The Twix “Need a Moment?” campaign
I’ve found another commercial or two I dislike intensely. Unfortunately, I can’t find the specific one that’s made me irritated online anywhere. Twix.com has one on their site for your viewing displeasure, that runs along the same theme.
All of the “Need a Moment?” commercials tend to bug me, primarily in that you shouldn’t need to chomp on a candy bar to get out of explaining your bad behaviour. You simply shouldn’t being behaving badly, and then you could enjoy your damned candy bar with a clear conscience. But that’s just me, Preacher SBG, and my opinion. 
The commercial that’s got me annoyed is the one with two guys standing in a bookstore reading something entitled “How To Score Hot Chicks” or something similar (forgive, it’s been a while since I’ve seen it) and giggling like idiots. A beautiful woman walks up, and gasps at one of the men she apparently knows, “WHAT are you reading?” The guy who’s eating a Twix instead of holding the book jams the candy bar into his mouth to give himself time to think, then turns to his partner in crime and says, “You should be ashamed!” The woman immediately changes from indignant to relieved and interested and the Twix guy walks off with her, victorious.
Gross.
Now, I don’t completely begrudge the guys for reading the stupid book. However, they both seemed to feel guilty and/or embarrassed at being caught reading it, and I really cannot stand the resulting win of the hot chick. It kind of says to me that it’s okay for men to trick women to get in their good graces and that women are easy to fall for these tricks.
It’s all very funny ha-ha, isn’t it? .
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18 comments
It also fairly clearly says that getting a woman interested in you is a) a game that you “win” and b) a game in which the woman isn’t a participant, but rather just part of the equipment. His opponent in this game is the other guy; she’s essentially a prop in a dynamic that’s about the two of them.
..and I’m back to ‘ick’.
And can you imagine a commercial in which two women are reading, say, “How to Score Rich Guys”* and the rich guy who walks up goes from appalled to “Here, honey, I brought my MasterCard” inside of thirty seconds?
*I went with “rich” instead of “hot” because the patriarchy seems to be convinced women don’t benefit from scoring hot guys, but it clearly sees how they can benefit from scoring rich ones.
Ugh. I loathe those commercials SO much. Aside from the horrible message, they’re just irritating. The guy in question is a pathetic example of a human being and I really don’t know why ANYONE would want to be like him, nor can I figure out why he seemed like a good face to sell their product.
And then of course there’s the other one, where a woman asks her boyfriend if her red pants make her look fat. He just shoves the whole candy bar in his mouth, makes some muffled noises, and she hugs him, tells him he’s the best and that she loves him, and waltzes out, in all her fatty ignorance. (Actually, I thought she looked pretty good, but that’s beside the point.) Gosh, that was annoying, and it didn’t help that he was fatter than she was.
I haven’t seen these, but they do sound grotoesque. I’d ask a similar question as I did about the Rustlers Microwave ad: if you want to make a joke about using Twix to give yourself time to think, why not when a driving instructor asks you a difficult question? Why are jokes apparently funny only when they’re at women’s expense?
Purtek said:
It’s always the way. Men “take” and “score” and “win.” Women “give” and “settle” and “get.”
BetaCandy said:
Yeah. I’m still appalled by the MegaMillions billboards that accentuate this fact. Why would a woman want a hot man when she could have a rich one?
Neev said:
It’s a shame, too, because I LOVE Twix. Mmm, shortbread and caramel and chocolate.
Thal said:
Yep, hate that one, too. It’s part of the reason I hate the LifeSavers ad campaign as well. It’s remarkably similar in theme: lying to people is “sweet.”
SunlessNick said:
There’ve been a very few like this, though even they were borderline. There’s one where a guy is making fun of his boss, who walks in on him, I think and he has to cover his six.
that is so funny you mention these ads because I always go off on a mini tirade whenever it comes on when I am watching TV with someone. The one *I* hate it the guy who is coming in at 5 in the morning and gets undressed and she asks if he just got home.. Then shoves a twix in his mouth and says “no I wanted an early start!” And then puts his pants back on. ARRRGH.
So not only has he been out all night, the implication I think being that he has been “unfaithful,” but also she is stupid enough to blindly fall for his routine. IT MAKES ME SO ANNOYED EVERY TIME.
I am glad you brought this up. There are so many commercials with this sort of casual norm of “getting one over on the chick.” And I have actually thought of Hathor Legacy when I see many of them.
Don’t even get me started on domestic beer commercials. Those are just flat out misogynist.
Okay, I haven’t seen that, but that’s disgusting. Men sure don’t think cheating’s hilarious when it happens to them.
Never saw that ad here, but got the same concept for an underwear brand, Rio. Some guy came home at something in the morning and acted like he’d pulled an all-nighter. DON’T SEE HOW LYING ON TOP OF INFIDELITY IS FUNNY, PEOPLE!
thisisendless said:
Nothing says funny like watching someone trying to cover ass after implied infidelity. ::rolls eyes::
I’d successfully blocked that one out of my memory. Honestly, there are very few in the Twix campaign that are more funny than offensive.
Couple of days behind on the replies, sorry…
sbg:
But women aren’t even the ones who lose the game, and I think that’s even worse than if they were. Men “win”, but they win against other men. Women aren’t even really participating in the “game”. It’s like they’re the ball, the object you score with.
And anyone who thinks we don’t tacitly condone/excuse male infidelity needs to watch those commercials as an example.
One of those devastating one-sentence summaries.
[...] birth, Vera and any potential husband of hers would have been getting the message that cheating is fun stuff when men do it. Conversely, Vera and her potential husbands would also have been aware that women have been (and [...]
[...] couple of weeks ago, on this thread, I mentioned that men are constantly portrayed as competing for women in a way that makes the woman [...]
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