I'm calling it. This year's Super Bowl will go down in history as the LAST when advertisers thought they could get away with anti-women, male-oriented ads.
Look, I know sports is still typically a "dude" thing. But the Super Bowl isn't just about sports. It's an event. For many families and friend groups, it's a time to gather, hang out and snack on chicken wings and nachos. That's why studies are now showing that 40 percent of Super Bowl viewers are women!
So when a company uses the millions of dollars they budgeted for the Super Bowl to create an ad aimed at men — specifically, men who want to feel macho and better than women — they are not reaching the majority of the audience. Forty percent of those viewers are going to feel personally annoyed/offended/left out of their advertising, and at least 20 percent are going to see through the anti-women tactics enough to decide they don't want to associate themselves with that ad.
So here's to 2011, the year when the cultural shift catches up with advertising. Honestly, making ads that don't piss off half the population is just good business sense.
And here are some of the ads that annoyed me most:
Dodge
Snickers
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
(Anything but a) Revolutionary Road
Did anyone else notice they changed the ending to Revolutionary Road?
True, it’s just a few small, subtle changes between the book and the film. But they mattered — to me, anyway. (SPOILER ALERT).
Why wasn’t there a telephone in the bathroom? When April Wheeler decides to orchestrate her own solution to her life — an abortion at a little over 12 weeks — the outcome is obvious to her. She knows she will lose a great deal of blood. She knows she will need an ambulance.
She knows she will probably die.
That’s why she makes a lovely breakfast, kisses her husband Frank goodbye, cleans the house and writes him a little note the morning before. She knows Frank will frantically search those final acts for an explanation (which, as far as she is concerned, he knew long ago). The least she can do is leave him without guilt and with the lovely, normal, moral home he’d wanted all those years.
That’s why she brings the telephone into the bathroom. In the book, it helps her plan go that much smoother.
But the movie? No, in the movie, she makes one last, desperate grab for life before succumbing to the steady drip of blood between her legs. She stands in front of that precious picture window and smiles in the sun, her face radiant with relief and hope. Only when the slow drip becomes a deep red stain on her carpet does she reach for the phone in the kitchen, whispering to the operator that she thinks (thinks!) she needs help.
April Wheeler would never, ever have allowed herself to bleed on the carpet, certainly not in front of the picture window, the focal point of the living room. Even as she escaped the rules of suburban life, she respected them. What else could she leave for her family but a clean home? And how best to avoid a mess but by bringing a telephone in to the bathroom before she’d even started.
They are two small details: where she put the phone and where she bled. Most likely, the changes are intended to create that moving, horrifying, incredibly powerful image of April soaked in blood standing at her picture window. The effect is immense; it is also wrong. Her blood should not hit us as a surprise. Rather, it should seem a natural, logical step in her plan to get the hell out. What else could there be?
April didn’t die by accident. She died by choice because she could not live by choice. In her final act, she tore off the victimhood forced upon her by her role as wife and mother, and as Frank says, she did it to herself. For the first time, she did something to, for and by herself.
Instead, Sam Mendes’ film tiptoes through her brazen departure, quietly gathering the threads of victimhood she left behind and fashioning them with soft, steady hands into a quaint, feminine shroud. For the millions of people who see this film, she will spend her death as she did her life — encased in someone else’s ideals.
True, it’s just a few small, subtle changes between the book and the film. But they mattered — to me, anyway. (SPOILER ALERT).
Why wasn’t there a telephone in the bathroom? When April Wheeler decides to orchestrate her own solution to her life — an abortion at a little over 12 weeks — the outcome is obvious to her. She knows she will lose a great deal of blood. She knows she will need an ambulance.
She knows she will probably die.
That’s why she makes a lovely breakfast, kisses her husband Frank goodbye, cleans the house and writes him a little note the morning before. She knows Frank will frantically search those final acts for an explanation (which, as far as she is concerned, he knew long ago). The least she can do is leave him without guilt and with the lovely, normal, moral home he’d wanted all those years.
