Manvertised has been on (yet another) hiatus for a while now — unintended, of course, and probably due to the ongoing avalanche of various graduate school requirements and such. Yet something’s been eating away at me for these last few months: a new hair salon in town.
It started out with this commercial:
I probably first encountered it as some sort of background noise, scrambling to turn off the annoying “wicked awesome” narrator. Then I actually watched it at some point and saw the sign outside the salon: “Haircuts for Men.” Turns out this Lady Jane’s place is doing more than just manvertising — they’re building their entire corporate structure around a very specific type of masculinity.
What’s in the ad? Let’s break it down:
1. The opening narrative is a trip to the boring old barber that your grandpa probably went to. This is a little bit of a risky move for manvertisers, since a particular political respect has started to sneak back in toward those attitudes. A couple examples include the Miller High Life campaign that glorified the grouchy, sexist old man:
And the amazing Canadian Club whiskey advertising campaign from a few years ago that explicitly said “your Grandpa’s Whiskey” on the packaging. I’ve got the box here somewhere; at some point I’ll photograph it and put it up on the blog.
2. All that boringness is swept aside, though, as the Lady Jane’s Pleasure Palace is revealed. Our guide is the blonde fellow who looks just like one of the boys — our frat brother in this tour of wicked awesome. Indeed, he’s essentially standing IN a frat house, what with the foosball table, televisions, and leather recliners. It’s like we’ve died and gone to Man Cave Heaven, but with haircuts performed by a bevy of young women.
In fact, watch carefully what happens behind him as this bit plays out. To his left (our right), one of the “beautiful stylists” (in a slightly bizarre, somewhat see-through outfit and shortish shorts) comes out and summons a fellow for his haircut. The smile on her face (as on all the stylists behind her) makes clear that these women are ready to serve!
Given the clear association with sports (note the inclusion of the Detroit Lions wall plaque in a shot), I can’t help but be reminded of this controversial 2005 NHL commercial:
Women, in that ad and (it appears) at Lady Jane’s are ready and willing to support men in their quest to prove their masculinity, trimming hair and helping men get dressed.
3. But forget all that! After a quick shot of the haircut, we’re right back to the homosocial bonding in the leather chairs again, replete with football on the television and a bowl of snacks. After one final shot of the ladies (once again happy and ready to serve), it’s all over. Except for that “Haircuts for Men” sign.
Any regular reader of this blog knows that anytime any product is advertised as “for men” my antennae go right up. How can something be “for” men? What does that mean? Does that mean it isn’t “for” women? Why not? What makes it special for men? More importantly, how (inevitably) does it work to reassure anxious hegemonic masculinity? That’s almost always the point, after all, of anything that gender differentiates itself.
When I poked around a bit and found some more ads, and then their website, and then realized this is a company about to go national in a big way, I got even more curious. They’ve got 17 stores now, in Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio, and I’d predict that number is going to grow. Why? Because they seem to have tapped into the same cultural fantasies that have governed the marketing of everything from Combos snacks to light beer to soap to garden equipment to trucks to pants and everything in between. The fantasy of the acceptance of regressive masculinity.
Here’s another ad:
This one ups the stakes: underwear pillow fights are NOT for men; haircuts from “the most beautiful women ever” ARE for men. (I find the irony of filming men in their underwear having a pillow fight, and thus proving that, yes, that behavior is for men, absolutely delicious.) But it goes further: Are you man enough? the commercial asks. Man enough for what? Man enough to prove that you are worthy of entering the salon?
What’s really happening there, I think, is some serious homophobia. Hair care, and hair salons, are often associated with gay men, and I’ve written here time and again about the need in manvertising to bolster heteronormative attitudes by differentiating straight men from homosexuality by “proving” masculinity through consumption. What Lady Jane’s is doing with all these frat house aesthetics, is creating a “safe space” for straight men to feel at home. The presence of docile, domesticated women hammers that point home, and emphasizing (over and over again) how beautiful they are, the ads really make clear just how unmistakably hetero everything is.
