I just feel bad for the starry-eyed actresses/models in the ad – yearning for a career in TV/film, having to settle for a commercial like this. If I were one of them, I’d fire my agent, pronto.
The Media Education Foundation is one of my favorite organizations: they produce and distribute “documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical reflection on the social, political, and cultural impact of American mass media.”
Generation M, a documentary about misogyny in media and culture, touches a lot of my film’s themes.
Check out the film’s trailer on the official Generation M page at MEF. Highly highly recommended.
Before you go any further, please just stop for a second and contemplate the fact that these ads, like any ads, were produced after a series of meetings in between the ad agency and the client. These ads passed the normal stages of strategic planning (what to do), creative development (how to do it), production (casting call, photo/film shoot, editing), media planning (where to show the ads: street billboards, TV shows, magazines, newspapers, online), media buying (purchasing billboard space / TV commercial slots / pages in magazines). These ads didn’t simply come out of the blue. Everything was deliberate and at no stage did anyone raise an objection strong enough to stop the ads. Because sexism and objectification are fun, right? Had the ads discriminated against a racial minority, with racist stereotypes, the people at the ad agency would have likely been crucified. But women are a whole other target. Misogyny is so deeply ingrained in our culture that some of the most prestigious car manufacturers can get away with this:
Mercedes Benz… and you thought it was a classy brand. Think again.
And another class act by BMW – an underage girl in an overtly sexual pose, mouth open, sultry look, and the ad copy: “You know you’re not the first.” Bravo BMW!
BMW – “The Ultimate Attraction”:
Nissan:
(hilarious, right?)
WARNING: EXPLICIT AD ahead (sort of)
N.B. This ad is actually for an optometrist (it asks, “Do you need glasses”). But it still belongs to the Hall of Fame of offensive ads for so many reasons…
As for advertisements that portray men as bumbling idiots AND sexual objects? They simply do not exist. I dare you find an example…
“The Nikon S60. Detects up to 12 faces.”
The campaign was produced by the ad agency Euro RSCG/Singapore.
As I write this, my cheeks are mildly blushing, as I feel a tinge of embarrassment about this realization. That is, despite the fact that I’ve been acutely aware of all of the optical trickeries that go into photography, film, and TV, I somehow never thought much of shampoo commercials. Until I discovered a “vintage” L’Oreal ad from 1990, starring Monica Bellucci.
But let’s take a step back. First, watch this contemporary commercial for Pantene shampoo:
Standard fare, right? Nothing stands out particularly.
Then watch the aforementioned commercial for L’Oreal shampoo, from 1990:
Notice something different?
The first thought that came to mind, for me, was how messy Monica Bellucci’s hair was. I could see actual strands of hair standing out from her head:
So, thinking about commercials of the mid- and late-2000s, I wonder: how much CGI / digital post-production work goes into the appearance of the models’ hair? Watch again the Pantene commercial above. Doesn’t it look completely fake by comparison? After all, Monica Bellucci’s hair looks thoroughly natural. And yet, we are so conditioned to see idealized, computer-generated hair in contemporary shampoo commercials, that real hair is put to shame.
Commercials for shampoos are no different than commercials for anti-wrinkle creams. They are thoroughly manipulated and idealized. What’s wrong with natural looking hair? Why do we always have to aspire to an ideal that does not exist in nature?
In January 2003, the Financial Times published an article by Tobias Jones about the state of Italian television. Jones, a British writer married to an Italian woman and living in Parma, documented his reactions to Italian TV shows in a way that was refreshing and throurougly enjoyable. Enjoyable for anyone who is NOT Italian. Because the picture he painted was clearly depressing:
The following evening, about 7pm, I flick to Channel 5 again. This is the prime-time quiz show, Passaparola. To understand this kind of show, there are more key words to learn. Letterine “the little letters”, Veline “quick news flash”, schedine “the little statistics”: all are diminutive “me” descriptions of the bikini-clad women who start dancing erotically at random intervals. Passaparola is a quiz show based on the alphabet, hence the “little letters”. As I’m watching, Gerry Scotti – the anodyne host – is flirting with one of them and winking at the 8m viewers. Italy, don’t be in any doubt, is the land that feminism forgot.