That’s why she brings the telephone into the bathroom. In the book, it helps her plan go that much smoother.
But the movie? No, in the movie, she makes one last, desperate grab for life before succumbing to the steady drip of blood between her legs. She stands in front of that precious picture window and smiles in the sun, her face radiant with relief and hope. Only when the slow drip becomes a deep red stain on her carpet does she reach for the phone in the kitchen, whispering to the operator that she thinks (thinks!) she needs help.
April Wheeler would never, ever have allowed herself to bleed on the carpet, certainly not in front of the picture window, the focal point of the living room. Even as she escaped the rules of suburban life, she respected them. What else could she leave for her family but a clean home? And how best to avoid a mess but by bringing a telephone in to the bathroom before she’d even started.
They are two small details: where she put the phone and where she bled. Most likely, the changes are intended to create that moving, horrifying, incredibly powerful image of April soaked in blood standing at her picture window. The effect is immense; it is also wrong. Her blood should not hit us as a surprise. Rather, it should seem a natural, logical step in her plan to get the hell out. What else could there be?
April didn’t die by accident. She died by choice because she could not live by choice. In her final act, she tore off the victimhood forced upon her by her role as wife and mother, and as Frank says, she did it to herself. For the first time, she did something to, for and by herself.
Instead, Sam Mendes’ film tiptoes through her brazen departure, quietly gathering the threads of victimhood she left behind and fashioning them with soft, steady hands into a quaint, feminine shroud. For the millions of people who see this film, she will spend her death as she did her life — encased in someone else’s ideals.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Dance like a man, girl
Not gunna lie: I am a huge fan of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew.
See, dancing is really important to me. I’ve been dancing since I could move, so to see millions of people come together to support a deep love of mine is encouraging and exciting.
But the show frustrates me, too. I think this Huffington Post headline sums it up pretty well: Women Don't Fare So Well On America's Best Dance Crew. I mean, they're right: Of the Top Five crews, two included female dancers. Of the 12 dancers in the finals, 0 were women. Isn’t that statistically improbable?
It’s easy to say gender has nothing to do with it, that the groups were evaluated on their dancing alone. But that’s what sexism looks like today: subtle and complicated, easily ignored and pushed aside.
So what happened? Women couldn’t compete with the stunts, flips and muscles of all-male groups? Psh, ya right. An all-female group could absolutely match the acrobatics of an all-male crew. I’ve seen it. But that’s the beautiful thing about dancing: the movements, ideas and energies come from individual experiences. That’s why each group can bring something different to the floor. The style the group chooses is based on the backgrounds and identities of the group members.
But when two groups perform equally difficult routines, and the all-male group wins, what does it mean to be the “better” crew? It means they were more masculine in a world that places all things male at the top of its gender hierarchy. I fear that a group that adds “feminine” grace and fluidity to hop-hop is valued less than a group that adds “masculine” power and force.
But maybe we just can't get past the dancers’ bodies! We live in a world where people (especially men) are taught they are entitled to view and evaluate women’s bodies for attractiveness and sexual pleasure (Hillary Clinton, anyone?). When men dance, audiences watch their bodies as instruments engaged in creating art. When women dance, we watch their bodies as objects meant for our pleasure.
For their audition, Fysh ‘N’ Chicks, the only all-female group in the Top Five, wore baggy, grungy clothing to prove to the judges that their dancing was about the movements, not about evaluating their bodies. This concept is so novel, apparently, that it caused the only female judge in the competition to compliment the women for “dancing like men.” Reader, these women weren’t dancing like men. They were dancing like women who battle against the idea that their bodies are “for” someone else. Until women are no longer seen as sex objects, I wonder if an all-female group can win a competition based on performing with the body.
See, dancing is really important to me. I’ve been dancing since I could move, so to see millions of people come together to support a deep love of mine is encouraging and exciting.
