Prepare yourself for a fit of rage

Say's is a make up add.

I must confess I thought it was a stereo type riddled pop video

My wants to be a scientist DD1 (14) day's it's a make up ad.

When I said what it is actually for she rolled her eyes skywards in the way that means what fucking planet are they on.

There are 7/8 young pretty girls in the film who look confident, happy and healthy. I'm not keen on the 'simpering' as OneHand said up thread but I don't think it's quite as sinister as everyone's making out.

But pickled the people who made this clip know the language of film, it is their ft job. They have deliberately and knowingly put together the film so that it enhances stereotypes and lowers the image of women.

Empusa, that is one interpretation of the 'make up' shots, another one is that it's just a way of bringing girls and science together - DD thinks it's cool how it shows the make up brush as if the powder is exploding and that the message is 'would you rather have this make up brush or an explosion that no one has heard of before?'.

It is interesting to hear her take on it although she is only 11. When I asked her about sexism (she has a vague understanding of what it means) she said that it might be offensive to men because of the way the guy is looking at the girls .

Pickled, how film is put together, the juxtaposition of shots, lighting etc has a very prescriptive language to it. Even when the audience doesn't know all the grammar of the language they do get the message that it sends. This clip uses language in a way which does denigrate girls and promote the male gaze. If I could get to my laptop could give you a full in depth analysis of it, shot by shot.

I've done media studies at post grad level btw so not just making this up. Also taught it for several years, including how to make short films to A level students.

"Didn't spot the unhealthy stereotype"

You missed the "girls will only be interested in science if we point out you can make make-up with it" then?

Meant to say the rest of the leg shots are sort of in shadow.

Have looked again and there is no cleavage on show (sadly not the case at our local HS) and the only actual leg shot, yes there is only one, is of the bottom third of a girl's legs in trousers.

Off to analyse the make up bits now...

DD who is 11 said that the message she gets from the video is 'girls can be scientists too so don't rule it out' whereas DS1 who is 8 said it says to him 'girls are naff scientists'.

Didn't spot the unhealthy stereotype Such, the only one I saw was the one where girls were ummm...girls.

I was wondering Pickled I'm neither middle aged or a 'mama' though...

I do know plenty of women in science who objected to the way their career is being portrayed and I also know (apologies for anecdata) that my niece who is 14 commented 'I like makeup but that's not why I like science, what's the point of this'. She didn't like it not least because it clearly couldn't be Hydrogen in the flask and she likes science for science's sake (and she's bloody good at physics and maths) not because it might help her know what the ingredients in her lipstick are.

It doesn't have to "only" get people talking. It also has to not harm the cause it's trying to get people talking about, and it would be good if it could set a tone that would engage women scientists who are likely important to the future of a successful campaign.

I think a lot of girls who don't fit the "girly" stereotype and are already into science will feel very undermined. Not to mention that trying to get girls into science by adding to the pressure to conform to an unhealthy and unhelpful stereotype is not good for girls regardless of how many of them go into science.

I'm quite sure that the majority of the backlash has not been from this age group = target demographic not necessarily offended

I must run it by DD - I didn't last night because I reckoned it would wind her up too much just before bedtime.

, just realised that my original comment above to Thumb should have been made to Acekicker - oops, sorry Thumb.

The video makes me feel old laugh.

The video doesn't need to 'appeal' to anyone, it just needs to get people talking andit has done just that. If you didn't know that there was a severe lack of young women in STEM careers, you do now!

Yes, I dislike those simpering, over made up girls. But to be honest, they look like most teenage girls round here to me.

I'd prefer to see them doing something more actively sciencey, rather than posturing, and watching drips of nail varnish but as GrimmatheNome says, we're not the target audience.

If it worked, - and I'm not sure you can base that on the comments alone, I'd let it go, for the greater good.

The campaign is aimed at 13-17 year old females but I'm quite sure that the majority of the backlash has not been from this age group = target demographic not necessarily offended. Is that any clearer Thumb?

I'm not sure the middled aged mamas of MN are their target audience Thumb

no, but our daughters are. Not that mine needs any encouragement from the EU- she's 13 and it seems pretty likely she will go into some sort of science or engineering. But then, she's got 2 PhD parents - one with a perfect science job for a mother (and blonde even ) so she has no idea that she's not supposed to be able to have it all. And she goes to a girls school with science/tech specialism where they all do 3 sciences and half of them do electronics and they're introducing proper Computer Science in time for her. Being interested in science is normal for her.

Sadly the original had some very pertinent comments from younger women/girls as well, which have all gone since the original video was removed - it didn't impress any of them either. The only people it appeared to appeal to was a certain type of male.

Sadly I didn't get to see the video before it was taken down, but I think I understand the context.

The point I would like to make is that a great many girls are selecting themselves out of lucrative and interesting careers - not only science- by choosing options that fit better with society's expectations of femininity.

Either we challenge this by challenging whether it makes you unfeminine (by society's standards) to do science, or IT, or carpentry, or we challenge the underlying assumptions of acceptable femininity.

Teenage girls are in general eager to fit in with the accepted stereotypes, and while the advert may have been crass, it might have been effective with this group.

I say this as someone with a degree in biochemistry, and a career in IT.

?? I don't really understand your point there, pickledsiblings - my post is relevant to this thread topic.

I'm not sure the middled aged mamas of MN are their target audience Thumb .

Has anyone linked to this yet? science-girl-thing.eu/#overlay=teaser this is the current "teaser" on the official website - the only similarity to the original is that they still have the lipstick in "Science - it's a girl thing", which is still written in pink lipstick writing as well - other than that and some dubious toppings on yoghurt, it seems a heap better.

Oddly, the things that attracted the nice girl in the video to science didn't include a longing to know how make up was made...

They could have done with using black lettering for their subtitles as well, the white letters frequently disappear against the background.

Emakina have form for this offensive crap. Whoever gave them the contract clearly didn't do their research properly...

The EU spokesman who claims it's a great viral teaser which is working because it's being spoken about clearly knows nothing about viral marketing either. Generally the principle is that it's ok to generate publicity by offending people AS LONG AS YOU DON'T OFFEND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE. Paddy Power are masters of this - they frequently get written about by the press for offending various groups, but they never offend their core demographic that they're targetting - instead they get many times the amount of publicity the campaign itself got from all the press coverage (and then another bite of the cherry a few months later when the ASA opine!).