[Content Note: Fat hatred; disablism.]
Some of you emailed me to let me know that you were suddenly seeing ads on the page earlier today. Apparently, Disqus started some new revenue program, which was defaulted to opting in. I have now turned them off.
But, for some reason, the ads are still appearing. I have tweeted at Disqus about it, but so far I have received no response.
I have already seen ads about weight loss and a pop culture story using disablist language in its headline. This is precisely why I run Shakesville as an ad-free space.
My apologies to anyone who has seen these ads. I am working to get them removed.
Showing posts with label Assvertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assvertising. Show all posts
Blog Note
An Observation
I really don't understand the appeal of this new "natural" and "pronounceable" ingredients marketing strategy.
"Would you like some all-natural and easy-to-pronounce hemlock?"
"Um, no thank you."
"It's organic!"
"Pass."
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
This advert has been running for more than a year (see, for example, Nerdy Feminist's Oct. 2014 post on it), and I have seen it no fewer than eleventy trazillion times, and every single time it irritates the shit out of me.
Video Description: A white family—Mom, Dad, Teenage Sister, and Little Brother—sit around the table in their clean, white, upper middle-class kitchen. Teenage Sister is telling a story about something that happened with her school friends in rapid-fire speech. Dad listens with feigned interest. Mom gives her a patronizing smile. A female voiceover says: "This story had 30 minutes left—" Teenage Daughter says: "—was that he was with Jessica," before pausing to take a bit of mac and cheese. The voiceover continues: "—until Kim realized that Stouffer's mac and cheese is made with real aged cheddar." Teenage Daughter dreamily savors the mac and cheese. Dad prompts her: "So what about Jessica?" Teenage Sister replies, "What about her?" Voiceover: "Stouffer's: Made for you to love."And, apparently, made for you to shove in your teenage daughters' mouths so they shut the fuck up about dumb stuff, like their lives.
I know, I know—I'm the Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington! Don't I understand it's all just in good fun? After all, surely we can all agree that teenage girls are annoying and vapid and talk too much and must be silenced!
I am reminded of this great video by Sabrina, aka NerdyAndQuirky, which I linked in a blogaround earlier this year [CN: video autoplays at link]: "Stop Being Shitty to Teenage Girls."
Sabrina, a young thin woman of color, wearing a blue t-shirt and black framed glasses, appears onscreen in front of walls decorated with National Geographic covers. She says:Sabrina makes a bunch of really great points here, but I want to highlight her observation that teenage girls' enthusiasm is indicative of a feeling of belonging.
Hello, welcome to NerdyAndQuirky. It's been awhile since I made a rant, but I am angry! I just came back from VidCon, only to find an article that called it a "scream fest where teenage girls chase YouTube stars through the halls." One: Really inaccurate! Aside from a few incidents, VidCon was mostly just people mulling around, trying to connect to Wifi. And two: Can we please stop being so mean to teenage girls?! PLEASE?!
Yes, I know I'm a little bit biased being a 17-year-old girl. But this article wasn't alone in its condescending attitude towards young women. The media has this really degrading way of using teenage girls as a scapegoat for stupidity—and, quite frankly, it's insulting!
For everyone who's ever made a joke about fangirls, or how teenage girls ruin everything you love: Listen up, because I'm gonna lay this out for you like a real nice buffet table.
One: This is the salad portion of your meal. And in the salad of fan culture, girls may be the lettuce. We are the most visible, because there are so many of us. But that doesn't change the fact that there may be tomato guys or gender non-conforming croutons wandering around the expo halls, too.
Two: This is the fried food. This is why you came to an all-you-can-eat buffet. And guess what? Teenage girls want it, too! They probably want it more than you do! Because here's the thing: Gender roles present in society right now teach guys to repress any sense of excitement, unless it has to do with sweaty guys putting balls in holes. [images of sports] It's a sucky topic for another time. But girls—we're allowed free rein while we're teenagers. We are taught that it's all right to be wholeheartedly enthusiastic about whatever we love, and it is beautiful!
Whether it's musicians or actors or books or movies or TV shows—if teenage girls like it, they're gonna go ham! You stick a reference on a t-shirt, we'll buy it! You make buttons for it, we'll buy it! You make posters—well, we already got it and stuck it to our walls! You take any piece of media we like, stick it to a cheap piece of plastic produced in China and mark the price up by five hundred percent, we! will! still! buy it!
You wanna know why? It's because in a world that pits teenage against each other, that tells us we have to look prettier or compete over guys, fan culture, fandom, is like a vacation.
You have people who are just as excited over things as you. You have people who will cry over head canons and argue for hours over who the best Avenger is. And that is not a bad thing!
Too many people—myself included!—are starting to react to this excitement with cynicism. That it's immature, or you're falling to the corporate machine! But take a second and pull your head out of your crusty old white philosopher loving ass and realize that what teenage girls are so obsessed over is a feeling of belonging.
And Chris Evans' immaculate body.
And is that so ridiculous?
Number Three: The Heart Burn. You can, in fact, have too much of a good thing. And I won't deny that some fangirls go way too far, whether it's chasing their favorite celebrities or creeping outside their rooms, but, mind you, this occurs almost 100% of the time in conventions, where the mob mentality takes over; where these people—not just teenage girls—crave a unique, one-on-one interaction with their idols.
