Write a response about a commercial that reinforced gender stereotypes or one that went against them. What is your reaction to the commercial? What does it say about our society today?
Happy watching!
Friday, January 31, 2014
*Extra Credit*- Superbowl Commercials
Write a response about a commercial that reinforced gender stereotypes or one that went against them. What is your reaction to the commercial? What does it say about our society today?
Happy watching!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
While watching the Superbowl, I noticed one commercial that stood out the most to me. It was the one about the new mens ax body spray. The commercial contains many people of different ethnicities. There are Generals, military leaders, and soldiers involved in the commercial. In the beginning it seemed that all these men had a plan set to destroy something. People were running away and screaming, but there was always one girl left, staring at the man coming towards them. But they didn't want to harm anyone, they each had a plan set to win their woman over. It was all about the love that they had for their women. This commercial portrayed that men can solve the worlds problems with heart sagas and romance, but really it was just an ax commercial. In the end of the commercial it said "make love, not war. With new ax peace" making a statement that peace can only be made with this body spray. Is this commercial suggesting that the new spray can solve all the worlds problems? It will automatically make the girl fall in love with man? What is it suggesting?? This commercial only appeals to men because in the end it says that only men can solve worlds problems with the new body spray. But what about women? I believe that the people who created this commercial tried to appeal to both the male and female genders, but in the end the commercial was really all about the male.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmpiwU50f5w
ReplyDeleteAs I was watching the Superbowl, one of the commercials that immediately caught my attention was the 2014 Maserati commercial. It was intense right from the beginning. It shows a little black american girl, who is basically describing how we have prepared and worked hard for victory, and now it is our time "to strike." The commercial shows our hard work as a nation, but only depicts men doing jobs that are dominantly known as a "man's job." Jobs such as welding, and being a fireman. She describes in the beginning of the commercial how "the world is full of giants," showing a humongous wave, and a spiraling tornado. The producers of this commercial used these "giants" to show that we have been able to overcome them and deal with them by working hard. Although, it does not display any jobs that involve women and how we have made an impact. It strictly singles out men, inferring them to be superior and stronger than women. This is a hidden gender stereotype, and what I mean by that is, if you were to view this commercial you would not think anything of it. Although, if you view closely the jobs portrayed in this commercial, it shows the strength and the hard work of only the men, and how we could not have possibly done it without them.
In the 2014 Super Bowl many typical American commercials were presented. Out of a bunch of irrelevant, yet comical, advertisements related to either beer or Doritos, I came across something revolutionary; a commercial that went against gender stereotyping. Goldie Blox, a small independent company, created a commercial that showed little girls throwing out conventional toys. Such of which included princess playhouses, princess dresses, and other gender stereotypical toys related to girls. The goal of this commercial was for girls to get into fun construction toys that could help lead the way to an engineering career and to become independent young women in America. This commercial showed that construction type toys aren’t just for boys, but are for girls too! Girls shouldn’t be limited to just dolls and princess costumes, but building and construction in a fun way. Girls are missing out on such toys because of the gender stereotype that men are the ones supposed to be into construction and engineering. This empowering commercial that was advertised to one million people is a great way to make a statement that girls can play with boy-like toys and have careers such as engineering.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I'm a huge sports fan, but I do make a deliberate effort to watch the Super Bowl each year. This year, with gender stereotypes in mind, I sat down to watch. I must say, I was quiet amazed. There were much fewer commercials that seemed to exploit one gender or the other, and for this, I must commend advertisers! Of course, there were the few notable exceptions. I was particularly amused by the H&M add that featured David Beckham running about sans clothing. The add played on his athletic ability and attractive body, reinforcing the notion that the ideal man, in addition to wearing H&M clothing, would have a muscular body and would be able to perform the adventurous stunts that he performs in the add. This add exploits the male body and presents only one side of masculinity. In addition, it degrades females as well. The woman at the end of the add removes her glasses and makes an approving face, presenting that idea that women are easily swayed by an attractive man. The add intends to get women to buy H&M clothing for their men as well. Overall, this add oversimplified each gender into purely surface-level creatures, playing up the athleticism of men and the "swoon-ability" of women.
