Marketing the Bad Boy Image

There is something to be said about the tremendous success, media attention and hefty paychecks that a bad boy image can garner in today's entertainment market, catapulting many of the misbehaving or those rumored of being dark and twisted to the top of the Hollywood dung heap. Taylor Swift's recent album including a song entitled Dear John,which alludes to an alleged past relationship with guitar god/singer songwriter John Mayer was said to be the fastest selling album of 2010. The song describes Mayer as dark and asks the question of him "Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?
John Mayer's media coverage concerning Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson overshadowed significantly his extraordinary talent as an artist. Our culture seems to promote and thrive on the antics of the shocking and the outrageous. The brazen and raw outtakes are in today's reality driven market the kind of incidents that draw mass attention and are almost certain to go viral, in the process attracting devoted followings and even offers ranging in the tens of thousands to the millions for product endorsement and advertising deals. Call it the dark side or the hard cold reality of the business.
The domestic violence episode on the Kardashian reality show some months ago where blood was actually drawn due to the severity of the injuries certainly had everyone talking and "outraged" for days, if not weeks. The ratings of course went through the roof and, of course, the Kardashian clan came out on top financially last year grossing upwards of 11 million dollars. There have been other attention drawing antics that have also generated attention and controversy. By today's television standards they are considered royalty, and, a standard to measure up to.
Seriously, how can you really blame stars and their handlers hungry for either money or attention for taking the more lucrative, albeit less tasteful and sometimes sleazier route if it will mean the difference between a hefty paycheck or a paltry one? And, in some cases it could mean the difference between having a career or simply not working at all. For some it is simply a formula, a method and a calculation for guaranteed success, assuring popularity and a rise in mass appeal. I can imagine the tremendous pressure that some artists must be under to conform their real selves to the image that sells.
I don't want to sound too preachy or for my observations to take on a self-righteous tone because I am well aware and painfully in tune with the realities of the world in which we live. Yet somehow in the midst of all of this there seems to be a higher standard, a mark or a bar which we are being called to raise ourselves in order to bring some sense of sanity and decency back into the equation. If not it seems the frenzy of mass appeal generated by the thrill rides of shock value and the like are poised to overtake our sense of decency and morality, heading our society on a collision course with itself and a sure route to implosion. The examples cited are just a tip of the iceberg. If the low achievements in US education revealed in plumeting test scores and our ranking 30 on the list with China at number one is not a subtle wake up call of sorts and a barometer of misplaced priorities then what other signals do we need and what else will it take?



I read recently that John Mayer was heckled on city streets by women who were still railing from his treatment of ex-girlfriends Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson, proclaiming rather boisterously in a public place that he was a horrible person. Mayer has been portrayed consistently in the media as the serial heartbreaker, the tell all ex who characterized Jessica Simpson as sexual napalm. He was so distressed by this incident that he is currently on a full court press to make an "image" adjustment and change people's perspective about "it." I said "image" and not him because an artist's image and who they are authentically outside of the public persona that is oftentimes developed to sell a product varies significantly. Many of John's close friends and fans have experienced him as a completely different person. A horrible person is something that would not even come across their minds as a way of describing him.
Charlie Sheen, the most notorious bad boy these days is the highest paid actor on television commanding 1.25 million per episode after renegotiations which came despite a Christmastime arrest over an assault on his wife and subsequent sentencing to 30 days of rehab. Sheen made over 40 million dollars last year and his television sitcom is number one.

While there are no hard and fast solutions to what seems to be an ongoing dilemma of the marketability of the authentic person in contrast to the profitability of the 'bad boy" image, it seems to me it will boil down ultimately to the following questions. The first is what will the market ,and, ultimately society, bear? The second is how well does the sporter of the bad boy image sleep at night? Charlie Sheen and other bad boys have either at some point in the process overdosed on drugs, been in and out of rehab and clocked up numerous hours on their therapists couches. So, the question at the end of the day and eventually, at the end of life's journey is "how much is or was it really worth?"

Something upon which to ponder,reflect and perhaps rethink...