They have paid countless dollars for this, and some part of their brain makes them think, "This is okay!" Which it's not. It's inexcusable. If you ever think it's okay to do any of that—don't.
But these people are in no way the majority. If 50 people, or 150 people, are lurking where they do not belong, that is still probably at least out of 15,000 people. That is about 1%; that is the overwhelming minority. So stop acting like a group of overexcited teenagers are ruining the world.
Number Four: The Dessert. Here's a pie, or a cake, that I'm going to rub in your face if you don't already get my point. Every celebrity that you have ever idolized—I can promise you that the driving force behind their rise to fame was teeage girls.
Because that enthusiasm, that willingness to wait hours in line to say hello and maybe snap a selfie with their idol, that downright desire to buy any cheap trinket that can help advertise their love—that's what makes people famous.
So the next time you find yourself making fun of a teenage girl being excited, take a step back, realize how sad your life has gotten that you're getting angry over someone's happiness, and just go find something you enjoy.
I'd tell ya to fuck off, but you don't need that. What you need is to embrace your inner teenage girl and do something you love doing without caring how stupid you look while doing it.
Please share this video. I know it won't stop media from hating teenage girls, but I hope to at least make a dent. Hit "like" to help support one such teenage girl, and I will see you on Tuesday.
In fandom, among their friends, and in their families.
The silencing of female people starts young, and it intensifies exponentially when we become teenage girls, just as many of us are becoming increasingly vocal about our lives and loves. Just as many of us feel ourselves bursting with an intensity of emotion, of unfettered exuberances and Hindenburgian heartbreaks, we are told to be quiet.
And that silencing is justified on the basis that nothing we says even matters, anyway.
We are told that we have nothing of value to say, and so we should say nothing at all. And this policing and silencing continues well into adulthood, where many of us struggle to find our voices and esteem for years. Some of us forever.
So yeah. I don't find it particularly amusing when a company says, "Shove our food into your teenage daughter's mouth to shut up her useless babbling." Because I know all too well how much the world really hates teenage girls, and what they have to say.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
This is an actual fucking ad that somehow made it through multiple levels of approval for publication in Bloomingdale's holiday catalog:
I don't even know where to begin with this trash, besides crumpling it up in a ball and firing it directly into the sun. Everything about it is terrible, but I am especially grossed out by the fact that these two are described as "best friends" in this rape scenario. That is one remarkably contemptible vision of friendship.
Don't worry, though—Bloomie's is super sorry, y'all.
They heard your feedback on an ad that already got published and distributed to thousands of people, and now they know it was in "poor taste."
"Poor taste." Always my favorite (ahem) description of the rape culture.
I Write Letters
Dear eHarmony:
I am a contentedly married atheist person in a monogamous partnership with no need to find a heterosexual-only Christian match. Please stop incessantly spamming me with your shitty advertisements.
Even if I were in search of someone, I would rather fuck rocks than use your service.
Good day.
Melissa McEwan
Today in Rape Culture
[Content Note: Rape culture.]
Via Lucy Leiderman, here is a picture of a bottle of Bud Light emblazoned with its hot new ad campaign:
"The perfect beer for removing 'no' from your vocabulary for the night. #UpForWhatever. The perfect beer for whatever happens."
How about go fuck yourself? Are you up for that, Bud Light?
Apparently, Bud Light is claiming they were unaware of the rape culture connotations of this language.
They are lying.
There is literally no way that nary a single person involved with the development and execution of this campaign was aware of the messages implicit in an alcoholic beverage advertising its magical ability to "remove 'no' from your vocabulary." It defies belief.
And so I do not believe it.
I utterly refuse to credit as ignorance what is manifest dishonesty. Bud Light is not unaware of the rape culture connotations. They just don't care.
Except, perhaps, insomuch as appealing to rapists was entirely the point.
Meanwhile, here's the totally convincing statement of regret from Anheuser-Busch Vice President Alexander Lambrecht:
The Bud Light Up for Whatever campaign, now in its second year, has inspired millions of consumers to engage with our brand in a positive and light-hearted way. In this spirit, we created more than 140 different scroll messages intended to encourage spontaneous fun. It's clear that this message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior.They begrudgingly admit "missing the mark," but only because a bunch of hysterical scolds refused to engage "light-heartedly" with their rape joke.
I mean, they would never condone disrespectful behavior. Don't let their decades of misogynist advertising featuring sexually objectified women tell you otherwise!
Nor their long advertising history of images of women being plied with beer by men.
Forgive them. They had no idea that people might interpret their fun message as a suggestion to engage in irresponsible behavior.
[H/T to Andrea Grimes.]
False, and Indecent, Advertising
[Content Note: Classism; fat hatred.]
Rowena Lindsay at the CSM: "Why did DirecTV pull its Rob Lowe commercials?"
It turns out that it's because they were accused of false advertising. Not for the reason they should have pulled the campaign (or never launched it in the first place): Because the entire campaign is a gross piece of classist garbage.