ReplyDeleteWhile watching the Super Bowl Commercials, I couldn't really find a commercial that reinforced gender stereotypes, which is a good thing. I was pleased to see the commercial for GlodieBlox which is a perfect example for a commercial and company going against gender stereotypes. My brother and I were just talking about this company a few weeks ago and I was happy to see that they got a spot during the Super Bowl to share their revolutionary idea and products. The commercial shows a bunch of girls grabbing all of their toys such as dolls, doll houses, dresses and other stereotypical girl toys, all of which are, of course, pink. The girls then put all of their toys on a rocket ship which symbolizes that they don’t want them anymore. The founder of GoldieBlox is an engineer that wants to see more young girls interested in becoming engineers, architects and scientists rather then princesses. GoldieBlox uses storybooks and toys to help excite girls about science and engineering. I think that GoldieBlox's message and idea is perfect. I hope that this small company grows after having their add play during the Super Bowl. I think its great that people are recognizing that little girls shouldn't just be playing with dolls but they should have toys that make them use their brains in fun ways. I think that this company is going to definitely change the way that toy companies make toys. Larger toy companies are going to look at how much hype this small company has made and realize that the way they have been marketing toys toward girls has to change. I will definitely be buying my little cousin GoldieBlox toys.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching all the super bowl commercials, I felt as though most of the commercials had been either very serious or sad. A lot of these commercials were raising awareness about either a type of car or saluting the soldiers. Although very serious, the commercials were done well. Thankfully there were also some commercials, like the Doritos commercial with the siblings, that were cute and fun to watch. I would say that the only commercial that did reinforce Gender Stereotypes was the Soda Stream with Scarlett Johansson. In order for Scarlett to make the message viral, she had to be seductive while sipping her soda. She reinforced the idea that in order to get attention and raise awareness, women have to be sexy and pretty on screen. By acting in this certain manner, this was classified as being Gender Stereotypical.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxq4ziu-wrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVCC83cDch0
ReplyDeleteGoldie Blocks Commercial
This commercial demonstrates going against the stereotype that little girls enjoy playing with dolls, like the color pink, or are mainly concerned with dress-up parties. This commercial puts hard core rock music with little girls revolting against the color pink, and everything that being a little girl comes with. It also drops lines like, “more than pink, pink, pink” or “we want to think” demonstrating that girls are more than the stereotype they are given. They want to “build like all the boys” and be successful from an early age. I am happy to hear that the company’s earned its spot in the super bowl commercial lineup, and has dramatically increased their revenue because of the one commercial. I also enjoy what the company has to offer, because they are completely going against the typical stereotype and trying to innovate more toys and games.
Goldie Blox Commercial
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVCC83cDch0
As I watched the super bowl i tried to focus on the commercials that reinforced the gender stereotypes commonly found in most commercials. One commercial stood out to me because I believe it was the only Super Bowl commercial that spoke against commonly held gender stereotypes. This commercial is the Goldie Blox commercial. The commercial shows a whole bunch of little girls going against the belief that all little girls enjoy "pink" games and toys. It shows the girls gathering all of their pink toy kitchens, dolls, and other toys and building something bigger. The company is trying to enforce that all girls do not only enjoy "pink girly toys" but they can build just like boys can. I agree with the statement the company is trying to make because growing up I didn't enjoy dolls or toy kitchens much like other girls.
I am not a huge sports fan, but I always enjoy watching the commercials. I noticed that almost every commercial related to men, probably because companies assumed the majority of their audience would be males. That fact that almost everything about the Super Bowl has to do with men makes the event a major gender stereotype. My favorite commercial that was played was the Budweiser commercial. Although the commercial is basically about a puppy who keeps running away to be with it's new friend, a horse, there are some hidden gender stereotypes in it. For example, the man owns a horse farm and always brings the puppy back to the woman, while the woman is usually grateful to the man for getting her puppy back to her. The man is always the one helping out the woman, rather than the other way around. The commercial itself does not really have anything to do with it's product and is a bit off topic, but it was definitely my favorite commercial even if it had some gender stereotypes. I do not think the company intended to make woman look weaker than men, but I could not help but notice the few stereotypes in the commercial.
ReplyDeleteWhile watching the Super bowl I hadn’t really seen commercials that were promoting gender stereotypes, I had actually seen the opposite such as the Goldie Blox commercial. That is however, until I saw Scarlett Johansson’s Soda Stream commercial. In this commercial Scarlett is selling the soda stream, and then states that she wants to make her message go viral. She then removes the robe she was wearing and starts acting seductively. This portrays the message to young girls that they only way their voices can be heard is if they dress and act in a way that would catch men’s attention. There was also no need for Johansson to act seductively considering all she was trying to sell was a machine that makes soda. However, I don’t believe that this commercial should over shadow the Goldie Blox commercial, which completely disregarded all gender stereotypes and showed young girls throwing out cliché girl toys such as dolls and dollhouses. I hope there will continue to be more commercials like these that are sending the perfect message to young girls growing up today, and less commercials such as the soda stream one.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteScarlett Johansson’s Soda Stream commercial
ReplyDeleteThis commercial is to sell a good product. The Soda Stream system could be helpful to our environment and people’s health. If a lot of people used this system instead of buying so much soda, it could reduce the amount of cans and bottles we discard and reduce the amount of plastic garbage. It can also help people to drink beverages that are less sweet which may reduce the instance of diabetes, which some think is caused by the amount of extremely sweet soft drinks consumed. It is a pity that the manufacturer though it necessary to depict the famous actress Scarlett Johansen in a stereotypical role of a sex symbol. It starts out with her in a lab coat talking about the benefits of the Soda Stream. She makes a very convincing case to buy this product for all the right reasons. But then she thinks that this is not enough to sell this to the general public and really make a difference. The general public must be tricked into paying attention and consider buying it by transforming Scarlett out of her lab coat into a sultry dress and have her making provocative moves with the straw while drinking the beverage. The message becomes that only by doing this, “sexing her up” that is, the message will go “viral”. I think this perpetuates the notion that people are not driven by their intelligence but by their base animal instincts and that the best way for an attractive woman to sell something is for her to play to that base instinct with subliminal sexual images and messages. The more advertising plays to that theme, the more the stereotype is accepted as the way that manufacturers must sell their goods.