16 Things Super Bowl Ads Would Like You to Know About Women in 2012
16 Things Super Bowl Ads Would Like You to Know About Women in 2012
By Alyssa Rosenberg on Feb 9, 2012 at 9:52 am
What would I do without Super Bowl ads to explain my own gender to me? Truly, I would be lost. Super Bowl 2012 actually seemed less egregiously sexist than previous years, even given the inevitable GoDaddy ad, so predictably gross that I don’t even include it here. But taken together, the ads form a pretty striking portrait of how American industry views American ladies. Let’s take a look, shall we?
1. Women don’t invent things (people of color don’t either), but they will sell you electronics:
2. When we’re superheroes, we get the cute little guns that can fit in a purse:
3. Seriously. Combat never stops us from looking hot
4. That said, go up against a dude, and we’re super-defenseless
5. You can make everything better by turning it into an unclothed woman who acts, quite literally, as an object for your use
6. We live to seduce you so you will purchase motor vehicles
7. Buy us flowers, and we will give you unreciprocated oral
8. Because really, we’re more into yogurt than having sex
9. Although we do dream of being rescued
10. Which is maybe something we should work on, since it looks like none of us will survive the apocalypse
11. Old ladies, though? Totally badass.
12. Even though they need insurance companies to help them make decisions
13. Also, ladies are good at selling real estate
14. And not acting like morons at parties
15. Props to Budweiser for recognizing that ladies
a) drink beer,
b) like sports just as much as men
16. Especially since the NFL seems to think we don’t play fantasy football
VIDEOS for 1-16 here:
http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/02/09/421223/16-things-super-bowl-ads-would-like-you-to-know-about-women-in-2012/
= new reply since forum marked as read
1. ...that's what I call reaching. If she's drawing that from a small sampling of recent innovators, she's -looking- for things. Try this one on for size, it's MUCH more accurate: "Men are over-represented in the fields of technology innovationi". Best Buy CLEARLY realized that there weren't any women shown, so they put 3 in the front -- blame that on the inevitable mantra of 'Best Buy thinks women have nothing to do at all with electronics' that would have materialized if they didn't. However, I give her the whitewashing -- seemed pretty darned lily in there, didn't it? 
2. I don't know much about comic books and adaptations. I know the woman in black is supposed to be some kind of heroine (duh), but that's about it. I'll give the author this one simply because the heroine doesn't appear to carry the same amount of focus as the male heroes, and seems deceptively plain next to them.
3. Is a woman in combat such a terrible thing? Yes, she's given the tired comic book fanservice treatment, but that isn't even what the author is commenting on.
4. So, does that make both men and women defenseless against an old woman in a bathrobe? Just looking for a little consistency here.
5. Did she miss the object men on the -exact same couch-? I wouldn't have put either in (it's really not that funny), but equal time is equal time, even in the service of infantile humor.
6. Ugh. A terrible example of comparison gone wrong. I get what it's -meant- to imply...but I agree with the author on this one. Very poor taste.
7. Ehhh...I don't think 'unreciprocated' or 'reciprocated' can be drawn from that...commercial. Still, another one in incredibly poor taste. I would have written it as 'Flowers equal sex' instead and let it speak for itself. Seriously, how hard is it for us to make our points with actual, obvious facts instead of reaching for additional adjectives that make the entire statement less true OR more open to interpretation?
8. Another example of the author reaching for something that simply is not there. Couples playfully eating yogurt is now tantamount to sex? Holy shit, why wasn't I informed of this?!
9. While there are a few problems with the commercial, the ending is literally up for interpretation. I saw it as the guy still dreaming that he broke into someone else's dream to rescue them (which wouldn't have anything at all to do with the woman dreaming of being rescued). I can also see where the author saw it as a continuation of the woman's dream, only now she was dreaming of an 'even cooler' guy coming to rescue her. However, this interpretation would have (should have?) had some indication that she wasn't happy in the first dream segment.
10. Yeah, that commercial was trash. Even my father was commenting on that one.
11. ...given the sheer amount of ageism in our society, is the author actually -complaining- about this one? Talk about short-sighted 'needs'.
12. Agreed.
13. I don't see the problem with this commercial. If the real estate agent had been a man and outsmarted three women, the internet might have collapsed under the sheer number of complaints.
14. Cute commercial.
15. Good commercial I suppose, if beer is your thing.
16. The NFL is dumb. I don't think that was ever in contention?
Taken as a whole, the REAL message seems to me to be that there are only so many ways that advertisers tend to think, and they tend to break down along product lines. The movie trailers (and the movies themselves) need work -- any idiot can see that, and that's been a long-standing and systemic problem. I don't think any of us would disagree with that premise. But pairing them side-by-side with some of these other commercials then declaring 'Thats what Americans think!' is silly -- ESPECIALLY when some of those 'points' being drawn together are so clearly reaching and/or assumptive, particularly in an industry that virtually -has- to use -some- kind of shock value in its attempts to get brand recognition. I don't like what advertisers do as a whole in the first place. However, whether there is a better way than shock to advertise is a conversation not really related to the thread.