If you're not familiar with the ads, they feature famously good-looking, talented, and successful thin, straight, white, cis actor Rob Lowe and various alter-egos, like "Super Creepy Rob Lowe" and "Peaked in High School Rob Lowe," representing DirecTV (Rob Lowe) and cable (alter-ego Rob Lowe), with Rob Lowe touting the superiority of DirecTV and admonishing viewers: "Don't be like this me. Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV."
DirecTV is still trying to find a way to continue the campaign nonetheless: "Lowe may make an appearance in DirecTV commercials in the future, however, as the company was in the process of creating five new alter-ego characters for him, including 'total deadbeat' Rob Lowe, who gets surgery in a hotel room to save money."
Hahahaha he can't afford health insurance! Terrific!
*thatface*
The alter-egos are less than versions of Rob Lowe because they are poor, or fat, or balding, or underemployed, or awkward. Or because they're "creepy," which is definitely the same thing as being fat or bald. Ahem.
Qualities which are so hideous (AHEM) that comparing cable companies to them is one basis of the false advertising charge:
[The National Advertising Division, which is part of the Council of Better Business Bureaus and fact checks advertisements, suggested that DirecTV] discontinue the catchphrase "Don't be like this me. Get rid of cable and upgrade to DirecTV" because it "conveyed a comparative and unsupported superiority message."Comcast isn't like a poor fat person! And it's outrageous to suggest that it is! Because everyone knows fat poor people are garbage! Basically.
"Humor can be an effective and creative way for advertisers to highlight the differences between their products and their competitor's," the NAD said in a statement. However, "humor and hyperbole do not relieve an advertiser of the obligation to support messages that their advertisements might reasonably convey — especially if the advertising disparages a competitor's product."
The entire campaign relies on denigrating marginalized people: Even "Creepy Rob Lowe" is not merely "creepy" by virtue of his behavior, but also because he wears the look of a working-class biker.
Followed by a catchphrase that says don't be like them. Eww gross.
Cue the caterwauling about how I am oversensitive and shrill and Most Humorless Feminist in all of Nofunnington. Don't I get it that it's just a joke?
Sure. I get it. I get it big time.
Forgive me (or don't) if I still don't find the humor in calling marginalized people trash.
Welp.
[Content Note: Fat hatred; diet and surgery advertisements.]
A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking about writing a post on the ubiquity of weight loss and/or body shaming advertisements. They are everywhere in my every day: I see them on the television, in magazines, in junk mail, in billboards along the roadways, in content-generated online ads prompted because I often use the word "fat" in my work. (Oh the irony.)
They are ads for diet pills, diet programs, diet food delivery services, weight loss supplements, fat-busting miracle elixirs, gyms, workout equipment, restrictive "shaping" garments, body mutilating surgeries, and every other conceivable variation on weight loss and/or body shaming one can imagine.
This is the time of year when there's a lull between the "New Year's weight loss resolution" theme and the "get your body ready for a bathing suit" theme. So, at the moment, it's mostly just run-of-the-mill "you're fat and you shouldn't be" stuff.
Anyway.
I thought that I would keep track of how many of these ads I saw during one 24-hour period. A typical day.
So, one day I started counting, while I was watching the morning news. By the time I'd turned off the television, I realized I'd already forgotten to keep counting.
I had another couple of false starts, where I'd lose track during the day, so I decided to carry my notebook around with me, to write down a mark for each ad.
By midway through the day, I'd again failed to keep up.
The problem is not that I get distracted, or that I don't care about the project. The problem, I realized, is that I am so inured to advertisements admonishing me that my body must change that they barely register anymore.
This is a commentary on their terrible pervasiveness, but it's also a commentary on the coping mechanisms fat people must employ. I have to turn off my conscious mind to these things, to this incessant messaging that my body is gross, sick, less than, because if I stopped to register every one, I would never escape the crushing oppression of being urged to loathe myself.
I literally wouldn't have enough psychological capacity to process each one of them, if I let every one of them penetrate.
So I am obliged to turn off part of my mind, part of myself, to the world around me. Because the world is so intent on telling me that I am broken and need to be fixed.
Ultimately, that realization felt even more important than reporting the number of ads I'd seen in a day. The realization that I can't even see all of them. If I want to survive.
"That Can Be So Boring. Well, Not Anymore!"
[Content Note: Send-up of misogyny.]
My favorite Superbowl commercial was this parody of a Totino's Pizza Roll advert, aired on Saturday Night Live this weekend:
Video Desscription: Four men—three white men and a black man—sit in a living room watching a ballgame. An array of snacks and beer is arranged on a coffee table in front of them. They cheer for a play. One of the men's wives, a white woman wearing a pink sweater, comes in with a huge smile on her face, bearing a plate of Totino's Pizza Rolls. "Who's ready for some more Totino's Pizza Rolls?" she asks cheerfully, setting down the plate. The men all make enthusiastic sounds. "Thanks, honey," says her husband. "You're the best."
"Anything for my hungry guys!" she says, crossing her arms and smiling satisfactorily. Her husband jerks his thumb toward the kitchen. "Now, get outta here, you—the game's on!" he tells her. "Okay, sweetheart," she replies. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need me." She smiles and walks away as the men cheer for another play.
