Category — *Advertisements

I enjoy most M&M commercials. They’re often cute and clever and nothing says fun like anthropomorphized chocolate candies. But lately, I’ve become annoyed at the very obvious differences between Green, the only female-gendered M&M (to my knowledge), and, say, Yellow or Red.

Yellow and Red are often shown chumming around. Yellow’s rather oafish and a bit slow. Red’s snarky and sarcastic. Their interaction is probably stereotypical in its own right - see the hypothermia commercial, which is about the only one where … READ MORE

While we’re on commercials, I have a very brief post. For the longest time the following AT&T commercial bugged me for reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I found it somewhat amusing, but that unnameable thing niggled at the back of my mind.

AT&T Family Talk One

Then came another commercial featuring (I think) the same family. Similar scenario:

AT&T Milky Minutes ad

And seeing that made me realize what bugged me about the first commercial. Setting aside the fact this is a white, traditional … READ MORE

Nationwide has a commercial in which an African-American couple is getting married in a church full of African-Americans. You can watch it here, but I’ll also describe it below:

The minister interrupts the ceremony to ask the groom if he’s got enough insurance for their future. The groom looks panicked. The minister asks if there’s a Nationwide rep in the congregation. An African-American woman stands up, rushes to the front, and fixes everything up for the happy couple. Then she announces … READ MORE

I get the distinct impression I’m supposed to know who the people in this commercial are. I don’t, but I’m not sure it matters that much. Here’s a link to the original LG Shine commercial, in which we see a young woman at a cafe. She’s applying lipstick, using the reflective surface of her cell phone as a mirror. She’s talking to a young man. Her voice fades into the song “Heaven” by Warrant as the man catches sight of … READ MORE

I can’t find a link to a commercial I saw yesterday for Realize, which is some kind of gastric band surgically implanted for weight loss, so I’ll just describe it. The commercial featured various people sharing the reasons why they wanted to lose weight.

The man wanted to lose weight so he could do karate with his little kid. That made sense. Doing karate would be easier if you weren’t obese. I get that goal.

The woman wanted to lose weight so … READ MORE

This body wash commercial from Gillette bugs me for a very subtle reason:

For those who don’t want to wait for the video to load, it features a man showering with this product, then going into the office. As he walks into a boardroom with mostly women sitting around the table, something starts bothering me, even though you’d expect “Boardroom! Mostly women!” to be a positive representation of women. The voiceover says he’ll now feel he’s ready to “take on the … READ MORE

I know we’ve discussed the unfortunate phenomenon of “nice guys” expecting a pat on the head for not behaving badly on this site, or perhaps on Feminism. I don’t think we’ve done a big meta entry on the subject, but over at Majikthise, there’s a great post describing pretty much what I highlight here. Notice I don’t say meta post. LOL, I don’t have it in me.

In a nutshell, it’s when a guy expects behaving in a way any … READ MORE

The title might be a bit dramatic. After all, there’s nothing particularly offensive about this commercal for AIG’s term life insurance. It’s got statistics. It’s got facts to back up the sales pitch.

My problem with it is that though it is addressed to a generic group, Americans, several times…it is actually a commercial for men only. They are talking only to men. Not only simply men, but straight men with a wife, two kids and a white picket fence. What … READ MORE

Dairy Queen has commercials, like SO many fast food establishments, that simply confound me. For a time, every commercial they produced involved severe bodily harm to the characters in their spots. Then there’s the Rocky Horror Picture Show-esque talking mouth, which creeps me out (but not as much as the Burger King king mascot). It’s dismaying, because I put myself through college working at the DQ and if I do indulge in that unhealthy food, DQ is where I prefer … READ MORE

I think Arby’s commercials are dumb in general, just like 95% of all other fast food chain commercials. It’s probably because I’m loath to eat at any of those establishments, so even if they geared more of them toward me, as a woman, I’d not really be enticed.  Anyway, this particular Arby’s commercial bugs me the most lately. I can’t put my finger on what bothers me the most - that the women are there as objects to admire, or that, … READ MORE