A clip from Striscia la Notizia – one of the most watched TV programs in Italy (satirical news on primetime TV, on weekdays). These are the “Veline” Tobias Jones talks about:
Passaparola & the Letterine:
From Buona Domenica – Italy’s most watched Sunday afternoon program:
(The male tv presenter jokingly says the two women should keep doing this “until one of them dies”)
The article made a big impression on me back then. As an Italian, who has studied mass communication and film in the United States, who has lived abroad for many years, an activist and a feminist, this subject was very close to me. While in college, every time I went to Italy to visit my parents, I was positively shocked by the representation of women in mass media. Especially when making a comparison with the U.S. or the U.K. I would protest, and tell friends and relatives that I found this overt objectification of women offensive. My blood would literally boil at the sight of young women, about the same age as me, dancing around in bikinis and smiling to creepy 60-something anchormen. Yet all my Italian friends and relatives were relatively non-plussed by this. They found it normal. And it is still the same now, years later. If anything, the number of women scantly clad, offering their bodies for visual consumption has multiplied. Now they are everywhere.
The Financial Times doesn’t carry the article anymore, but I found a blog that reproduced it in its entirety. You can read it at this link.
What fascinated me the most, re-reading it just yesterday, was media consolidation. Because we have all heard the arguments that sex sells and men love looking at pretty women. But very few people go below the surface, to discuss the system that permits this.
It often seems that, in Italy, there aren’t advertisement breaks; there are short programme breaks. Fifty seven per cent of all Italian advertising budgets is spent on television (compared with 23 per cent in Germany, and 33.5 per cent in the UK). Even RAI, the state-owned television network – to whom I pay an annual licence fee of euro 97 – runs adverts. All of which means that audience chasing is crucial, and programmes are designed for quantity not quality. “It’s become a kind of psychological dictatorship”, says Gad Lerner, the most intelligent anchorman on Italian TV. “The figures from Auditel (which measures audience share) scare people into only producing these vulgar, crowd pulling programmes.” Berlusconi, of course, owns Publitalia, the company responsible for selling 60 per cent of advertising space on Italian television. Within a few days of starting my TV induction I can feel my brain turning to custard.
I had forgotten about this fact. Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, in addition to owning a media empire made up of 50% of the main TV channels, Mondadori – the largest Italian publishing house, countless magazines, newspapers, home video distribution firms, film production houses, a soccer club and insurance companies, also owns the “company responsible for selling 60 percent of advertising space on Italian television.”
When writing “Citizen Kane” Orson Welles would have thought this was too much for his character. And yet it is possible in Italy (watch Sabina Guzzanti’s awesome documentary ‘Viva Zapatero’ if you are insterested in the subject)
When having discussions with friends, I often compare Italy to Russia – it definitely feels like a media dictatorship. And, when asked where I’m originally from, I would jokingly reply “the Banana Republic” – because it feels so surreal. Women have a really hard time being taken seriously. My “golden ticket” is my international background: the fact I have lived for so long abroad and speak English and French fluently. So, my competence is not questioned when I am in Italy. But scores and scores of Italian women, who live and work there, have a difficult time in the corporate world. A few stats, culled from another article (“Naked Ambition”)
“In the largest Italian companies, women represent about two per cent of board directors.”
“In 1976, she says, 11 per cent of members of parliament were women, the same as today.”
Italian women need to break into the boys’ club – in academia, politics, the corporate world, and in mass media. But first they need to be aware of Italy’s pervasive mysoginy. And most of them aren’t.
Read “My Italian TV Hell” here.
Read “Naked Ambition” here.
