Um, why is it just assumed that it’s the man’s money she’s spending? It’s the year 2006 and women have jobs of their own now and make (and spend) their own money, you know…
Right, but his money goes to pay the mortgage and the household expenses and the holidays, yes? :rolleyes:
If she’s that confident in her right to spend the money, why hide the purchases?
Ever tried to hide something you didn’t need to hide? Thought not.
Define “need.”
If I remember the commercial correctly (and I may not), it shows her going to various stores and stowing the bags out of sight in the van. The sucky thing about vans is how open they are, unlike a trunk where everything is out of sight.
So, you go shopping, you tuck everything you buy out of sight of passersby, you get home, spouse is confounded because nothing is visible. It’s like magic!
I didn’t get a sense that she was guilty or that he was suspicious or that she was spending money that they didn’t have or that she wasn’t allowed to spend. Those are assumptions the viewers are bringing in with them.
He doesn’t see the bags. She looks amused. That makes him an idiot and her a liar? I don’t think so.
Depends, the commercial made it seem she was a “Lady of Leisure” but it is extremely common for couples now to pool their money and the money is more likely to be nearly equal than in the past. The commercial obviously gave many of us the impression she had a spending habit she wished to hide, but anything else is conjecture.
Jim {I have a spare Pitchfork to loan out and a ready supply of torch materials.}
While I liked what Malacondra wrote in response to this before, I have to say that this comercial irks me because of my experiances: I’m happily married.
We both work, but we have bills that won’t take cutesy little answers like ‘go pay yourself’ for an answer. The money brought in is Our money…and we both get a say. And yes, I’ve gotten the VETO plenty of times on purchases that I wanted to make, but its a marriage and a partnership and unilateral decision making just doesn’t work. The dynamics of most of the good marriages I know seem to work this way, although some people go the ‘your money, my money’ route.
If a guy went out & spent the mortgage payment on a big-screen TV, he’d be a Fred Flintstone Neanderthal, and would be in for a beatin’ as soon as it came to light. So why is there the double standard here? If these things were not a problem, why is she hiding them from her husband instead of sharing the joy of their purchase with him?
I’m offended that a women is somehow seen as ‘clever’ by cheating her marriage out of mortgage/rent money …or worse, jacking up the Crapital One debt at 18% APR, just to buy selfish gifts for herself.
“Gee, I’m a Dishonest Thieving Grifter…Tweedle-dee-dee!”
(and I’m quite glad that there so many women here offended by this glorification of Integrity Deficit Syndrome.)
I won’t even go into the greedy merchants playing on the fantasies of people with Spending Disorders and other associated mental illnesses. But I’ll gladly light a torch under the nads of any 5th Avenue scum that shovel this trype of septic-tank goodness into our livingrooms, irregardless of gender.
For me, it’s the way the husband is portrayed in the Penney’s commercials. He’s at home with the kids, with no clue as to how to care for them. The baby is strapped in the high chair, screaming. The other kids were running around the house like wild hooligans, throwing food, coloring on the walls, bringing the running hose into the house, stuff like that. I always felt that a bunch of ad execs said, “Let’s have Dad stuck at home babysitting and Mom’s shopping!” The idea that a father ‘babysits’ his own kid irks me. The scenario of him stuck at home with no idea how to care for his own children, while Mom is out, carefree and shopping, just made my blood boil.
Don’t be too sure of that. Businesspeople are perfectly capable of making stupid decisions, and businesses fail from them all the time. The existence of this sort of commercial probably means someone thinks they work; it doesn’t mean they do work.
Damn, you’re reading a lot into that commercial.
What we know:
- The woman went shopping.
- She bought some things.
- She stowed them in the handy-dandy hidden compartments.
- The man was surprised she didn’t seem to have anything because he knew she was going shopping.
- She was amused.
I keep a lot of things out of sight without deliberately trying to deceive anyone.
Maybe she was trying to hide it and lie (though why would she tell him she was going shopping?) Maybe she thought his reaction would be funny. Maybe she was able to tuck the bags out of sight of people who might break into her car for the goodies and didn’t realize that he would be baffled. Maybe she’s an unholy bitch who is spending them into the poorhouse. Maybe he’s an irrational pinchpenny who won’t let her buy underwear. Maybe she doesn’t show him her purchases because he always wants to try on the clothes before she wears them. Maybe she doesn’t show him the purchases because he doesn’t give a damn. Maybe she goes in with all those bags and laughs and says, “They were in the car the whole time!”
Everyone seems to want to believe that there is a ton of malice and nastyness in that commercial. It might even be what they meant, but it isn’t what you have to see.
My conversation with my husband when the commericial went off:
Me: [Sister] rented a van with those compartments. It was neat.
Him: How much fit in them?
Me: I dunno.
Him: It’d be nice for shopping. Or traveling.
Me: Yeah, getting things out of sight would be good.
Pretty stirring conversation, but that’s what we took away from the commercial.
For a MINUTE.
