One of my students took a picture of this outfit at the mall–I believe she said it’s for sale at Spencer’s. For the sexy Catholic (?) school-dog of your dreams!
Thanks, Blanca M.!
Archive: 2008
I found these two Miller Lite ads in QVegas, a magazine aimed at the GLBT community.
It would be interesting to pair with these ads for Skyy vodka to illustrate how companies make different ads to target different audiences. If you find an ad offensive or dumb, it’s not necessarily an ineffective ad, it’s that you probably aren’t the target consumer and it’s not supposed to appeal to you.
NEW! Philip D. sent in a link to a post by Sister Toldja at Me, Myself An Eye about slightly different versions of ads for Crown Royal. This one is presumably aimed at a general audience:
Text: “Have you ever seen a grown man cry?”
Sister Toldja suspects that this one is targeted more specifically at African Americans:
Text: “Oh, hell no.”
Now, just to be clear, I’m not arguing these are racist ads. I just think they would provide a good example to start students thinking about the fact that a) advertisers actively market to various groups by trying to appeal to them in specific ways that may differ from an ad made for a “mainstream” or “general” audience (i.e., one that would presumably appeal to just about everybody) and b) they do this by playing on stereotypes or cultural assumptions about what different groups like (or are like). What separates these two ads into “mainstream” and “Black” ones? Simply the presence of a phrase that many people associate with African Americans (although I have to admit I mostly associate it with one of my male cousins more than anyone else). You might start with this example, which is fairly innocuous, I think, and then start asking students to think about other ways advertisers might indicate who an ad is supposed to appeal to (men or women, gay or straight, or more broadly to “everyone”). When do these efforts become problematic?
The first time I saw this, I was suspicious that it might be a hoax. But it turns out it’s real (at least Snopes says so).
Thanks, Orla H.!
It seems the food-and-sex-themed images just won’t stop coming! In these astroglide ads, women (and men?) are nothing but a slick, tasty slit and hole (found here):
And Andrew sent these Puma ads (found here) (look closely):
NEW (Feb. ’10)! Софи А. sent along a similar ad campaign:
Also in sexualized food: mustard and ketchup are sexy, do you desire white meat?, hot dog!, and a whole slew of examples.
Here’s a strange Australian ad for U, a feminine hygiene product. It shows women hanging out with beavers…the animal type, of course. Men look on approvingly, so I guess the message is if you take appropriate care of your girly bits, men will like you.
Here’s the website.
Might be good for a discussion of hygiene and women’s bodies or the history of feminine hygiene products and the way we think about menstruation.
Thanks, Patrick C.!
In response to Condoleeza Rice’s comments that contemporary racial relations reflect an American “birth defect,” Lou Dobbs offered a dismissive monologue in which he tried to deny that there is really any problem to talk about. In a truly beautiful moment of irony, he accidentally lets slip a good part of the slur “cotton-pickin’” in reference to Black leaders.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y0W19-N3Ik[/youtube]
* Title stole from Jessica’s post over at feministing.
Also awesomely ironic: Dr. Watson is more black than most.
This is a tough one, but there is something about this image advertising the Metropolitan Museum of Art that just screams privilege. Is it the perfect blonde hair? The perfect white teeth? The neat upper-class masculinity? The turtleneck? I can’t quite put my finger on it!
Thanks Jason!
I found these two Miller Lite ads in QVegas, a magazine aimed at the GLBT community.
It would be interesting to pair with these ads for Skyy vodka to illustrate how companies make different ads to target different audiences. If you find an ad offensive or dumb, it’s not necessarily an ineffective ad, it’s that you probably aren’t the target consumer and it’s not supposed to appeal to you.
NEW! Philip D. sent in a link to a post by Sister Toldja at Me, Myself An Eye about slightly different versions of ads for Crown Royal. This one is presumably aimed at a general audience:
Text: “Have you ever seen a grown man cry?”
Sister Toldja suspects that this one is targeted more specifically at African Americans:
Text: “Oh, hell no.”
Now, just to be clear, I’m not arguing these are racist ads. I just think they would provide a good example to start students thinking about the fact that a) advertisers actively market to various groups by trying to appeal to them in specific ways that may differ from an ad made for a “mainstream” or “general” audience (i.e., one that would presumably appeal to just about everybody) and b) they do this by playing on stereotypes or cultural assumptions about what different groups like (or are like). What separates these two ads into “mainstream” and “Black” ones? Simply the presence of a phrase that many people associate with African Americans (although I have to admit I mostly associate it with one of my male cousins more than anyone else). You might start with this example, which is fairly innocuous, I think, and then start asking students to think about other ways advertisers might indicate who an ad is supposed to appeal to (men or women, gay or straight, or more broadly to “everyone”). When do these efforts become problematic?
The first time I saw this, I was suspicious that it might be a hoax. But it turns out it’s real (at least Snopes says so).
Thanks, Orla H.!
It seems the food-and-sex-themed images just won’t stop coming! In these astroglide ads, women (and men?) are nothing but a slick, tasty slit and hole (found here):
And Andrew sent these Puma ads (found here) (look closely):
NEW (Feb. ’10)! Софи А. sent along a similar ad campaign:
Also in sexualized food: mustard and ketchup are sexy, do you desire white meat?, hot dog!, and a whole slew of examples.
Here’s a strange Australian ad for U, a feminine hygiene product. It shows women hanging out with beavers…the animal type, of course. Men look on approvingly, so I guess the message is if you take appropriate care of your girly bits, men will like you.
Here’s the website.
Might be good for a discussion of hygiene and women’s bodies or the history of feminine hygiene products and the way we think about menstruation.
Thanks, Patrick C.!
In response to Condoleeza Rice’s comments that contemporary racial relations reflect an American “birth defect,” Lou Dobbs offered a dismissive monologue in which he tried to deny that there is really any problem to talk about. In a truly beautiful moment of irony, he accidentally lets slip a good part of the slur “cotton-pickin’” in reference to Black leaders.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y0W19-N3Ik[/youtube]
* Title stole from Jessica’s post over at feministing.
Also awesomely ironic: Dr. Watson is more black than most.
This is a tough one, but there is something about this image advertising the Metropolitan Museum of Art that just screams privilege. Is it the perfect blonde hair? The perfect white teeth? The neat upper-class masculinity? The turtleneck? I can’t quite put my finger on it!
Thanks Jason!