John Lewis and it’s ‘gender relaxed’ ad

Presumably the confusion arose because what JL still describe as accidental was very clearly deliberate.

Aaaand, the advert has been withdrawn as the FCA said it was misleading....

twitter.com/JohnLewisRetail/status/1453345847194918913?t=sWOpIynsmD8l63XwbGIOiA&s=19

Tbh I tend to tape things then watch them and fast forward the adverts and the first 2 mins of the programme following the adverts as they seem to think we have such bad memories that we have forgotten everything that happened so far in the programme.

My first observation is that the advert is clearly targeting wealthy, educated middle class crowd.
My second thought is that big brands care about what's trendy and brings in money above all else.
Good acting skills on behalf of the kids and I hope the little boy doesn't receive any negative backlash, he did a great job.
I'm glad I don't have a TV in my home anymore with the constant advert bombardment.

Sorry ArabellaScott just realised you linked to it too. Went down a bit of a rabbit hole and have just resurfaced.

Just wanted to share this for us to reminisce about the days when companies knew what a woman was and how to appeal to us.

Here's one from 2010.

Cloying sentiment, yes. But at least it's trying to reach its target demographic.

And there was the tiny dancer, which has a sweet character and a bit of a narrative and is truly accidental damage:

The destructo-boy one is just ... it's just fucking miserable and desperate and has the stench of despair about it. In 2021 John Lewis have skipped the soft and mushy angle and gone for outright hatred of their target audience. Really odd.

@KimikosNightmare, I think the largest category of complaint will be on the grounds of misrepresentation of the accidental damage policy; followed closely behind by the images of the wilful damage themselves, the sexist stereotyping, and the advert's reliance on those stereotypes to shock, bedazzle and force a misleading point about an insurance policy onto the viewer.

Advertisers are allowed to challenge and even shock viewers, but not if they're doing it to disguise a form of mis-selling.

Re the JL ad, there will be some complaints I expect focusing on the angles of the sexualisation of a child and exploitation of a child actor - but I bet there are hardly any complaining per se about a boy wearing a dress.

All shops put the same type of articles together. Do you go into Waterstone's and complain that military history and art and design and fashion are in separate categories rather than simply alphabetical by author?

Why, in Smyths anyway, are the Lego Friends and Lego Elves sets in the pink aisles and not in the Lego aisle? Surely Lego should be grouped with Lego? And not Lego and girl toy Lego?

I saw there had been 130 complaints. One of them was mine. I said nothing about the dress, the colours or any potential messaging or agenda, but just that the child is clearly old enough to understand what he is doing; the damage is not accidental; at the point he tips over the paints he is clearly not just caught up in the moment- it was a very deliberate decision to destroy the paints; and the lack of the mother doing anything to protect her daughter.

I know the ASA will have to investigate it because there have been complaints on a number of grounds.

It's not uncommon for a business to voluntarily withdraw an advert while its under investigation by the ASA.

(I used to be involved in a campaign that regularly used complaints to the ASA as a way of leaning on certain unethical companies. The ASA did uphold more complaints than not. They were very thorough, even after a single complaint had been made. You do have to have proper grounds though.)

Yes quite possibly. They should really consider the wider implications too. It has been taken down now I believe?

It's your own narrow minded attitude you should be looking at.

This isn't gender relaxed at all. This is just applying the stereotypes of one gender to another.

If the child actor was in any way discomforted filming that, it's against all industry safeguarding guidelines.

I can't help wondering how much of the boy's facial expression is down to crap acting / too much concentration on the pouting and wall slapping.

Even if that is the case, surely when the advert was watched back they would have noticed that the boy's expression did not match what they wanted to convey.

Ugh it’s just awful. Makes me uneasy and a bit ill. Linking JL with spoilt brats and mothers that can’t cope/ don’t care. As I’m the mother, I’m not impressed!

To be fair, I took a screen shot from that final pose and zero’ed in on that child’s face. It is an expression of uncertainty and discomfort, particularly around the eyes, at the point I grabbed it.

Final pose/gaze on the sofa I find particularly disturbingly provocative

Still think you're reaching and then some to call the way the kid is dancing 'sexualised'. Looks to me like a kid posing like they've seen someone famous do on TV/in a film, not a safeguarding concern

And to just reiterate, it is important to remember that JL have released an ad with a child behaving in this fashion as ‘entertainment’ for others.

So, JL is involved in sexualising this particular child on national TV.

And we still have posters who can’t see the sexualisation in those moves and the facial expressions.

And here is a hint: it doesn’t matter which character, or actual human, this boy was mimicking, the overall impression is that the child is copying ‘sexy’ poses and it is put up as an entertaining ad for JL insurance.

Whether you (general you) want to apply your own label is your (general your) problem.

So if a shop has two aisles full of pink stuff, dolls and unicorns, while all the other aisles are unisex and toys traditionally preferred by boys, that is pure coincidence, the shop didn't do it on purpose and the division is just in the eye of the beholder? Or maybe they did do it on purpose, but the pink, dolls and unicorns aisles are for a different 'style' of toys but definitely not marketed at girls, nope, of course not?

And unless I happen to know the worst-behaved children in the world, chucking stuff about and is (unpleasant but) fairly normal, even at 8 or 9 - "Can you not kick your football about inside the house / You've broken the lamp and this is the secone time you've been warned" would be a perfectly normal thing for my SIL to say to her kids. Naughty, yes, but not spectacularly unusual

As MidsomerMurmurs points out the advert is nothing like this.

@scarpa
Absolutely no idea how to gauge the age of young children to be fair so... you got me there!

And yet you’re posting on … [checks notes] … Mumsnet?

Still think you're reaching and then some to call the way the kid is dancing 'sexualised'. Looks to me like a kid posing like they've seen someone famous do on TV/in a film, not a safeguarding concern

Um. What sort of film or TV programme? Appropriate for a nine year old? Or do you still think he’s 5?

And unless I happen to know the worst-behaved children in the world, chucking stuff about and is (unpleasant but) fairly normal, even at 8 or 9 - "Can you not kick your football about inside the house / You've broken the lamp and this is the secone time you've been warned" would be a perfectly normal thing for my SIL to say to her kids. Naughty, yes, but not spectacularly unusual

Have you actually watched the JL ad? It’s not like what you describe there and it’s not normal.