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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think the Malteaser advert is in really poor taste

560 replies

Bearbehind · 04/10/2016 21:55

Just seen a Malteaser advert where a woman in a wheelchair is talking to 2 friend in the park about her date.

The jist is she had a spasm, he enjoyed the repercussions, and whilst demonstrating her hand actions the malteasers shoot out of the bag and go every where.

Is it me or is that really bad taste?

OP posts:
a8mint · 05/10/2016 00:49

There are other adverts with ejaculationejaculation references like the car one when the dad is telling his ds about the birds and the bees and it fountain spurts up.and I am sure there are cork popping in ones too

HelenaDove · 05/10/2016 00:59

What i find more offensive is the meme ive just seen on fb.

"If your spouse became disabled for the rest of their lives would you stay with them"

Bloody patronizing.

Dervel · 05/10/2016 01:35

facepalm Just because people have a disability doesn't mean they don't have a funny bone they like being tickled once in awhile, in fact sometimes if you tickle it just right, they explode....

Bearbehind · 05/10/2016 06:22

It's interesting that the earlier responses on this thread assumed the OP thought the ad was in bad taste because it features someone with a disability and using that to comic effect.

Not really.

Given the fact in her second post the OP said... I don't see the connection between normalising disability and advertising chocolate

worra and ilovetorrentialrain try reading the thread a bit more closely before making your psychoanalytical comments on why I really thought it's in bad taste.

I made the comment above in response to lightgreengrass post saying the aim of the advert was to normalise disability.

I don't think its in bad taste because the woman is disabled but because simulating wanking is nothing to do with chocolate and unecsaary IMO.

I still completely disagree it's a double entendre. Using a prop to simulate something is a demonstration, you wouldn't call any other such demonstration a double entrendre, and you only do so with this as it's about wanking.

As for it being no worse than lesbians about to have sex on a dating app advert- at least that's relevant to the product, not just using wanking for the sake of it.

Also, the point about a child not understanding it- that still doesn't give it a second meaning- it just means they don't get it.

lrd you are way overthinking the adverts intentions. I don't believe anyone is supposed to think 'poor disabled lady spilling her sweets'. Maybe that would be the case if there were no or a different narrative but the conversation is about her hand spasming whilst her partners cock is in her hand and she demonstrates the outcome of the situation using the Malteasers.

OP posts:
OnionKnight · 05/10/2016 06:37

I'm disabled and I think the jizzing Malteasers advert is brilliant and not too far from the truth Grin

sashh · 05/10/2016 06:42

Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought she crushed the brides foot on the dance floor? Or is it a different one?

A few were shown during the paralympics, including one in BSL.

Disability can be funny. I don't mean laughing about a person having a disability but the things that happen can be funny. Sometimes it is laugh or cry.

I don't think its in bad taste because the woman is disabled but because simulating wanking is nothing to do with chocolate and unecsaary IMO.

The one with the woman showing her boyfriend she knows he cheated is not necessary, but no one seems to be complaining about that.

It is not necessary to half naked women to advertise perfume, or anything and everything else.

The disability is totally irrelevant when considering the taste/decency (yes, yes wholly subjective but this is what op wants to discuss here) of the advert. I cringe a bit for all the participants and can't say I'm looking forward to the deluge of stupid smutty ads that will no doubt follow.

But it is relevant. We buy chocolate too. We make up 25% of the population and other than, "poor so and so, look how brave he is fighting X Y or Z" these are the only ads saying that we are part of society.

whattheseithakasmean · 05/10/2016 06:44

I agree OP, it is a grim advert. I didn't notice the wheelchair the first time, so didn't make the connection with a disability making her hand shake, I just thought 'eeew'.

I also hate the cup cakes as boobs advert, where she nastily imitates another woman's voice - misogynist wankery. I also agree the Galaxy ad is shit - as if Audrey Hepburn ever chowed down on a huge bar of chocolate.

In fact, the common thread across those three shit ads is that they feature slim women actors - hardly the target market of large servings of cheap chocolate. Imagine a chocolate ad with a fat woman lasciviously chomping down on her chosen vice - that really would be taboo busting!

SoupDragon · 05/10/2016 07:00

I don't see the connection between normalising disability and advertising chocolate Hmm

Do you struggle to see the connection between people and chocolate too? That is kind of the point - these actors are people.

AllwaysChangingLanes · 05/10/2016 07:08

I think they are fucking awsome. People with dis abilities have sex lives and laugh over them with friends just like anyone else.

SoupDragon · 05/10/2016 07:09

I would agree that the correct term is not "double entendre" though. That's something different.

Bearbehind · 05/10/2016 07:19

soup I don't see the fact that the actors are disabled as relevant, other than to the extent that the advert only works because she is.