Cut to the kitchen, where she speaks directly to the camera: "When it comes to the big game, I love feeding my hungry guys. But...now what?" She smiles tersely. "I normally just sit in the kitchen, waiting for them to ask for more delicious Totino's Pizza Rolls. But that can be so boring. Well, not anymore! Introducing Totino's new Superbowl Activity Pack—for Women!" She holds up a package full of colorful toys, which reads: "Learn! Play! Grow! For grown women ages 5 & up."
She opens the package and starts taking out the crappy little plastic toys. "It's full of fun little puzzles and games to keep my mind active and learning, while I wait back here." Big smile as the men cheer in the other room. "My hungry guys aren't the only ones having fun today. With my Superbowl Activity Pack for Women, I can spin a little top." Spins top. "Connect the dots." Completes the easiest connect the dot picture of a bee (and squeals excitedly "Oh look at the little bee!"). "Do a word search." Circles HAT in a nine-letter word search (and happily exclaims "Hat! I found hat!"). "Count my own money." Counts out Monopoly money. "And plenty of other activities I can drop at a moment's notice."
She plays with a tiny ball and paddle. "Honey, we're out of pizza rolls!" her husband shouts from the living room. "Comin' right up!" she calls cheerfully, settling down the paddle.
Cut to the living room, where she's setting down another plate of Totino's Pizza Rolls, and the men make excited noises as they reach for them. "Look, honey—it's a little bee," she says, showing her husband the connect the dots drawing. "Yeah, we're also out of beers, when you get a second," he says. "Anything for my hungry guys!" she says with a smile.
As she walks away, one of the men says, "Hey, does your wife wanna watch the game with us?" Her husband replies, "No, she's good. She's got her little activity pack." In the kitchen, the wife smacks a gooey hand against the fridge door.
Cut the the wife playing with a rubber ball on the floor. "If I get hungry," she says, "my activity pack comes with one little Totino—just for me!" She eats the one tiny pizza roll.
The men cheer in the living room. She walks back in and asks, "Is the game almost over?" Her husband replies, "No—it's still the first quarter."
She struggles to maintain her smile. "Well, I...already did that whole activity pack that you gave me." Her husband says, "Well, open another one then."
"Okay!" she says. "Anything for my hungry g—"
"GO!" shouts her husband.
She grins gruesomely and walks away.
"The Totino's Superbowl Activity Pack. For grown women ages 5 & up."
* * *
LOLOLOLOLOL FOREVERRRRRR. This is, of course, not just a perfect send-up of Totino's commercials—which are a particularly egregious repeat offender in the "wife/mom will do anything for her hungry boys!" genre, but of an entire category of snack commercials which feature wives/moms who seem to exist for no other reason than to provide a steady stream of tasty treats for their hungry boys. Perfect.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogyny; gender essentialism.]
What is this commercial?
A young thin white brunette woman stands in her kitchen, behind an island which separates the kitchen from the living room, where her young thin white brunette husband is playing video games with three of his young thin male friends, one of whom is also white, one of whom is Latino, and one of whom is black.Rumchata: Get drunk so you don't care if your husband plays video games with his friends all night while ignoring you, even if he promised to spend time with you.
"Greg, I thought we were gonna watch our show!" she says, to his back. He turns to her and says, "As soon as we finish this level."
Her head rolls back exasperatedly. She takes a sip from her glass of Rumchata (an alcoholic beverage) on the rocks. Suddenly, the lights go blue, pop music starts, and her husband and his friends turn into a boy band, singing as they do a choreographed dance: "There's a bunker on the right / Watch out! / I'll lay down suppressive fire / Mikey, launch an RPG! / Keep the formation tight / So tight! / Once we've cleared this forest / Then it's on to victory!"
The woman holds the bottle of Rumchata in her hand and looks at it curiously. Her husband then turns to her and sings: "I know I said we'd start our show / Over twenty minutes ago / Back then my health was in the red / And I thought that soon we'd all be dead!"
Suddenly the woman is smiling and hopping up and down excitedly like she's at an actual concert. She dances in the background as the men sing: "Lock and load / We're on the attack / Enemies all around us / But there's no turning back / Hey now / Time to invade / Head's up! Look out! What's that? Oh no! / GRENADE!"
A fire ball appears on the screen, followed the words: "MISSION FAILED."
The lights go back to normal, catching the woman still dancing and saying, "Woo!" The men look at her, and she says, "Oh, come on! You can't give up that easily!"
Text onscreen reads, and a female voiceover says, "Rumchata. Pour yourself a vacation."
I mean, shit, you don't want to be a nagging wife, do you? Don't you want to be a cool chick who doesn't need or expect anything from her intimate partner and just wants him to do what makes him happy? DRINK UP SO YOU'RE NOT SUCH A BITCH.
Could I hate this more? No.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogyny; objectification; violence; heterocentrism.]
Shaker Sarah emails, which I am sharing with her permission:
I just saw this advert outside Farringdon Tube Station in London. It's for a gym called Gymbox. It made me furious: the idea that women only work out to be desirable to men; that sexual harassment is secretly flattering or something women desire; that women send mixed messages, both wanting attention from random strangers and being unreasonably aggressive in fending it off. Hideous.
