The bad boy archetype as a morally ambiguous complex of juvenile masculinities: the conceptual anatomy of a marketplace icon

ABSTRACT

In this article, we explore why the bad boy is a popular archetype in advertising, erotica, fashion, journalism, movies, songs, television serials, and other forms of commercial culture. First, we interpret the bad boy as a combination of juvenile masculinities (aggression, rebellion, hypersexuality), appealing qualities (charisma, ruggedness, sensitivity), and moral ambiguities (via confusion, contradiction, and cumulation), which keep audiences engaged. Second, we trace the evolution of these meanings in over a century of American popular culture. Third, we reveal the many commercial faces of the bad boy in the contemporary marketplace, including as an archetypal brand positioning strategy, a transformative protagonist in erotic fiction, an unapologetic voice for macho fantasies, a beguiling object of irrational love, a journalistic frame for polarizing masculinities, and an inexhaustible source of dramatic tension. In the final analysis, the bad boy archetype is a contemporary marketplace icon because it has historically been good at channeling all kinds of bad.

KEYWORDS:

• Masculinities
• morally ambiguous characters
• media studies
• popular culture
• juvenile masculinities
• toxic masculinities

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Manasvi Dhruv and Meghan Keough for their research assistance and Brian Byrne, Marina Carnevale, Dannie Kjeldgaard, Timothy Malefyt, and Marla Stone for their feedback on prior versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Ahir Gopaldas is an assistant professor of marketing at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University. His research focuses on social issues in consumer markets.

Susanna Molander is affiliated with the Center for Arts, Business & Culture (ABC) at the Stockholm School of Economics Institute for Research (SIR) and a visiting scholar at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Her research focuses on consumer culture, everyday life, and gender issues.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.