Pop Culture Gender and Sexuality

Pop Culture Artifact: Bacardi's Ugly Friend Ad Campaign

Alcohol ads are noted for their misogyny, from simple objectification to actively implying violence toward women. However, these ads are generally targeted at male audiences, designed to engage the male gaze. The Bacardi Breezers "Ugly Friend" ad campaign targeted women, specifically women's insecurities about their physical appearance, using stereotypes of behavior to sell product. Published on the web in 2009, the ad campaign featured an interactive website that allowed women to choose their "ugly friend" for various situations, read stats about the friend, and even comment on Facebook pages created for them. It was located through searching for alcohol advertisements, due to the highly sexist and frequently controversial nature of alcohol ads. Given the prevalence of alcohol use in American culture, the way in which it is sold is highly telling as to the ways in which advertisements target their markets. This ad campaign is a very clear example of the ways in which sexism and gender role are reinforced in everyday life.

Encouraging women to get an "ugly friend" operates on the idea that women are inherently insecure about their looks. It emphasizes the fact that women continually need and want to improve n themselves, to look better, thinner, and more stylish. The "friends" each play on a specific insecurity, some major, some incredibly minor from Lucy, who is overweight, to Daisy, who has bad eyebrows. No flaw is too small to be commented on, implying that the smallest imperfection vastly devalues a woman's worth. Women are told they should be insecure. In addition, there is the unspoken implication that if a woman is not physically perfect, she will become the ugly friend. Women who have physical flaws are being more than critiqued, they are being humiliated.

The ad also plays into stereotypes, specifically the idea that women are continually in competition with one another. The implication in these ads is that women will use one another for their own gain, and will betray other women for their own benefit. This is a clearly misogynistic, and highly gendered assumption. An ad target at men would not encourage men to get a less virile friend, because men, in advertising at least, are all friends. A similar ad targeted at men might play on the "wing man" concept, of men seducing women with the help of their friends. On the other hand, female friendships are devalued, turned into ones of expedience without depth or actual affection.

In addition, these ads show women as only useful in regards to their looks. Oddly, it is the lack of beauty in the "friends" that most strongly emphasizes that worth equals appearance. Women deemed ugly are being used for their looks, even though their looks are lacking. In their descriptions in the ads, they are described only in terms of looks, with no mention of personality. They are reduced to physical form, broken down into their appearance only. The "ugly" girl is valuable only because of her ugliness, just as the implied audience of "pretty" women are only valued for their prettiness, as evidenced by the fact that they need to use someone else to appear more attractive.

There is an implied male gaze in this ad campaign. Women are making themselves attractive for an outside audience. They are trying to look "better" for someone, who will analyze their appearance in microscopic detail. There is no mention of women looking and feeling good for themselves, rather it is simply focused on looking better for someone outside viewing them. This clearly implies that men will be looking at women, and judging them. There is another implied gaze, however, that of other women. While women are clearly trying to appear more attractive for men, there is also the strong undertone that other women will judge their appearance, as indicated by the minute detail with which the looks of the "ugly friend" are described. This speaks to a different stereotype of women, that they are hyper-focused on appearance. Of course a woman would notice someone's eyebrows, because she is aware of every element of someone's looks, simply because she is a woman.

Women are highly objectified by this ad campaign. The "ugly friend" is discussed as an object, as an accessory. She is continually refereed to in terms that turn her into a thing, rather than a person. Once again, women are told that they are property, things that can be possessed. This ad uses some unique techniques to cause women to participate in their own objectification. As opposed to most situations where men are the individuals objectifying women, in this ad, women are placed in a dominant role. They are given the chance to objectify other women. This plays on internalized misogyny, as well as allowing women a false sense of power. They are being given the chance to control a situation regarding their appearance, by being more attractive than another woman, and thus possessing that other woman. This odd form of sexism forces women to actively participate in their own oppression.