I also find it interesting, ahem, that clearly "builders" are exclusively men in this construction, which reinforces the narrative that women are never, ever, meant to work out to bulk up, but only to slim down.
Men are meant to work out to get bigger; women are meant to work out to get smaller.
And of course we know what happens to women who use violence in self-defense. Is everyone laughing until their sides ache at the idea that it would be cool for a woman to "beat up" a man who wolf-whistles at her?
If anyone is inclined to send some polite correspondence to Gymbox to ask them to stop using this advert, you can visit their contact page. Or their Facebook page. Or their Twitter.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Lack of boundaries.]
What in the shit is this commercial?
Video Description: A young white man and a young white woman sit at a small round table at a restaurant. A male voiceover says: "Love drama? Go on a first date." The man on the date pulls out from under the table a hand-puppet that looks exactly like the woman. "My passion is puppetry," he tells her. Close-up on her face as it falls. The shot cuts wide again as the man starts making out with the puppet. "I think we're done here," says the woman, who then gets up and leaves. "Hate drama?" says the male voiceover, as the scene cuts to the woman at a dealership getting keys to a new car (while still wearing her first-date dress). "Go to cars-dot-com. Research, price, find. Only cars-dot-com helps you get the right car without all the drama." The end.
This advert is terrible for about a dozen different reasons, not least of which is that it doesn't even make any goddamned sense, but the thing I hate most about it is its reliance on the increasingly popular designation as "drama" any creepy or outright abusive behavior that a man directs at a woman. Or, often, her reaction to it.
That's not "drama." (Trauma, maybe.) And it's not the equivalent of being inconvenienced by less user-friendly car hunting sites.
The thing is, I'm guessing that the advertiser was hoping that women would find this "creepy first date" scene reminiscent of male car salesmen who can be pushy, aggressive, condescending, rude, and disrespectful of boundaries with female car shoppers, while the scene would simultaneously serve to disguise a commentary on men's very typical hostility for women's boundaries so as not to offend any male viewers who might see themselves in something less "hilarious" than a dude making out with a puppet of his date.
And there's nothing I find more contemptible than an advertiser who wants to reach out to women while protecting men's delicate fee-fees. Especially because the attempt is always gross. Case in point.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogyny; racism; coercion.]
Part wev in an infinitely ongoing series...
Via Shaker KatherineSpins comes this picture of an ad for Athenos Feta cheese:
"YiaYia" is a Greek term of endearment for "grandmother." It's interesting, ahem, how many immigrant groups to the US which were nonwhite many years ago, and then were subsumed into the broad, vague category of "white," are now being used in place of overtly racist stereotypes.
There's definitely a very cynical trend in advertising to appropriate "white ethnic" stereotypes, in order to pluck the same strings as racist stereotypes while hiding behind a defense of white assimilation.
(Which is not to suggest that overly racist stereotypes are not still being used in advertising, because they are. It's just that some advertisers think they're being savvy by pulling this shit, but I SEE YOU.)
Further, I don't know how the hell this advertisement made it through the vetting process without someone flagging that coerced marriage isn't a fucking joke. I can only assume the vetting process consists of holding the mock-up in front of a dog and seeing if she wags her tail.
"Welp, Rosie thinks it looks great! Print it!"
Anyway. Athenos is part of the Kraft Food Group. If you would like to contact Athenos and/or Kraft and ask them to reconsider their advertising strategy, here is some contact information:
Athenos' Facebook page. | Kraft Facebook page.
Athenos on Twitter. | Kraft on Twitter.
Athenos/Kraft contact form.
Work dem spoons!
Photo of the Day
A 25-foot-high sea creature resembling Richard Branson emerges from the sea on Bournemouth Beach (UK) carrying a TV, laptop, phone, and mobile to celebrate the launch of Virgin Media's Big Kahuna quad-play bundle. [via]I don't even know. LOL.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Emotional abuse.]
Have you seen these fucking ads for DirecTV (hereafter "Advertiser") with the straight white guy who's married to a marionette lady and has a kid who is a marionette boy? Jesus Jones, these things are terrible. The basic premise is that the guy is SO THRILLED to have gotten rid of cable wires after getting Advertiser's service that he can't stop talking about how awesome it is to have no wires.
Which is a stupid conceit made even stupider by the fact that Advertiser is basically driving home this WIREFREE UTOPIA message with adverts featuring the guy's marionette family being all freaked out by how he can't STFU about his new blissful wireless life.
The last advert in the series was his having to reassure his kid that his marionette wires are totes awesome (right before the kid gets caught in a ceiling fan), and this is the latest fucking disaster in the series:
The straight white thin young dude is chilling in bed, remote control in hand, staring at a TV on the wall across from him. His white thin young marionette wife — and I cannot emphasize enough that she is a marionette with strings attached to her leading who knows where — comes galloping into the room wearing a white robe and stands between him and the TV. She sighs. "Do you still think I'm pretty?" she asks.See, it's meant to be funny because his family members are marionettes, and we're definitely not supposed to see a basic form of emotional abuse replicated for our supposed amusement.
