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Category: Advertising

What’s wrong with skinny?

That’s what Lisa Hilton asks in the Daily Beast this week — although she’s actually asking, “What’s wrong with living off of coffee and cigarettes? Better than being fat!”

Katie Drummond over at Slant/Truth gives Hilton’s piece a great take-down, pointing out that while official eating disorder diagnosis rates may not be skyrocketing, a lot of women engage in disordered eating without having a diagnosed eating disorder. But Hilton isn’t just concerned with what she deems “hysteria” over super-skinny models; see, she’s worried that for all of our obsessing over skinny girls, we’re actually really fat. Obese, even! And don’t you know that being obese is unhealthy?

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The Super Bowl and Madison Avenue Misogyny

A guest post by Kate. Kate is a freelance writer and full-time law student. Follow her @itscompliKATEd on Twitter.

Superbowl ads are sexist. This is well trod ground: Marketers objectify women and play up stereotypes in order to sell things to (heterosexual) men. But we knew this year was going to be special. This year there was going to be some extra anti-feminist flavor. This year, there was going to be Tim Tebow.

We’ll come back to Tim and his anti-choice ad in a second. But for now, let’s take a look at the companies that decided that it would be a great idea to isolate half the population from their consumer base.
There were fewer half-naked women and dick jokes this year. Instead, the 2010 Superbowl Ad Mantra seemed to have one common theme: “Feeling castrated? . . . by women? Man up.”

Dodge Charger: Man’s Last Stand

A male voice-over starts with a first person monologue of the mundane life of the American male (“I will walk the dog, I will have fruit for breakfast”), as the ad cuts to shots of men staring blankly, blinking at the camera.

“Yeah, life is boring,” you think, “a car could fix that.” But then there’s an eerie crescendo, and it becomes clear that this voice isn’t just listing his gripes with the world, he’s listing his gripes with a person — and not just any person, a woman: “I will say yes, when you want me to say yes . . .I will take your call, I will listen to your opinion of my friends. . . I will be civil to your mother.” Simultaneously the voice-over seems to be getting angrier as the shots get tighter, finally focusing on the twitching eyes of a man in a suit. “Because I do these things, I will drive the car I want to drive.”

The ad is actually frightening. Not only because the voice-over gets more incensed as the tasks get more mundane (putting your underwear in a hamper? you mean being an adult? you think you deserve a car for that?), but because it’s maybe the most explicit misogyny I’ve ever seen in a Superbowl ad. “Feeling emasculated by your wife?” the ad seems to be saying. “Reaching your boiling point? We know you probably want to hit her, but buy a car instead.”

Oh, and did I mention that a television serial-killer (Michael Hall who plays Dexter) does the voice-over? That’s not creepy or violence promoting at all.

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The Wrong Way To Sell Something

In it’s purest form, commercial advertising is a call to action, an appeal to get the viewer off the sofa and into a store to buy a product. When Method released a commercial criticizing the use of environmentally harsh chemicals that also used sexual assault imagery, they not only risked being seen as a company that will use misogyny to hawk a product, but also as a company that is comfortable risking the wealthier, liberal, environmentally-conscious female consumer market they hoped to attain. Some action, amirite?

So when some feminist bloggers got ahold of the video, they not only pushed the point that it’s backward and tiresome to rely on the humiliation of women to push a product or idea (see also: PETA) but also that the use of sexual assault imagery was so viscerally upsetting for many women that it made them less likely to buy or support the use of whatever was being sold. Method, who commissioned the creepy, leering bubbles video by a third party, not only took heart to the criticism, but also pulled the advertising fail from “all controllable sources” and issued a public apology acknowledging many of the complaints made by their online critics. It showed that Method is willing to listen to their market * — or is at least unwilling to risk the viral anti-campaign this vocal and active market could wage — and that active members of the public can communicate with corporate entites for a greater good. For a minute it seemed like a win all around.

But the advertising industry has taken offense to our offense, and boy, they’re sure gonna tell us. Advertising Age has released an editorial in print and online that tells all of us annoyed with their misogynist offerings to “take a deep breath,” “have some perspective,” and “quit looking for offense in every single commercial.”

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Uh, hmm.

Cover of Iman's book, "The Beauty of Color." Includes the image of three models of color, including Iman.

The New York Times offers an “of color” gift guide, for making the holidays special for that non-white person in your life. Now, I’m all for supporting the art and work of traditionally marginalized groups. And I’m all for including gift suggestions that aren’t centered on the experiences of white people. And if I were Latina, I would totally wear that last t-shirt!

