or do women in ads come across as total idiots?

[Clandestino]

So you have the nice lady shopping in a supermarket. Coming home, doing the laundry, cleaning, with all the ever knowing guys popping up and telling her she's using a wrong product because THIS ONE is the best.
She smiles like her IQ is on par with a rocking horse, when she sees the result she's all astonished and excited, like a 4-year old under the Christmas tree (and still believing in Santa). The highest aspiration in her life is to use the best washing powder possible.
You rarely see men like that. Except for those from Go Compare. I want to punch them and then strangle that mock opera singer with his own mustache.

I think pretty much everyone in adverts comes across as a total idiot. The whole thing is so fake. It surprises me that anyone watches them these days, to be honest. Sky + everything and fast forward through the commercials!

I get to see them occasionally and it's bloody awful. My gripe, however, is really with women because they are solely in a role of a clueless little wifey who needs advice on washing powder, nutrition and whatever else there is that should keep a little woman's little brain busy.

i think men are belittled in adverts far more often than women- some fabulous woman making a fabulous meal or something whilst the dim husband tries to work out which end of the spoon to hold

but i haven't watched tv for over 3 years so i might be out of date

I agree araiba. Do you remember the one where the 'wife' slammed the lap top lid down on her husbands hands because he didn't know what he was doing? Was meant to be funny. Can't for the life of me remember what the product being advertised was.

I agree with araiba. Women are normally portrayed as confident, knowledgeable and capable and men as helpless doofs who need a woman to sort them out.

I was unlucky enough to watch an ad for frozen food, car insurance and washing powder today as I wanted to watch something live. All of it was about clueless women looking for advice.

YANBU. It's not the woman's fault though, it's the men who write the storylines.

YANBU

I don't watch much TV but recently I've found myself wanting to throw a brick at the bloody thing just to stop the crap, crap adverts making women look/sound like thick, gullible manipulators or just utter fools.

Yoghurt/pudding-type things adverts seem to hate women the most.

Almost everyone is portrayed as a total berk in TV ads

Tbh I think nobody comes out of adverts well, men or women. Crappy gender roles and stereotypes all round.

How can a manipulator be gullible? Surely that's a contradiction in terms?

Generally though it the dolt of a husband with the mental age of a nine year old who has just fucked up the cooking/car insurance renewal/laundry/baby feeding/shopping etc who has to have the all knowing wife sort out the mess with a roll of her eyes and a grim smile while her embarrassed teenage children look on.

sums it up

How can a manipulator be gullible? Surely that's a contradiction in terms

The advert portrays someone as daft enough to believe this swirl of low-fat nothing will help them to lose weight. Gullible.

They then pretend that there's none of that shite left in the fridge and give their DH a slice of dry toast or dog biscuit or something, manipulating him into believing that's all there is and that's what he has to accept.

Why is that a contradiction in terms?

Winterbiscuit, I don't believe that's true any more - there were women in advertising decades ago, a lot more now.

Is it the women in advertising who are coming up with that sort of ad, though?

The thing is, if marketing isn't successful the companies concerned pick up on it. So no matter how much it irritates some people, for others it's exactly what they want to see.

I'm more irritated by the 'busy Mums' type of advert where they spend their spare time you tubing cleaning tips and patronising their families. But obviously this sort of thing works on somebody nethuns or they wouldn't do it?

Is it the women in advertising who are coming up with that sort of ad, though?

Probably. They're not advertising at themselves, otherwise nearly all adverts would be aimed at London hipsters. They're advertising to Sarah in Barnsley or Natalie in Merthyr and obviously there are a lot of women around who like to see themselves like that.

I'm curious now what an advert for a "London Hipster" would look like now? bill

Just a film of a few young blokes with beard sitting around in a gastro pub or artisan bakery in shoreditch pissing about on iphones?

I suppose if the women (or men) in the adds weren't a bit thick, they wouldn't need telling what product to use.

Tbh I think nobody comes out of adverts well, men or women. Crappy gender roles and stereotypes all round.

This. I don't watch much TV but the majority is BBC and when I do watch other channels I have to mute the ads.
Such a bag of cringe-inducing, vapid shit.

DS1 is such a good advert heckler. He has no tolerance for ads which have stupid people on them.

His favourite heckle, though, is that one for the fancy probiotic slimfast style shite with an exotic forrin sounding name (and rather bad voice dubbing). He inevitably shouts "There's nothing wrong with not being able to lose weight!"

I heckle the Vodafone 4G advert, mind - come to my village and it'll be a big, fat NO!!!

We rant together at ads that tell women that they need to worry about looking a bit older or having a few grey hairs. Stupid, judgemental shite. Of course DS1 is all "There's nothing wrong with having grey hairs!"

I love the "I used to suffer with constipation before. But ever since I started eating Danone, I'm shitting like a rhino with a Swiss watch."