Thank you for a little dose of sanity, jsgoddess.
resolves not to marry Inigo.
The one I hate:
A husband and wife are arguing about purchasing a home. He’s not sure they can afford it, she browbeats him that they can. As a trump, she reveals that their real estate agent has been on speakerphone during the whole argument and has heard everything. The agent tells the sap husband that of COURSE they can afford it! He gives a sickly grin and gives in.
Jesus Christ, that commercial is annoying on about 20 different levels.
Lord. What are they selling?
See, that commercial I don’t see any other interpretation for, assuming your description is even close.
Yep. When I was three, my grandparents took my family, along with my aunts and uncles and cousins, down to Ohio to stay with my grandmother’s sister. She lives right by Sea World, so my grandparents took us, and my grandmother bought us all little stuffed Shamus. My Shamu fell in the toilet the next morning as I was getting ready, and so my mother went back to Sea World, bought another one, and told me she just put him in the washing machine.
You obviously never had a kid that was incredibly attached to a particular item. My son had a blanket he called the “tickle blanket.” He took it everywhere and if we forgot to bring it he would raise holy hell. By the time he was four it was a ratty rag, one side and the fill were gone, it was disgusting. Washing it was nightmare because you never knew if it would survive 
I found that commercial quite amusing, having been there and all.
It’s for Century 21 or some other real estate company. **Lemur’s/b] description was spot-on. It’s insanely annoying. One thing the wife mentions are the good schools, and the husband whines that the kids are just 2 and 4. Well, dummy, the kids are going to only get older. It’s be nice to be settled in a neighborhood and let them make friends before they get into school.
What’s really annoying is that the couple are having the supposedly-intimate fight, and then suddenly the real estate agent says something on speaker-phone. It’s very jarring to realize they’ve been saying these things about their finances to each other in front of her.
I think she’s supposed to be dropping the inferior jewelry into his drink. It’s pointing out that non-Jared’s stuff is so bad, it can be used as a garnish - while Jared’s jewelry would poison you if you drank it.
or something.
Hideous commercial. Anyone who thinks “must buy from Jared” from watching that commercial is deeply flawed.
The commercial in the OP implies that she’s hiding her purchases from her husband. Perhaps we are reading into the “why” she’s hiding them - but generally, that is not a positive sign.
And from the description in the OP, she doesn’t say how cool the compartments are when the husband asks, she doesn’t admit to buying anything and takes it out later. (I haven’t seen the ad - another reason I’m glad I don’t watch much TV.)
What I find offensive about the ad is that it plays to stereotypes common in the '50s, which only survive in The Lockhorns or other instances of great art. This, the incompetent husband mentioned, or the women lining up to storm Mervyn’s when it opens insult the customers of these stores. What’s next, a howler about a guy who faints when forced to go into the delivery room for the birth of his kid?
Since when did companies think they can succeed by insulting their customers - well, since the beginning of TV advertising at least, actually. But at least Mad Ave is an equal opportunity insulter.
If Han and Luke crawled out of the compartments now - that would be cool.
People, I’m going to do something I’m not proud of. I’m going to reneg on a prior post. Its not about being ‘right’, its bout being ‘fair’, and its only fair that I fess up to having a bias on this issue.
I have a close relative who has a compulsive shopping disorder.
As a kid, she’d get the family car on the pretext of taking me someplace, and then she’d drag me straight to the Mall. I’d be left at little league game fields for hours after the game was over because she was shopping. She stole my Mom’s store credit card & got caught by store security, but that didn’t stop her. After she married, I figured she had handled it.
Wrong.
Ten years ago, the family all went out for dinner & her husband whipped out the plastic at the end. Knowing my wife & I couldn’t reciprocate at that time, I stopped by their room later with 2 c-notes to cover our share of the bill. She answered the door, she took the money, thanked me and I left. My B-I-L was distant to us for years later until it came out that he thought we’d stiffed him with the bill. When I told him I paid my sister cash the next day, he called her into the room. She came in, and when she heard the topic, she went white. Yes, she finally admitted that she’d taken the money. And she’d spent it going shopping for more clothes.
She has/had elaborate schemes for buying clothes and having lies to cover for them. She’d hide them for months in the back of closets and then tell her husband, “New? Why I’ve had this Forever…” :rolleyes It got so bad that he had to seperate all their assets and put money for the kids in trusts, so her creditors couldn’t touch it. He has certified letters on file with banks and credit card companies that she is not to be allowed a duplicate passbook, ATM card, or Credit card on his accounts. He gives her the money for the week in cash.
She was the first person I ever know who had to take Prozac. Had to. She taught me to look for things to be missing after her visits; she taught me not to leave money around. She taught me to look for lies in simple excuses, because there was always one there. I don’t know what to do or say about her…I know I can’t ‘save’ her. And I know bailing her out of debt does her no favors.
So Yes, I’m a little sensitive about one spouse hiding purchases from another. On some level, I can’t help but think, “Oh No…Its starting again…!”