Archive: Dec 2009

About a year ago, Gwen posted about the evolution of the Sun-Maid, the young spokeswoman for Sun-Maid raisins:

In her post, she asked: “I wonder if Sun-Maid has stayed with the de-sexualized icon because raisins are associated with children?”

Well, Gwen, I’m afraid you spoke too soon.  Here, via Jezebel, is the new Sun Maid:

Noticably slimmer and with more form-fitting clothes, this new Sun Maid is clearly not hyper-sexualized, but it’s a move in that direction.

Here’s a commercial in which, building on her increasing sexualization and objectification, she turns into a Hollywood celebrity for a sec:

I think–considering also the recent makeovers of Dora the Explorer, Holly Hobbie, and Strawberry Shortcake–we can officially call this a trend.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In previous posts on Gossip Girl promotions and the New Beverly Hills 90210, we’ve argued that daily life is becoming increasingly pornified.  That is, features of the genre of pornography are being mainstreamed and porn is now, more than ever in modern history, everywhere.

I couldn’t help but this of this concept of pornification when I investigated the Burger King Shower Cam website, sent in by Catrina C.

Text:  “Watch our shower babe shake her bits to the hits every morning.”

Um, yeah, so everyday you can go to the website and watch a girl in a bikini sing a song in the shower (don’t miss the burger boobs).  You can also vote on the song and bikini for the next day, as well as enter into a contest for a date with the girl.  If you don’t win the date, you may still be a lucky runner up and win Burger King “proper man toiletries”:

Yep, Burger King hygiene products.

Word on the street is that the products are a joke; they actually smell like meat.

Has Axe been so successful in using misogyny to pitch its products that Burger King feels that it must sell toiletries to fully get on the pornification bandwagon?  I just don’t know.

In any case, as A Sarah points out at the Shapely Prose, this is insulting to women and men both.  Apparently Burger King presumes men are stupid or shallow enough to be impressed by BKs facilitation of bit-shaking and, therefore, that the campaign will actually translate into a desire to consume their product (as opposed to a desire to avoid it).

The fact that it’s supposed to be funny doesn’t make it better, it makes it worse.  Because, really, this is the kind of humor they think men respond to?  “Hahaha.  She’s wearing a bikini and it looks like there are fried eggs on her boobs!  Hahaha!”  “Hahaha!  I smell like meat!”  Dudes, Burger King thinks you’re stupid.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

V. and Anna G. sent in this ad for a LOLCats T-shirt.  Notice that the woman’s t-shirt is for women only, but the man’s t-shirt also doubles as a unisex shirt.

Both Emily W. and Sabine M. sent in this example of the same phenomenon at Mental Floss:

Mindy J. sent us a third example from Secret Society of Vegans:

From Johanna G:

Finally, Jessica S. sent in this example from Kung Fu Nation:

This is just another example of the phenomenon of how we take one half of a (false) binary (such as man vs. woman) and make one generic and the other specific.   Men can be human, but women are always female humans; white people can be just people, but non-white people are always other; Christian symbols are for everyone, but non-Christian symbols are exclusive; and so on and so on.

For more examples, see these posts on how racial and ethnic identity adds spice, Sotomayor’s racial bias, male neutrality in stick figures (here and here), male-default avatars, flesh-colored products, for normal to darker skin, Michelle Obama’s “flesh-colored” gown.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

At Weird Universe.

In an attempt to further muddy some conceptual waters, I present you this Finnish music video:

Shava are probably the only representatives so far of the genre of Suomibhangra, a Finnish take on the South Asian diaspora dance genre, bhangra. One one level there’s a lot to be critical of here, perhaps – the wilful exoticism, the fake Indian dancers, the almost-brownface of someone like the “Finnjabi bad boy” in the video.

On the other hand, though, which I think is perhaps more interesting, there’s the reaction in the bhangra community. I actually found the track on a bhangra blog, it’s been reposted and become popular on a bhangra youtube channel where it’s generated positive comments, the band has toured to desi audiences in Canada and it’s played on several bhangra radio stations… The bhangra community is not offended at all, they rather like it. (For as they say: Imitation is…)

So who’s right? Us radical critics or the people we think we’re defending? Perhaps it’s worth thinking about.

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Johan Palmeis a musicology student in Stokholm, Sweden.  He blogs about music and other stuff at Birdseed’s Tunedown.

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Rachel U. sent us a 1968 American Airlines ad (larger available at Modern Mechanix):

The text:

She only wants what’s best for you.
A cool drink. A good dinner. A soft pillow and a warm blanket.
This is not just maternal instinct. It’s the result of the longest
Stewardess training in the industry.
Training in service, not just a beauty course.
Service, after all, is what makes professional travellers prefer American.
And makes new travellers want to keep on flying with us.
So we see that every passenger gets the same professional treatment.
That’s the American Way.

Rachel says,

Before I read the headline of the ad, my brain registered the woman as a typical “sexy stewardess” image that seems to be standard industry fare when air travel started booming:  knees bent up toward the face, one hand touching her face…extremely focused gaze that seems a bit “come hither.”

Of course, that’s what the pose is. It’s just that being sexually attractive doesn’t mean women weren’t also supposed to also take on a caretaking role. It’s one way we’ve constructed femininity over the years: women were supposed to be nurturing and supportive in a “maternal” way, while also sexually alluring enough to keep their men from wandering (because if he wandered, it was definitely their fault for not keeping him happy at home).

Notice also the implicit denigration of stewardesses in general: at American Airlines they get real training, “not just a beauty course.” At first reading that could seem as though they were saying they emphasize skill, not physical attractiveness, but the image makes it clear you can look forward to getting both.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Duplo blocks are made by the Lego company.  They are like legos, but bigger and chunkier (less swallowable).  Like this:

Amanda R. captured this screenshot on the Duplo website:

Apparently, if you’re going to buy Duplos for some little kid, the very most important first piece of most vital information you will ever need before you ever ask anything else is whether or not the kid has a penis or a vagina.

Meanwhile, Elisabeth R. found exactly the same thing at the Toys R Us website:

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Alongside a New York Times article about the distribution of food stamps was a set of county-by-county maps showing the percentage of different kinds of citizens on food stamps. What struck me was the difference between the “all recipients” map and the “children” map.

Darker blue = a higher percentage on food stamps:

All recipients:

Children only:

As you can see, the number of children on food stamps greatly outweighs the number of people on food stamps almost everywhere in the country. So, next time you think about the poor, remember how many of them are kids.

Via Gin and Tacos.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.