{"id":62213,"date":"2014-04-05T09:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-04-05T14:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=62213"},"modified":"2017-09-17T16:39:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T21:39:35","slug":"an-optimistic-read-of-the-sexist-snickers-ad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/04\/05\/an-optimistic-read-of-the-sexist-snickers-ad\/","title":{"rendered":"An Optimistic Read of the Sexist Snickers Ad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Advertisements echo with many reverberations and overtones. Different people hear different things, and with all the multiple meanings, it\u2019s not always clear which is most important.<\/p>\n

This week Lisa Wade posted<\/a>\u00a0this Snickers ad from Australia. Its intended message of course is \u201cBuy Snickers.\u201d But its other message is more controversial, and Lisa and many of the commenters (more than 100 at last count) were understandably upset.<\/p>\n

[youtube]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MqgjTZQiySw[\/youtube]<\/p>\n

The construction workers (played by actors) shout at the women in the street (not actors). \u201cHey,\u201d yells a builder, and the woman looks up defensively. But then instead of the usual sexist catcalls, the men shout things like,<\/p>\n

I appreciate your appearance is just one aspect of who you are.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And<\/p>\n

You know what I\u2019d like to see? A society in which the objectification of women makes way for gender neutral interaction free from assumptions and expectations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The women\u2019s defensiveness softens.\u00a0 They look back at the men. One woman, the surprise and delight evident in her smile, mouths, \u201cThank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, as the ad warned us at the very beginning, these men are \u201cnot themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"1<\/a><\/p>\n

Hunger has transformed them. The ad repeats the same idea at the end.<\/p>\n

\"1<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Lisa\u2019s conclusion:<\/p>\n

The twist ending is a genuine \u201cfuck you\u201d to the actual women who happened to walk by and become a part of the commercial… I bet seeing the commercial would feel like a betrayal. These women were (likely) given the impression that it was about respecting women, but instead it was about making fun of the idea that women deserve respect.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suspect that Lisa too feels betrayed.\u00a0 She has bought her last Snickers bar.<\/p>\n

My take is more optimistic.<\/p>\n

In an earlier generation, this ad would have been impossible. The catcalls of construction workers were something taken for granted and not questioned, almost as though they were an unchangeable part of nature.* They might be unpleasant, but so is what a bear does in the woods.<\/p>\n

This ad recognizes that those attitudes and behaviors are a conscious choice and that all men, including builders, can choose a more evolved way of thinking and acting.\u00a0 The ad further shows, that when they do make that choice, women are genuinely appreciative. \u201cC\u2019mon mates,\u201d the ad is saying, \u201cdo you want a woman to turn away and quickly walk on, telling you in effect to fuck off? Or would you rather say something that makes her smile back at you?\u201d\u00a0 The choice is yours.<\/p>\n

The surface meaning of the ad\u2019s ending is , \u201cApril Fools. We\u2019re just kidding about not being sexists.\u201d But that’s a small matter. Not so far beneath that surface progressive ideas are having the last laugh, for more important than what the end of the ad\u00a0says<\/i>\u00a0is what the rest of the ad\u00a0shows<\/i>\u00a0— that ignorant and offensive sexism is a choice, and that real women respond positively to men who choose its opposite.<\/p>\n

* Several of the comments at Sociological Images complained that the ad was \u201cclassist\u201d for its reliance on this old working-class stereotype.<\/p>\n

Cross-posted at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Jay Livingston is the chair of the Sociology Department at Montclair State University<\/a>. You can follow him at Montclair SocioBlog<\/a> or on Twitter<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Advertisements echo with many reverberations and overtones. Different people hear different things, and with all the multiple meanings, it\u2019s not always clear which is most important. This week Lisa Wade posted\u00a0this Snickers ad from Australia. Its intended message of course is \u201cBuy Snickers.\u201d But its other message is more controversial, and Lisa and many of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":62130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,23642,55,2095,2102,2087,2098,253,778,1765,283],"class_list":["post-62213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-class-prejudicediscrimination","tag-gender","tag-gender-feminismactivism","tag-gender-history","tag-gender-masculinity","tag-gender-prejudicediscrimination","tag-history","tag-intersectionality","tag-nation-australia","tag-prejudicediscrimination"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/03\/4.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62213"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71652,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62213\/revisions\/71652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}