Men Who Complain About Advertising

[NickAndNora]

After seeing yet another thread derailed by a dick-wielding troll complaining about the way men are portrayed in advertising I thought we should get this over and done with once and for all.

1 - If the biggest thing you have to complain about in life is advertising, or having to wear a tie to work, then you are really, really privileged and lucky. Sean Penn isn't going to star in a searing biopic articulating your struggle any time soon. You are not Spartacus. You are not Rosa Parks. Boo boo fucking hoo.

2 - Most advertising is sexist, manipulative and patronising towards women. Because you are not a woman this is invisible to you and you don't give two shits. You only see the minority of ads that sexualise or patronise men.

3 - The advertising you complain about is not made by feminists and probably not even made by women. It is made by the men who run advertising companies for the men who run companies that wish to advertise. If you don't like it tell them.

4 - The advertising you complain about does not espouse feminist ideology. Feminism is not an inversion of patriarchy, with the world existing as it does now except with women at the top. Feminism is about living under a completely different value system. The sexist fuckwits who make these adverts believe the way to appeal to women is to show women 'empowered' by behaving like sexist men. The men who make these adverts have no clue about women and no clue about feminism, hence the inverted sexism of the adverts.

Can we get back to discussing violence, the justice system, financial independence, the system of gender and other important stuff now or do we need to hold your hand while you cry into your wank-cloth about the Diet Coke ad for the hundredth time?

I will say that Zammo has stuck in my brain forever as has the Kwik Fit jingle so good job on the anti-drugs message, Beeb.

I'm sure I and others have said this before, but the Diet Coke ad is not reverse sexism because it depicts female office workers objectifying an attractive-looking male builder. It objectifies (attractive young) women drooling over a man. Drink this, and a bunch of hot chicks will rush to the window with their tongues hanging out Like the guy who has just put on the right kind of aftershave so a mostly-naked woman is sliding all over him, or, going back a LOT of decades, has just lit the right kind of tobacco so has an entire town's-worth of women running after him like a better-looking Benny Hill, the message is that using this product will render you irresistible to women. It's not "reverse" anything, it's just the old cliché that Sex Sells.

It seems to me that there is a difference between for instance an advert in Vogue for a razor, showing a woman in underwear, and an advert in Nuts, for an energy drink showing a woman in underwear.

I think that saying that women's magazines objectify women, while selling products to women for use while semi-dressed is incorrect.

I assume they just flick through the magazine and see pics of half-naked women and don't actually look at what the advert is selling and whether the woman being naked is relevant or not.

Anniegetyourgun. Is the coke ad not a reversal of the lynx ad, fit young of one sex being lusted after by a group of fit young of the other sex ?

Zazzles. I am in my late 40's and wouldn't say I'm sexist (but then I would say that wouldn't I?), are you sexist ?

Can't believe my Grange Hill comment was taken so seriously.

Is the coke ad not a reversal of the lynx ad, fit young of one sex being lusted after by a group of fit young of the other sex ?

But that's the same message, ie use our product and the opposite sex will go wild for you. (Same sex relationships haven't really caught on in the mainstream advertising world yet for some reason.) It is more than a little ludicrous when applied to soft drinks, but to be fair, the Diet Coke ad doesn't seem intended to be taken seriously.

Anniegetyourgun. Yes it's the same message but you said the coke ad objectifies women, if so then the lynx ad must objectify men ?

Um, no. The lynx advert says the same thing... that you use this product and you will become irresistible to women, it's really explicit about it as well. It doesn't objectify men. It objectifies women.

Maybe. I probably haven't seen the advert you're talking about. Is this a Lynx product used by women so that men stare at them out of windows? Got a Lynx link?

Anyway, my point was that the existence of the Diet Coke ad does not prove that women are not objectified in advertising. They still have to be young, painfully thin with massive hair and teeth, immaculately turned out, and unable to resist the lure of any man who uses The Product. Same boxes ticked. Not a reverse.

Anyway, I doubt you'll find anyone on here trying to argue that reverse sexism is A Good Thing. Objectification isn't healthy for anyone.

Ah, thanks Puffin, I suspected as much.

The Lynx ads tend to show a more nerdy type being stampeded by women in bikinis.

So who is the object?

H'o-kayyy. So on one hand we have: bloke who has used product, being ogled by women through the window because using product makes him so attractive. And in a 180-degree reversal we have... bloke who has used product, being grabbed by women on the beach because using product makes him so attractive. I'm sorry, the oestrogen must have fogged my brain because I am actually struggling to see what the difference is.

The difference is that the bloke in the diet coke ad is stereotypically hunky and the bloke in the lynx as is not.

The women in both ads are stereotypically gorgeous, young and in tight clothes, though they are skimpier in the lynx ad.

"Can't believe my Grange Hill comment was taken so seriously."

Careful- you are among humourless feminists........

The comment was said in the same tone as the rest of the post, so I took it seriously

"The comment was said in the same tone as the rest of the post, so I took it seriously

Yep, me too. What with this being quite a serious subject and all.......

Thank you, Yonic.

From this I conclude that Lynx is a more powerful product than Diet Coke, because the latter can only make women eye up men who were already conventionally attractive. Yes, I can clearly see how this makes a nonsense of any claims that the advertising industry is sexist. Or er...

Re Grange Hill: you set up a straw man, someone is going to set light to it. It's the way of the world.

Boom

I luffs mumsnet

The Lynx and DC ads are falsely equivalent. Not that I like the DC ad at all but the women in it are still very attractive and polished looking whilst the Lynx guy is ugly.

The message to men is that any man - no matter how unattractive - can dream of having a shot at hot women (which is what porn is for) whilst a woman still needs to make herself gorgeous even if she is just dreaming.

This contributes to differing senses of entitlement. Women never think they're good looking enough even for men who are beneath them in looks. But men are told to aim high regardless of their own attractiveness.

I am a copywriter and have seriously consisted sending agencies my cv with the words " what your agency needs is a feminist" across the top. Because it is so clear that these advertising agencies knownothing about feminism and are blithering about trying to empower women and getting it wrong time after time. I have even considered seeing up a consultancy service for ad men who just don't get it!

Apologies for typos.... that looks bad when you consider my profession!

it's fine, whatdoes, you're off duty!

But advertisers don't actually want to empower women though - they want to sell stuff, and often it's about generating insecurity to sell products.