But some of the descriptions are… hmm. For example:

We live in a multitextural world, especially when it comes to hair. Anthony Dickey is to women with “problem hair” what Batman is to Gotham City. With his out-of-the box approach, innovative products (including his new travel kits for kinky, wavy and curly hair), Mr. Dickey has been a hair hero to Michelle Obama, Kelis, Alicia Keys and others.

So, I’m white, but I also have wavy hair that tends to be dry and sort of difficult to manage, and I am quite partial to Mixed Chicks deep conditioner. So yay for a diversity of hair products for people whose hair is not straight! But… “problem hair”? Really? We’re still defining certain hair as problematic?

Also, the intro to the piece generally:

Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children’s books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it’s not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season. Here are some possibilities.

Again, totally good with promoting the work of people of color, and for not centering whiteness in everything. But… why not just put this all in the general holiday shopping guide? Sure, “The Mocha Manual to Military Life: A Savvy Guide for Wives, Girlfriends and Female Service Members” isn’t going to appeal to every reader, but neither is the Bjorn Borg Men’s Underwear and Sock Set (which was in the “Chic and Cheerful” guide). Frédéric Fekkai Advanced Brilliant Glossing Products go in the “Cosmetic Enhancements” guide while “Hair Rules,” as I quoted above, is in the Of Color guide. All the other guides are divided up by interest — cosmetics, travel, food, etc. Except the Of Color guide.

Maybe I’m being silly, but would it have killed the Times to integrate the really beautiful designs by Mataano into their Chic and Stylish gift guide? Or put the Obama or Sotomayor children’s books on their Notable lists?

Of course, there is something to be said for highlighting the work of traditionally marginalized groups and for recognizing that they are traditionally excluded; I’m not trying to suggest that we all play the colorblind game. But I do think this could have been better executed.

The Politics of Peeing: Test-driving a Go-Girl

The instant I found out about the newly rebranded female urination device (FUD), Go-Girl, I jumped for joy. The news segment I saw on it (above) made it look great, and the website paints it even better: like a statement of one’s bad-ass independence and sassiness. “Don’t take life sitting down,” the tagline proudly proclaims. “The world is your urinal.” Plus, I have the smallest bladder in the world and always find myself in a desperate peeing situation. So I bought two reuseable Go-Girls (not badly priced at $6.99).

When I posted about this purchase on Facebook (yes, I was that excited), my guy friend from the UK glibly wrote, “She-pee has been at UK festivals for a few years now. It is odd seeing girls in the urinals. Enjoy freaking guys out.” Others also pointed out that the idea of this device was not new, especially for transmen and European women (although this seems to be the first FUD to try to go mainstream in the U.S. Also the first avidly Twittering FUD company, and apparently the first one made out of silicone).

I received the Go-Girls two Fridays ago—it’s purply-pink of course [eye roll]. I’ve used it three times since then. Some points of interest:

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Pink AND Magical!

This is something I’d never noticed before, but in retrospect resonates back into my own childhood. Referencing Clarke’s Third Law, the author of the following piece offers, “Toys marketed to girls don’t use technology; they use magic.”

…computers and electronics and alkaline batteries allow toys to do amazing things. Toy companies are well aware of this. But how they handle it depends on whether the toy is meant for boys or girls.

If it’s for boys, then the technology in the toy will be prominent in the advertising. The design of the toy and its description in commercials will suggest bleeding-edge technology.

If it’s for girls, then it’s time to break out the fairy dust. Even the need for batteries is hidden in fine print. Everything the toy does is attributed to magic or other mysterious powers. The girls in the commercials will act overawed and amazed as dolls move, dance and talk in response to voice commands… even though they probably see TV remote controls and personal computers on a daily basis.

The folks at TV Tropes add that this “might add difficulty to recruiting girls and young women into pursuing technical fields of study,” presumably because hiding the technology behind the toy prevents children (whose abstract critical skills are largely undeveloped until their teen years) from imagining and developing curiosity about the technical inner workings of their playthings. Or not. I’m reaching.

In any case, I’m trying to think of something truly “technical” that I played with as a child that was gender-neutral, but all I can think of is the Easy-Bake Oven, which is neither gender neutral nor technically advanced, or the Speak N’ Spell, which in retrospect reads male.

Can you think of any examples that prove or disprove Clarke’s Law for Girls’ Toys?

[Via]