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.