But the show frustrates me, too. I think this Huffington Post headline sums it up pretty well: Women Don't Fare So Well On America's Best Dance Crew. I mean, they're right: Of the Top Five crews, two included female dancers. Of the 12 dancers in the finals, 0 were women. Isn’t that statistically improbable?
It’s easy to say gender has nothing to do with it, that the groups were evaluated on their dancing alone. But that’s what sexism looks like today: subtle and complicated, easily ignored and pushed aside.
So what happened? Women couldn’t compete with the stunts, flips and muscles of all-male groups? Psh, ya right. An all-female group could absolutely match the acrobatics of an all-male crew. I’ve seen it. But that’s the beautiful thing about dancing: the movements, ideas and energies come from individual experiences. That’s why each group can bring something different to the floor. The style the group chooses is based on the backgrounds and identities of the group members.
But when two groups perform equally difficult routines, and the all-male group wins, what does it mean to be the “better” crew? It means they were more masculine in a world that places all things male at the top of its gender hierarchy. I fear that a group that adds “feminine” grace and fluidity to hop-hop is valued less than a group that adds “masculine” power and force.
But maybe we just can't get past the dancers’ bodies! We live in a world where people (especially men) are taught they are entitled to view and evaluate women’s bodies for attractiveness and sexual pleasure (Hillary Clinton, anyone?). When men dance, audiences watch their bodies as instruments engaged in creating art. When women dance, we watch their bodies as objects meant for our pleasure.
For their audition, Fysh ‘N’ Chicks, the only all-female group in the Top Five, wore baggy, grungy clothing to prove to the judges that their dancing was about the movements, not about evaluating their bodies. This concept is so novel, apparently, that it caused the only female judge in the competition to compliment the women for “dancing like men.” Reader, these women weren’t dancing like men. They were dancing like women who battle against the idea that their bodies are “for” someone else. Until women are no longer seen as sex objects, I wonder if an all-female group can win a competition based on performing with the body.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Welcome
The Milky Way and the Baby Ruth balanced precariously, stubbornly on the edge of the vending machine shelf, just beyond the reach. One quick push and they would fall, it seemed. A little shake, and they would be within reach.
I’ve seen this before; everyone has. You pay a whole dollar for some crappy snack just to watch it stick in vending-machine limbo, leaving you a little poorer and a lot hungrier.
The last time my snack — a frosted cherry pop-tart — got stuck, I shook the vending machine to get it out. I know, I know, it’s dangerous, the machine might fall on you, I know. But I had to try.
First, I grabbed the machine and shook it. The pop-tart barely moved.
Then, I thrust my shoulder against the machine, over and over until my whole arm hurt. Again, nothing.
So I thought for a minute. I walked around to the side of the machine, bent my knees, and hit it with my hips. The machine wobbled and shook and, after just a few hits, my pop-tart fell down. I thought to myself, Hell ya! I am strong. I am powerful!
My boyfriend was mad.
“That’s a terrible idea!” he yelled as I told him of my accomplishment. His (all-male) friends chimed in with their own admonishments. “What if the machine had fallen on you! That was so stupid!” One of the guys even googled vending machine-related deaths and found that 13 people had died just in the last year.
They yelled back and forth to each other about my “dumb move” for a few minutes, as I silently walked into the kitchen to grab a beer. I wanted to yell back that they didn’t understand. I wasn’t strong enough to topple a vending machine with my arms. My center of gravity is lower than that, in my wide, strong hips. I hit the machine down low, near the bottom, where it’s more stable.
There was no chance that the machine would topple.
They couldn’t understand that.
But today, it wasn’t my cheap snack that was stuck. Sarah and Katie stared as the Milky Way and the Baby Ruth clung to the machine’s shelves, mocking them. Sara and Katie exchanged looks, smiled, and each hit the machine with her hips.
Three hits. That’s all it took. Three hits, and each woman got her candy bar.
