually oriented advertising that pays for content—these magazines, instead, become a seamless feast of eroticized eye candy.

Aside from simply attracting viewers, sex can influence audiences in other ways as well. For example, the hedonic value of sex can make the viewing experience more pleasurable, meaning that viewers will stay tuned longer either in anticipation of the erotic scene(s) or because what they are viewing is pleasurable. Consider the placement of cheerleaders and female sportscasters within sports coverage. The result is higher ratings and, subsequently, higher rates that networks may charge advertisers to reach those audiences. Similarly, music videos represent promotion for performers much like going on tour. Not only do videos represent programming content for consumer goods when aired on MTV or VHI, but they are also essentially ads for the artist and record company.

Simply, we believe that sexual content in media and advertising is used for similar purposes and that dialogue between these two should be increased instead of separated by a hollow dichotomy between advertising and editorial separations. Indeed, media content can certainly be considered a ‘product’ as it is either bought and paid for directly (i.e., consumers who buy magazines, films, music) or indirectly (i.e., firms that pay networks for access to viewers; advertising).

Although it is easy, within the covers of one book, to include discussions of both promotional products and mass media products that have been sexualized, it is difficult to construct a single definition that fits this global approach. Courtney and Whipple (1983) defined sex in advertising as ‘sexuality in the form of nudity, sexual imagery, innuendo, and double entendre . . . employed as an advertising tool for a wide variety of products’ (p. 103). For the purposes of this volume, we expand on Courtney and Whipple's definition to mean sexual information that is employed by marketing culture or by mass media programming in order to sell goods or to sell media products themselves.

SCOPE OF THE COLLECTION

In addition to combining scholarly research that addresses both promotional and editorial products, this collection seeks to document these sexualized representations and to offer multiple perspectives from scholars working across several disciplines.

The first goal, that of documenting representation, meant that authors in this collection would fully describe, more than in any previous single source, the depictions and meanings of sexual content across the media landscape. Central questions that formed the foundation of each chapter include the following: What does sexual information look like? What forms does it take? What cultural work is done by these sexualized images? Who is consuming these erotic representations? And, who is sexualized? Not to give away the answers, but there is probably little surprise that much sexual content still consists of heterosexist images of women fitting the Western beauty ideal: slender, tall, curvaceous, and young. In many instances, this body type is displayed through revealing clothing as a woman strikes a provocative pose—either by herself, with a man, or in some cases another woman—in advertising, in live promotional activities, and in entertainment programming. Yet, other sexualized portrayals are evident as well, and some include men and homoerotic images of men.

Researchers in this collection not only describe these representations, but often, they also problematize sexualized depictions that target adolescent audiences or that rely on pornographic conventions. Another strength of this collection is its discussions of racial variance and racist ideology as it pertains to sexualized images of women. Four chapters specifically review and advance the literature on sexualized racial representations, and other chapters provide evidence of when these depictions are lacking or merely present in broadest stereotype.

The second goal of this collection works to cultivate an interdisciplinary approach, in a similar way to our previous Erlbaum volume in Jennings Bryant's communication series, Sex in Advertising: Perspectives on the Erotic Appeal. Like that collection, this volume brings together scholars who write from multiple viewpoints and methodologies in their explorations of the nature of erotic content. Sex can be conceptualized, operationalized, and quantified as much previous social science research demonstrates, but lenses that capture the qualitative essence of sexual information are just as necessary and relevant when describing sex in media. Although much research in this present volume comprises rigorous content analyses conducted by mass communication scholars, other studies utilize historical analysis, narrative interviewing, semiotic analysis, and other interpretive methodologies. The inclusion of both quantitative and qualitative methods strengthens the field of research covering sexualized media content, both by charting the patterns of sex-tinged media and by testing theories and developing interpretive codes that will inform future research into eroticized media and marketing.

Sexualizing Media

Exploring how sex is used to eroticize media, chapters in this first section of the collection describe the nature of sexual content in mainstream media forms, including film, music videos, video games, magazines, sports programming, and Spanish-language network programming. For example, Mary Beth Oliver and Sri Kalyanaraman report the results of a content analysis of sexual content in movie trailers. In addition to public relations efforts and the creation of “buzz,” trailers are a primary form of movie promotion that is closely akin to product advertising. The authors report that sexual content is present in a sizeable portion of trailers, although findings are moderated by movie genre.

In a related sense, music videos represent a form of entertainment programming and serve to promote an artist's recordings. Julie Andsager not only provides a concise review of sex in music video research, but also builds on her past research by articulating a typology of the uses of sex by female artists in their videos. Andsager argues that women such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, as well as Madonna and Shania Twain, sexually brand themselves—and often rebrand themselves—depending on the status and goals of their music careers.

Sex also finds expression in video game culture. Lara Croft, the animated and freakishly curvaceous heroine of the popular Tomb Raider video game, not only stimulated incalculable sales for the game, but the character also produced a lucrative cult following. To capitalize on this fandom, the Lara Croft franchise released two feature movies featuring Angelina Jolie, whose overt sexuality stimulated more fantasies among the games'demographic, that of adolescent boys. Beyond Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, characters and situations in video games are becoming increasingly sexualized. Some of these conclusions are presented by Stacy Smith and Emily Moyer-Gusé in a review and summary of their work relating to analysis of mainstream video game content. Among Smith's and Moyer-Gusé's findings is that character hypersexuality is much more common than instances of sexual behavior and sexualized violence.

Sexual branding works across other media, too. Certain gendered magazines for men and women have long included sexual information on covers and within articles to garner audiences for such content, and a new breed of men's magazines has capitalized on this formula with much financial success. One of these, Maxim, started publication in the United States in 1997, and it shook the existing men's magazine market by quickly claiming a circulation that reached 2.5 million readers in just 3 years. Popular press reports focused on the response of Maxim's competitors—longtime magazines such as GQ and Esquire—claiming that their cover formulas had changed radically by becoming more sexualized to meet Maxim's challenge. Although editors at other men's magazines denied Maxim's influence on their own branding and competitive strategies, a content analysis by Jacqueline Lambiase and Tom Reichert suggests otherwise.

The introduction of female sideline reporters for sports entertainment is another way that sexuality and gender are used to promote and enhance media for male audiences. While the use of such reporters may seem to herald advances for women in sports broadcasting, Jamie Skerski reminds us that increased representation does not always mean a change in values. Rather, she asserts, women are sidelined as usual within an unchanged context of hypermasculinity and violent competition. She traces not only the creation of sexualized female images in sports programming, but also the circulation of these objectified images in men's magazines and on Web sites. Her study provides evidence of “extreme multiplicity,” when multiplicity means not diversity, but more of the same (Fiske, 1996, p. 239).

Perhaps the highest rates of sexual promotional content exist in network promos—the ads networks produce and air to promote their own programming (see Walker, 2000). Jami Fullerton and Alice Kendrick extend previous work by comparing promos aired on Univision, a Spanish-language network, and NBC...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• 1 Peddling Desire: Sex and the Marketing of Media and Consumer Goods
• Part I Sexualizing Media
• Part II Sexualizing Products
• Part III Sexualizing People
• Author Index
• Subject Index