"Of course I do!" he replies. "What's this about?"
She explains: "Since we got [Advertiser's Service], all you talk about is how we can put TVs anywhere without having to look at those ugly wires." She flops her stringed limbs about.
"No, baby," he says, gesturing at the television. "I meant the cable wires, not you!"
As she rips off her robe (in physical defiance of the existence of the wires that are the centerpiece of this garbage advert), she whispers, "Okay then." She reveals a red teddy. Her husband makes a sexyface at her. "So you like what you see?" she asks.
"Yeah, I do," he says. She begins to "dance" for him. "Like it?" she asks. "Yeah," he tells her. She starts doing the Charleston, looking totally desperate. "How about that?" she asks. "Yeah, that's sorta jazzy," he says.
Male voiceover: "Now you don't need to see cable wires and boxes in every room." Blah blah Advertiser info fart.
One of the most common forms of emotional abuse within family structures is the expression of negative judgment against people like that by parents, siblings, etc. when one family member is, or will be, a person like that. And one of the most common responses when it's called out is: "I didn't mean you."
Why the fuck is this dynamic, which we're meant to recognize in some way as his self-doubting son appeals for his acceptance and his insecure wife shimmies for his affection, being used to try to sell a TV service, as if it's not abuse because the guy's family aren't human?
Whoever is doing the calculations over at Advertiser that dehumanizing people in order to abuse them is appropriate and amusing needs a remedial math course.
I'll give Danger Guerrero the final word:
This is the second straight commercial where a marionette member of this family has come to this guy with concerns that he considers them to be hideous monsters, because this bozo — who is married to a marionette and has a marionette son — has been running around telling everyone he can corral for 10-15 consecutive seconds how happy he is to be rid of the "ugly" cable wires all over his house. Hey, ding dong, SHUT UP. You're tearing your family apart over six inches of cable that no one even notices because it's stuffed behind a dresser or something. Jesus. This is all just a sad, disturbing mess now. Shut it down.For real.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Classism; victim-blaming.]
Two different-sex couples sit in a park having a picnic. One couple, both of whom appear to be white, is dressed in "fancy" sweaters and slacks; the other couple, a man who appears to be white and an Asian woman, are dressed down in a hoodie and cardigan, respectively. They are all young, thin, and kyriarchetypically attractive.Text indicates that the ad comes care of the Ad Council and AICPA, which is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.
Fancy Couple is drinking from glassware and a ceramic pitcher. Casual Couple is drinking from red plastic party cups and a plastic thermos.
"It's so good to see you guys," says Fancy Woman. "So, what's up?" Fancy Couple pulls lobsters from a picnic basket.
"Well," says Casual Woman, "we finally bought a place."
"Holy cow!" exclaims Fancy Woman.
"You seriously have enough saved to do that?" asks Fancy Man, holding a lobster in his hand.
"We've been putting a little aside each month," says Casual Man, and Casual Woman nods.
When we cut back to Fancy Couple, they're face-down in massage chairs getting massaged by handsome white blond masseurs, and they're eating the lobsters with their bare hands. "Geez!" says Fancy Woman. "By the end of the month, we have nothing left to save!"
"Yeah," says Fancy Man. "I have no idea where it goes!"
"Well," says Casual Woman, "you're spending a lot...? On—"
"Oh. Ah. Mm," groans Fancy Man, his mouth full of lobster, as he gets massaged, totally ignoring Casual Woman.
"Is it good?" asks Fancy Woman. He responds with more groans. Casual Couple exchange a WTF look.
Suddenly Fancy Couple are in a hot air balloon basket and start to lift off. "How is my account overdrawn?!" wonders Fancy Woman.
Over the image of a hot air balloon, a male voiceover says, "When it comes to financial stability, don't get left behind. Get tools and tips for saving at Feed the Pig dot org."
Shaker speedbudget sent me this advertisement with the following text, which I am sharing with her permission: "I saw this horrible ad about saving money last night, and I was ready to throw something at the dang TV. I am living paycheck to paycheck, and it's not because I'm out spending money on lobsters and massages. It's because I don't make enough money to last me from paycheck to paycheck. I have student loan debt and credit card debt from when I was in said school just trying to feed myself. This ad also completely elides the fact that wages have been stagnant for 30 years now while the cost of living has gone up."
This ad is shitty for a whole lot of reasons, not least of which is because it evokes the trope of the irresponsible, extravagant spender living well beyond hir means, which became ubiquitous in public discussions of bankruptcies and home foreclosures at the height of the recession, as a means of redirecting accountability onto individuals and their frivolous spending habits while deflecting corporate responsibility for spiraling healthcare costs and predatory lending, just for a start.
And, yes, it is a big universe, and within it there are people who are financially irresponsible, but mostly these failures are the result of systemic problems, and tropes about failures of "personal responsibility" are the way in which we collectively continue to task individuals with finding solutions to those systemic problems.
It's important to call this bootstraps bullshit out every time we see it.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Misogynistic tropes; rape culture.]