This final ad really hammers the point home:
The corporate website further soothes the sexual anxiety swirling at the heart of men’s grooming. The incessant references to the aesthetics, the sports, even the Craftsman toolboxes that hold the stylists’ tools all speak to the justifications the business uses to reinforce the attention paid to male bodies. I must give founder/owner Chad Johnson some (backhanded) credit: he has tapped into the same widespread tension that circulates under widespread consumer culture in this moment, a tension rooted in the fear of being too feminine through consumption. There’s no better way to “prove” masculinity than to simultaneously “prove” heterosexuality. What he’s done is build a literal space where a necessary service (haircuts) can be carried out while also reinforcing the fantasy of a bygone masculinity. But… as is the typical conclusion to this chain of events… the corporation is also (hilariously) queer in a sense. By overdoing everything, right down to that annoying “wicked awesome” tagline, it’s as if the hetero anxiety has been ratcheted up to hysterical levels. It’s practically spoofing itself, and all I can really do is laugh.
On a related note, I want to stress that I’m not against efforts to make more and different kinds of salons. What I’d really like to see Johnson do is craft a space where people can feel comfortable and secure about what can often be a traumatic experience. In a culture where people obsessively judge others about their appearance, grooming (especially for men who are intimidated by the process) can be deeply intimidating. What DOESN’T need to happen in that process is the misogyny and homophobia that Lady Jane’s circulates endlessly. Perhaps Johnson could take a cue from Birds Barbershop in Austin, Texas, which is also “wicked awesome” in a much more positive way. Birds also stresses a “party atmosphere,” and offers low-stress and affordable styles, and an experienced and helpful staff to assist with the process.
There’s a foosball table, televisions, great music, wall murals, magazines, and all the other trappings, but none of the anxious masculinity. Beautiful male and female stylists work on customers, and everyone is friendly. The free Lone Star beer helps, too. Point is, what Birds offers is something that Johnson can’t ever achieve at Lady Jane’s because what he’s selling isn’t really a haircut — it’s a tonic for an anxiety that can’t be cured.
Recently I’ve noticed that Pepsi Max ads have started appearing in movie theaters during the pre-show commercial packages. They’re trickling occasionally into television as well. They’re also going to be doing the first video advertisement in an issue of Entertainment Weekly later this week. I’ve written about Pepsi Max before (before moving to this blog), and my basic point was this: the cultural stereotypes associated with diet food and beverage products prevent men from feeling comfortable purchasing and consuming them. Many of those images are constructed and perpetuated by the manufacturers themselves, meaning they’ve backed themselves into a corner of limited marketability.
What’s the solution? Create a new diet product aimed at men that erases the word “diet.” In fact, that word is replaced by something manly, like “Max,” which suggests something much more aggressive and “manly.” Coke Zero has done the same thing for the Coca Cola brand.
Clips after the jump.
There isn’t much advertising yet for the Lingerie Football League — but I would venture a strong guess that when it kicks in, it will be manvertising.
The league is starting to make news, not surprisingly. Two brief points on this. First, there’s a hilarious amount of stupid marketing already happening. One of the male league organizers said on CNN today that, yes, some men will tune in for the “wardrobe malfunctions,” but many will also eventually watch for the “intense athletic competition.”
If that’s true, I’d like to ask the organizers this question: why are you putting them in their underwear? If you’re so interested in their athletic ability and the potential for competition, why would you make them perform in just bras and panties? Obviously the answer is they don’t care about that. They care about emphasizing women’s bodies. If they really cared about competition, they’d give them uniforms, allow them to play under proper conditions, and emphasize the same aspects as in men’s football.
Second, I think there’s something interesting here involving the football. Watching these women perform the same actions as men, but doing so in skimpy outfits, makes me think there’s some sort of homoerotic fantasy being played out about football itself — but deflected back into the safety of women’s bodies. Is this an effort to strip male players down to their underwear and watch them run around hitting each other, but since we “can’t” do that, we push it back into the heterosexual realm where that sort of thing is more culturally permissible? It’s a thought.
Ultimately, this is about the control of women’s bodies and sexualities, and the male “right” to look at them. It will be interesting to see this league play out — and to see the advertising and marketing of both it and the commercials that play during the games. Will the usual manvertising “victimization” tactics be displayed? Will men figure out a way to blame the women for the overt objectification? Will they find a way to make the obvious sexism and misogyny humorous and “ironic,” and thus defensible? Odds are good.