They didn’t waste time complaining. They didn’t worry the machine would fall on them. They believed, as I did, in the power of their hips.
After they left, I scoured the bottom of my bag for 75-cents. I dropped each coin into the vending machine, carefully pressed the ‘7’ and the ‘3’ button, and watched as the coils turned. My Milky Way bar moved forward along the shelf.
Then it stopped. My candy bar was stuck.
I was alone in the lounge now. In celebration of Sarah, Katie and the countless women who have gone before me — battling patriarchy with an open heart, strong hips and a stronger will — I rocked my hips into the machine: once, twice, three times.
My candy bar fell.
As I took that first bite of soft, delicious chocolate and caramel, I walked to my computer and started to write this story. With this story came the idea for a blog. Welcome to “The Way Women Do Things,” a blog chronicling every time I am told I do something weird, different, strange or wrong only because I don’t do it like a man.
Oh, and, I only ate half of that candy bar. The rest? The rest is for you. My chocolate reward for using the power and skills I have as a woman (and the blog that spurred from it) are for all people who are told they do it ‘wrong’ only because they do it differently.
I’ve seen this before; everyone has. You pay a whole dollar for some crappy snack just to watch it stick in vending-machine limbo, leaving you a little poorer and a lot hungrier.
The last time my snack — a frosted cherry pop-tart — got stuck, I shook the vending machine to get it out. I know, I know, it’s dangerous, the machine might fall on you, I know. But I had to try.
First, I grabbed the machine and shook it. The pop-tart barely moved.
Then, I thrust my shoulder against the machine, over and over until my whole arm hurt. Again, nothing.
So I thought for a minute. I walked around to the side of the machine, bent my knees, and hit it with my hips. The machine wobbled and shook and, after just a few hits, my pop-tart fell down. I thought to myself, Hell ya! I am strong. I am powerful!
My boyfriend was mad.
“That’s a terrible idea!” he yelled as I told him of my accomplishment. His (all-male) friends chimed in with their own admonishments. “What if the machine had fallen on you! That was so stupid!” One of the guys even googled vending machine-related deaths and found that 13 people had died just in the last year.
They yelled back and forth to each other about my “dumb move” for a few minutes, as I silently walked into the kitchen to grab a beer. I wanted to yell back that they didn’t understand. I wasn’t strong enough to topple a vending machine with my arms. My center of gravity is lower than that, in my wide, strong hips. I hit the machine down low, near the bottom, where it’s more stable.
There was no chance that the machine would topple.
They couldn’t understand that.
But today, it wasn’t my cheap snack that was stuck. Sarah and Katie stared as the Milky Way and the Baby Ruth clung to the machine’s shelves, mocking them. Sara and Katie exchanged looks, smiled, and each hit the machine with her hips.
Three hits. That’s all it took. Three hits, and each woman got her candy bar.
They didn’t waste time complaining. They didn’t worry the machine would fall on them. They believed, as I did, in the power of their hips.
After they left, I scoured the bottom of my bag for 75-cents. I dropped each coin into the vending machine, carefully pressed the ‘7’ and the ‘3’ button, and watched as the coils turned. My Milky Way bar moved forward along the shelf.
Then it stopped. My candy bar was stuck.
I was alone in the lounge now. In celebration of Sarah, Katie and the countless women who have gone before me — battling patriarchy with an open heart, strong hips and a stronger will — I rocked my hips into the machine: once, twice, three times.
My candy bar fell.
As I took that first bite of soft, delicious chocolate and caramel, I walked to my computer and started to write this story. With this story came the idea for a blog. Welcome to “The Way Women Do Things,” a blog chronicling every time I am told I do something weird, different, strange or wrong only because I don’t do it like a man.
Oh, and, I only ate half of that candy bar. The rest? The rest is for you. My chocolate reward for using the power and skills I have as a woman (and the blog that spurred from it) are for all people who are told they do it ‘wrong’ only because they do it differently.
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