According to this story on NPR, Mattel recently opened a six-story Barbie flagship store in Shanghai, China, called “House of Barbie”. In addition to building custom-made Barbie dolls, customers can also get beauty treatments like facials, and indulge in Barbie-inspired cocktail drinks with clever names such as Barbietini, Glamourpolitan, and Pink-Me-Up. (Older customers, one hopes).
Barbie is known for being yellow-haired and blue-eyed, and thus, unless you have severe myopia, she looks antithetical to every woman born in the world’s highest populated country (1.3 billion strong). So Mattel wisely created a special Barbie for the occasion, with “pan-Asian likeness.” (Never mind that 99% of the dolls and artwork in the store show the classic blonde Barbie look). We don’t care. We wanna shooooop!
Now, I truly hope there has been a mistake and this is not the close-up of the so-called “Pan Asian Barbie”:
Because her eyes don’t look the least bit Chinese. Well, unless Mattel was sneakily suggesting that Chinese women should get eyelid surgery to “open up” their eyes and look more like Caucasian women. But nooooooooo. That couldn’t be! You can just imagine Barbie saying, “Little Chinese girl: you look nothing like me! How come?”
At any rate, NPR reports:
The lure of the China market was one reason that Mattel chose Shanghai for its first House of Barbie. It’s aggressively pursuing developing markets, such as Eastern Europe, Russia and India, which aren’t already Barbie-saturated. But when deciding where to place the House of Barbie, Shanghai beat other contenders — including London, Paris, Milan, New York and Los Angeles — because of its strong cross-generation reaction to the doll and the brand.
“There was an amazing connection to Barbie’s values,”
What? Shopping? The love for the color pink? The pursuit of a size 00 with D cup breasts?
Dickson said. “Barbie in this culture represented a world of possibilities for girls and for women. She’s had amazing careers, she has the cars, she has the plane, she has the boyfriend — and she looks fantastic doing it.”
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Ok, ok. I understand. You need to work your butt off trying to become a president, an astronaut or a doctor, but you better look perfect doing it! Otherwise something’s missing.
As it is illustrated in this old Barbie ad:
Perfectionism (looks, career, personal life) = most potent weapon used against girls & women, as it sets them up for a life of dissatisfaction and craving.
Chinese girls – now, you can do it too! BDD and all! Yay!
Now, for the mommies out there, I highly recommend reading this report by Girls Inc., called the “Supergirl Dilemma.”
Girls say they are under a great deal of stress today. Three-quarters (74%) of girls in grades 9-12, over half of girls (56%) in grades 6-8, and just under half of girls (46%) in grades 3-5 say they often feel stressed (describes them “somewhat” or “a lot”).
There is an interesting article by the amazing Claire Mysko on the subject: “How to Help Girls Resist the Pressure to be “Supergirls”
When girls get caught up in the quest to be “supergirls,” they are less likely to feel confident in themselves and celebrate what truly makes them amazing. As adults who care about girls, it’s up to us to help girls confront the pressure they feel to be perfect.
Take that, Mattel.
Watch this video by the wonderful organization Girls Inc.
I know I have already written about it, but it is so wonderful that it really deserves multiple viewings.
What do you do when the home economy is in a slump and sales are stagnating? But of course, expand to foreign markets! New emerging markets = untapped resources.
And so, here we are: Middle Eastern and Chinese women are the next targets of the beauty myth, as beauty companies introduce them to new products, making them understand the capital importance of fighting against – gasp! – evil wrinkles and having glossy hair.
Middle East: “A skincare revolution is launched in Arabia…welcome Pond’s Age Miracle”
Most vicious thing about it all: the deception – and the fact a Dubai dermatologist would lie through his teeth. Wonder how much he was paid by Pond’s.
China: “Leo Burnett Elevates Vidal Sassoon in China”
Most vicious thing about it all: if the images below are taken from the actual ads, the biggest problem is that not a single model is Chinese. They all look pretty Caucasian to me. And all the chatter about self-empowering women. You are trying to sell shampoo!