There’s also a commercial (can’t remember what its for) where the punchline is a guy is out in the country hears the banjo music ala Deliverance and runs away, scared of being raped.
Try making a commerical where the joke is that a woman might get raped…
This reminded me of something not really related but sort of tangentally interesting…
In Tucson, at least when I was there, the laws about topless dancers not touching customers were pretty strictly enforced. You may get the occassional woman touching a knee or a shoulder, but for the most part it was hands-off. If the guy touched you, he was warned by management.
At the male strip club*, however, the dancers were all over the customers. I had a guy dancing for me once who was totally rubbing his crotch all over my chest, and one who grabbed my hands and ran them down his chest. I had guys nibble on my neck while dancing for me.
Ok… so in a bizarre reversal of the expected:
girls touching strange men = illegal and enforced
guys touching strange women = normal and accepted [and most of the women loved it]
?!
*the dancers from their club would often come to ours, and we would often go to theirs. Free dances! woohoo!
This may shock some of you. Commercials that put men in positions of power… pander to males. And these commercials you all are complaining about, like the one in the OP, that puts women in positions of power… pander to males.
:eek:
The guy getting frisked in the OP isn’t getting abused, he’s getting titillated. That may not do it for you personally, but then again you may not be partial to the big-titted women in the beer commercials, either.
Let’s not forget about how this commercial makes women look like lusty whores who want to do nothing but fuck every well-groomed man in the general vicinity.
'Cause yeah, that’s what I do.
NOW I get offers like this…where were you before I got married?
Probably still in grade school
GingerOfTheNorth
So every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man, then?
[sub]Clean shirt, new shoes, cufflinks, stickpin, silk suit, black tie… There. That’s the shopping list for the week.[/sub]
I understand where you’re coming from, but I disagree. The commercial displayed one woman, not “women”. Therefore, it’s difficult for me to believe that it makes “women” look like anything at all.
I agree with the OP. These sort of commercials really offend me and do contribute to a double standard. If their intention is to titilate male viewers, then based on the responses I’m seeing in this thread, they’re not working.
If the cop was a man forcing himself on an unwilling female, or the person in the Axe commercial was a bookish young woman being ravished by every man who stepped into the elevator, the ad companies in question would be getting sued right now. That we, as a society, permit this sort of bullshit mentality find a voice in the media really pisses me off.
One standard, please. We, as a race, have enough trouble without muddying the waters with several standards.
(Goddammit I hate advertising)
I hate advertising. I hate the way they bastardize good songs for their base purposes. I hate the way they insult my intelligence for making the mistake of watching television. I hate the way they obviously pander to the lowest common denominator. I hate the way people like me have absolutely no representation in the demographics that commercials are aimed at. I hate car ads. I hate beer ads. I hate these obvious and insulting double standard ads (btw, I agree totally with the OP). I hate the idiot man-child ads. I hate the female stereotypes in ads. I hate the smart-ass children in ads. I don’t make choices about what I purchase based on advertising, except to avoid buying products from ads that I hate. I am the exception, not the rule in North American society. Heavy sigh.
I’ve heard this argument and I’ve seen the commercial and I don’t buy it. The joke isn’t about men potentially getting raped. That wouldn’t be funny. The joke is that it’s a parody of the movie Deliverance. Now, granted, in that movie men do happen to get raped but that’s really not the issue here.
To reverse the genders as you suggest, imagine this:
A woman in the shower. The water’s running and she’s washing herself. Suddenly she hears ths door open and the theme to Psycho starts belting out. Shadows lurk behind the curtain. She reaches out to pull the curtain back and suddenly she screams.
“Timmy, you scared me!”
“Mommy, will you read me a bedtime story,” asks her 4 year old son.
The ad could be for a locksmithing company and they’re running a special on sturdier locks for the bathroom doors so you can be at peace in the shower.
So there’s your gender reversal right there. The ad could be glorifying the brutal murder of an innocent and helpless female. I’d just look at it as a spoof on Psycho. Which do you see?
Well, on the one hand, this ad does represent a blatantly unfair double standard in the way men are protrayed in the mass media.
On the other hand, we still own everything.
Sorry, I’m not really feeling the outrage, here. Come back when you’re pissed about something that actually matters.
Oh man, that’s a sig line waiting to happen.