Shaker Cafeaulait0913 forwarded this Excedrin ad, which features a collection of thin, white, kyriarchitypically attractive women being relieved of their headaches:
A thin, young, white woman and a thin white man in an office approach a mountain of disorganized files. "Aw, this audit will take days," complains the man. The woman sighs. "What a headache," the man says. "Actually," the woman replies, "I don't have a headache anymore. Excedrin really does work fast."So, the thing about this ad is that it's clearly geared toward (white, straight, thin, privileged) women, and yet:
Two very young white children, a boy and a girl, are playing in a well-appointed home. The boy knocks over some toys, which clatter noisily to the floor. "QUIET! MOM HAS A HEADACHE!" yells the girl. Mom, a thin, young, white woman, leans forward from her overstuffed chair. "Had a headache. But now, I don't!"
Over generic graphics of a male head in silhouette showing the medicine "working," a male voiceover says, "With two pain fighters plus a booster, Excedrin ends headaches fast. In fact, for some, relief starts in just 15 minutes."
A thin, young, white, different-sex couple lies in bed. The man is holding a book. The woman says, "Wow, my headache is gone." The man quickly closes the book and turns out the light. The room goes dark. The woman turns on her bedside light, to reveal the man hovering over her eagerly. "Not gonna happen," she says, to the man's chagrin.
Male voiceover: "Excredrin. Headache: Gone."
1. It uses a male silhouette in the graphics.
2. It uses a male voiceover.
3. It uses, as a punchline, the tired old trope about women using a headache to get out of sex they don't want to have with their husbands. Which, you know, is not actually a funny trope, as it's a reflection of a rape culture in which women must feign pain to delay sex, because their agency and right to simply say no isn't respected.
This certainly isn't the worst entry in this series, but it still gets a thumbs-down. Do better, Excedrin. Thanks.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Rape jokes; disablist jokes; fat jokes; privilege.]
Shaker Rebekah forwarded me this piece about the series of adverts Ricky Gervais is doing for luxury car brand Audi, which have recently started airing in the US:
To launch its new A3 sedan, Audi of America is turning to Ricky Gervais to drive home the message that consumers should never compromise.I've seen the "Names" spot several times, in which a little girl reads shitty tweets about Gervais, and he says they mean he's doing something right. The other two, I've only seen online, and this "Uncompromised Portrait" ad is hilariously awful:
To hammer home the message, it cast Gervais, a comedian who is often blasted by critics for his acidic sense of humor and jokes.
Gervais is featured in an overall branding campaign called "Dues," and a separate shorter spot called "Names," as well as in a series of "Uncompromised Portraits," in which he discusses his process of telling jokes.
The ad, filmed in black and white because OF COURSE IT IS, opens with piano music and text onscreen reading: "Audi A3 Presents: An uncompromised portrait. Ricky Gervais, writer, comedian, actor, etc..."Good fucking grief.
Gervais, sitting facing the camera, says: "I cherish the gasps as much as the laughs and the cheers and the rounds of applause." He makes a gasping noise. "I like that. I didn't turn up to any audience and go, 'What do you like? What shall I do? I do requests.' You know? The reaction after the Golden Globes was weird." This monologue is intercut with images of an empty theater, a man walking in the snow, a train, and other random shit because ART. "You usually have to be a mass murderer for that sort of column inches. But then, you know, by the end, they sort of got it. They went, 'Oh, okay then. He's just telling jokes.' I don't really want to do safe, homogenized stuff that everyone likes a bit, you know? I sort of like doing it my way, 'cause that's the fun. Every day should be filled with doing what you love. That's more important. It's more important than anything." Gervais grins.
Text onscreen: "Whatever you do, stay uncompromised." Audi logo.
First of all: LOL FOREVER at the contention that people who criticized Gervais' garbage routine at the Golden Globes were somehow confused about the fact that he was telling jokes.
Secondly: LOL FOREVER at the assertion that Gervais isn't doing "safe, homogenized stuff" when he's a teller and defender of rape jokes, disablist jokes, and fat jokes (for a start), as if making fun of rape, disabled people, and fat people isn't so old it's got brontosaurus shit in the treads of its sensible shoes.
It is the height of irony that humorists who do bigoted humor are regarded as provocateurs.
I mean, sure, he's a "provocateur" if provocateur is broadly defined enough to encompass a playground antagonist who pokes other children with a stick. If anything designed to provoke any response can make one a provocateur, then give Ricky Gervais his trophy for Provocateur of the Year or whatever.That shit's about as edgy as an abacus.
But "provocateur" really should mean something loftier—not a person who engages in the tiresome bigotry of misogyny and ableism, of racism and xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, who tells and defends rape jokes, just to elicit an entirely predictable (and legitimate) negative reaction from people getting poked with the stick, who are then immediately dismissed with charges of "humorlessness" or a lack of sophistication required to get the nuances of a joke to which the punchline is, at its essence, you are less than me.
A provocateur, if the word is have real meaning, is someone who challenges existent paradigms and marginalizing narratives, who presents a radical thought that makes people sit rather uncomfortably in their privilege and urges them to wander off the well-worn path of their socialization. It's someone who changes minds.
It isn't someone who calls people "mongs" and pretends that it's brave.
