Sex-ism: Alive &Well On A TV Near You
I had a friend tell me the other day, that she thought there had been some reasonable gains in the way women were being portrayed by advertising. I have been looking around lately and have found some fantastic examples of why I firmly believe that is bull crapola. The above Yaris ad was linked over @ Hoyden About Town by Lauredhel and I had to watch it twice to believe my ears. There’s so much wrong with it I can’t even begin to type. Father handing over body rights of his daughter to a lascivious turd for umm .. why was it again? But hey, no worries, daughter’s like this sort of manly shtick between father and boyfriend, she’s ” ready to blow” and boyfriend will have her ‘on her back by 11′. All’s well in the neighborhood.
I also found a series of Virgin mobile ads posted by Stephanie Holland over at her website, She-conomy that really say so much about women, consider the following:
Gives a whole new meaning to ‘running off at the mouth eh?
Have another one ….
Cuz you know how women are …. talk, talk, talking, no discretion … no limits.
Gender stereotyping in 2009? Nahhhh.
But this ad… sort of interested me. It’s an anti discrimination ad (focus equal pay). Scanning the comments, I suspect that like the “hit the bitch’ anti-violence campaign in Denmark – it may miss the mark with the folks its most targeted toward.
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Sexism. I’ll just leave you to talk amongst yourselves…..
Wow. Just wow. “That shit is insane” is what immediately left my mouth following that disgustingly crude Yaris ad. Ugh. Love how in the first Virgin ad the career-driven, emasculating woman so casually talks about her loose morals in front her purse-holding, undoubtedly browbeaten guy. (What other sexist stereotype am I missing?) Who writes this shit? Don’t answer that.
Oh yeah, not digging the anti-discrimination/equal pay ad. At all.
TV Advertising in a nutshell: Women, you’re leaking, aging, hairy, overweight, and everything hurts…and your children’s clothes are filthy.
Hey, how’d that happen? I like…I think.
lol! Every day I find out I can do something new with my blog. Life is beautiful!
I agree with you. This gender slamming in advertising goes both ways – men (after relationship of course) become fat, bald, and more than a little stupid. Women, well they remain idiots across their entire lifespan, starting with the commercials for Easy Bake Ovens.
I imagine it will continue until consumers flat out refuse to support it. You know what makes me truly ill …. when I lived in the UK I owned a Yaris :/
There is some reassuring trends like Brigitte, A German women’s magazine that has banned professional models. I’d support that in a heartbeat.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6263810/German-womens-magazine-Brigitte-bans-models.html
I’d love to flip through Brigitte. Maybe someone should send Anna Wintour a copy.
“Women, well they remain idiots across their entire lifespan…”
And will forever extol the cleaning properties of toxic household cleansers and laundry detergent, all with a smile. (There is a Tide laundry detergent tv ad featuring a Black father and his son, which is quite a rarity for tv ads, esp. those not on the few cable networks geared toward POC, that is awfully refreshing and quite cute. Hmm. Now that I think about it, I *think* I’ve seen that ad outside of “Black tv”.)
I don’t really see much, if any, of the devaluing of men in advertising. I see older men often portrayed as distinguished, powerful, wise, or patriarchal whether bald, fat, or hairy. The same applies to younger men who possess good looks and things associated with virility. Those who are not “conventionally attractive” are often used as comic relief but not in a way devaluing the male gender (see Free Credit Report.com ads – would’ve linked but didn’t know what would happen
). An “unconventionally attractive” (i.e., normal-looking) young woman is placed in some forgettable fast food commercial.
I do feel that the muscle-bound, Adonis figure often present in media, esp. print media, is a crock of crap and has similar effects on the self-image of men as the thin, European-featured, clear-skinned, long-haired, long-lashed, impeccably dressed woman coming from every direction has on us, but manifested differently.
It’s funny. I’m conscious of this and, yet, I still find myself falling for it. I know it’s bogus but I still gotta try that new mascara…even though under those falsies her eyelashes look like mine. What can I say? Unlearning is one thing, unlearned behavior is another?