I just don't get the need for a blatant demonstrations of wanking to sell chocolate.

I agree there's a fine line between a true double entendre or sexy models used to advertise and this advert but to me this crosses a line.

It will make for interesting conversations with kids if more adverts follow suit and they do see them Grin

OP posts:
Sugarlightly · 05/10/2016 07:31

m.youtube.com/watch?v=q2SR_3NSqic

Here are aome flake adverts

Lots of water spurting..

Ilovetorrentialrain · 05/10/2016 07:31

and ilovetorrentialrain try reading the thread a bit more closely before making your psychoanalytical comments on why I really thought it's in bad taste.

Wow! OP I am agreeing with you! No idea what that was about!

Ilovetorrentialrain · 05/10/2016 07:33

to clarify I was just wondering what you thought was in bad taste, the disability element or just the sexual reference.

I genuinely have no idea why I got that response! It's almost like a stock MN approach nowadays to be argumentative for no reason.

MoonlightMedicine · 05/10/2016 07:37

I found the blatant handjob reference really crass, whether delivered by a disabled actress or not I just think it's tasteless and unnecessary. And I'm not a prude, I just don't think it's a good way to sell chocolate!

IcedVanillaLatte · 05/10/2016 07:37

they're just eating chocolate

That would be okay but they never sodding well eat the sodding chocolate in these adverts do they? Every bloody maltesers adverts now, they just fling them around. Gives me the message "well they taste like crap so best thing is to use them as toys". The old ones were annoying, blowing maltesers over desks at each other or whatever, but the current gen, people eat one malteser, max, and lob the rest all over the room.

And the one about the nurses, where she wrecks her friend' necklace that she lent her? Surprised the friend didn't punch her in the fucking face.

SoupDragon · 05/10/2016 07:40

Surprised the friend didn't punch her in the fucking face.

Perhaps the friend isn't a violent thug.

IcedVanillaLatte · 05/10/2016 07:41

Perhaps the friend isn't a violent thug.

Hmm
MumiTravels · 05/10/2016 07:42

On a bit of a side note but can anyone remember the flora advert from last year or year before.

Mum and dad get caught 'wrestling' then come down to the brekfast table all hot, bothered and messy haired and sit and eat toast with the kids. It was in before the watershed too, all day in fact.

It was an awful advert.

BathshebaDarkstone · 05/10/2016 07:44

Wow I completely missed that it was about wanking him off! I think that's OTT for an advert.

Bearbehind · 05/10/2016 07:45

worra I was a bit confused by that actually, I wonder if the OP did mean to start out talking about the disability side being in poor taste (I don't think it is) but then that's changed to focus on the sexual reference.

ilovetorrentialrain I did think your post above was a bit odd given you'd agreed with me in the post before.

my snippy response was in reply to that quote from you. You specifically said you thought I'd maybe changed what I'd chosen to be offended about.

I'm not being argumentative, just stating I did know what I thought was in bad taste and don't need others to analyse what my intentions might actually have been Grin

OP posts:
KungFuPandaWorksOut · 05/10/2016 07:49

I haven't seen the dog and the hearing aid advert I'm going to have to youtube!

When I first seen the advert in question my DSis was in the room with me, I giggled at the advert and she asked me " why are you laughing at somebody spilling their malteasers?"
I had to rewind the advert for her and make her re-watch it a few times. I still don't think she fully got the meaning Hmm

LunaLoveg00d · 05/10/2016 07:52

It's about normalising disability

No it's not. It's about selling chocolate!

Maltesers want you to see the ad and think they are a progressive, forward looking brand because they are using people with disabilities in their adverts. Oooh, aren't Maltesers great! They are SOOO different from all the chocolate brands! Now that's a product I want to associate myself with!

Memoires · 05/10/2016 07:53

I tend to ignore adverts, use the time to make tea, get to the loo etc. This one seemed to be about a woman in a wheelchair who had a spasm (I have them) who, demonstrating the spasm sends her chocs flying.

That'/ the first meaning.

You have to actually listen and interpret her story in order to get the second meaning.

I promise you, there are two meanings.

I found the flake adverts entirely innocent, at first too.

Galdos · 05/10/2016 07:56

Crikey! I haven't seen any of the ads referred to (I don't watch much TV, and generally only the BBC - it's a childhood hang-up thing) but they sound weird. Mind you, I was in the pub the other night and the couple at the next table (early 20s?) were discussing their different STDs quite openly and audibly, and how they might manage them if they decided to shag later.

Not a conversation I thought I would ever hear in public. (Quite educational, but from my limited knowledge some of the science was wrong.) No cameras visible by the way, so not obviously a set-up.