Finally: All the mirthless laughter in the multiverse at another highly privileged person sagely dispensing the advice that "every day should be filled with doing what you love" because "it's more important than anything." EVEN EATING! OR SHELTER! So go ahead and quit your job at the factory and spend your days DOING WHAT YOU LOVE, because no matter what it is that you love, you can definitely get rich doing it, if only you work hard enough!
Jesus Jones. Everything about this advert is the worst. Except for the fact that it's probably a pretty great choice for selling a luxury car to privileged dipshits who think Gervais is a hero for bravely upholding kyriarchal norms and calling it radical.
Assvertising
[Content Note: Sexism; gender essentialism.]
What in the shit is this advert from repeat offender Carl's Jr./Hardee's?
Video Description: The X-Men's Mystique, a blue-skinned shapeshifter who is currently played in the film franchise by Jennifer Lawrence but by someone else in this commercial, stands holding a big burger. She suddenly shape-shifts into a burly, traditionally handsome, white man, and then takes a giant bite of the burger.We've talked dozens of times in this space about the pervasive narrative that MEN EAT MEAT, and all the various fast food chains which have had shitty commercials based on this premise. (Burger King and Applebee's are repeat offenders in that specific category.) So I've really got nothing new to say about that tired old gender essentialist chestnut.
"MAN UP" appears onscreen. "FOR 2X THE BACON."
The "man's" eyes, as "he" gazes upon a crispy strip of bacon, are Mystique's yellow eyes. "He" crunches down on it, and the shape flips back and forth between Burly Burger Man and Mystique.
"EAT LIKE YOU MEAN IT" appears onscreen, as the words are said by a male voiceover. Cut to an image of the burger beside a fountain drink. The voiceover says, "The Western X-tra bacon thickburger at Carl's Jr. and Hardee's." Followed by a plug for the new X-Men film.
However: I will note the irony that a franchise ostensibly concerned with serving as metaphor for marginalized communities would license one of its few recognizable female characters to participate in a garbage gender essentialist trope to sell fast food. Neat.
*thatface*
Assvertising
[Content Note: Fat hatred.]
This Australian advertisement for Weight Watchers (WW) is one of the grossest—and unintentionally revealing—commentaries on the weight loss industry that I have ever seen (which is really saying something):
Text onscreen: "Dedicated to everyone who refused to give up trying." followed by the WW logo.This advertisement is straight-up hateful garbage.
Over tinkly music, there is video of what is meant to be a montage of a thin white brunette woman's life (throughout, the aging representations of this woman are thin, white, and brunette): A baby being born; a toddler swimming in a pool; a young girl on a school bus; a teenage girl kissing a white boy; a young woman running into the water on a beach with a white young man; a woman smashing a plate during a fight with a man; a woman on a date with a man; a woman breastfeeding a child; a middle-aged woman negotiating at work; a middle-aged woman standing in her kitchen looking tired; an older woman seeing a doctor with her older white husband.
Over these clips is a female voiceover saying: "You were incredible from minute one. You refused to give up trying. You survived school. You didn't run from your first kiss. You sought out adventure. You fell out of love; bravely back into it. You said yes to always being there. You stood up for what you believed in. You conquered the impossible daily. You won unwinnable battles."
The video then shows a series of individual people: A young thin white woman; a middle-aged thin black man; a young thin white woman; a thin middle-aged white woman;
Over these clips, the female voiceover says: "These are your stories. Never forget how incredible you are."
Text onscreen: "Awaken YOUR incredible. Weight Watchers."
1. WW has a virtually nonexistent success rate for long-term weight loss. Which means that they make lots and lots of money off of people who "refuse to give up trying," hoping that WW's promised "lifestyle change" (i.e. permanent diet) will work for them this time. WW is deeply invested in promoting the idea that if you fail to lose weight on their program, it's down to your lack of effort, not down to their program being garbage that doesn't work for most people on a long-term basis. They are exploiting fat hating narratives that attribute fatness to laziness, and doing it under the auspices of telling fat people we're "incredible."
2. Every person in this video is thin. There isn't a fat person to be seen. This is because images of thin people are supposed to be aspirational for fat people, and because the weight loss industry is explicitly eliminationist: The stated objective is to get rid of fat people. WW on the one hand tells fat people that they're "incredible," but also erases us from the world. The message is, of course, that fat people are really only incredible once we've lost weight—or at least commit ourselves to trying.
3. Pervasive, intense, aggressive fat hatred stops lots of fat people from being able to survive school, or seeking out romantic relationships, or seeking out adventure. It's particularly cruel to show images of thin people doing these things, that many fat people can't or don't do, because of the hatred directed at us for our bodies, with a voiceover suggesting "you're incredible because you've done these things."
4. The takeaway, naturally, is that: "If you haven't done these things, it's because you're fat. And if you're thin, you'll be able to do all of them!" The constant misattribution of restricted lives to "being fat" instead of "being targeted by incessant fat hatred" is bullshit. And WW knows it's bullshit. But they don't make money if fat people don't feel like we don't deserve to live until we are thin.
5. Fuck you, Weight Watchers. I'm fat and incredible. Precisely because I don't consider those mutually exclusive conditions.
[H/T to Marilyn Wann.]
