John Lewis and it’s ‘gender relaxed’ ad

[SouthernFashionista]

Curious to hear thoughts on the new ad from John Lewis. It strikes me as sinister. Why does a small child have to send out a message of LGBTQ equality? Why is he acting like a drag queen.

Do you not think it's weird for a load of grown ups to encourage a child to act like a sexy adult woman? I mean, that's weird? Come on?! If that's not weird, what is?

@Wroxie

I wonder if everyone is aware that there never was a moose loose around the hoose, either. It was all made up to be funny and to get people talking and make them remember the product! Wild, isn't it?

Huh?

I dont know what this means.

You're telling me nobody has seen a kid play dress up or behave badly before?

Yes, I am pretty sure we have all seen men behaving badly. However I think this is the first time it has been celebrated in a John Lewis Ad as self expression.

I feel like people are taking this advert WILDLY out of proportion. You're telling me nobody has seen a kid play dress up or behave badly before?

Playing dress up isn't what this kid was directed to do though.

Did you read the description from Stop it Now?

The pouting, arm draped up the wall and hip jutting behaviour shown in the advert would definitely fall under ‘mimicking sexual flirting behaviour too advanced for age’ which is an amber category behaviour for the child in the adverts age group which they advise requires a response from a protective adult, extra support and close monitoring.

The kid was being told to mimic behaviour that irl constitutes 'amber category behaviour'.

It wasn't an accident. It was deliberately directed behaviour in an advert beamed out to the public.

@Three0fivepointfour

OMG. It is the Minipops! I was a child, 8/9/10 when they were on but even then my frie da and I knew it was wrong!

For those who are to young to remember them, I think

You're telling me nobody has seen a kid play dress up

Oh good straw man there given no one has said that.

or behave badly before?

And another good strawman there - as no- one has said that.

Tbh I can't recall my own son deliberately destroying another child's toys but if he had you could bet everything you own neither I nor his father would be sitting like a lump of wood going" oh well, that's just what children do"

@scarpa

Oh I'm not saying it was funny, *@KimikosNightmare* - just that it's not remotely outside the boundaries of normal (if naughty) childhood behaviour, and comparing it to cases of women being strangled to death during sex is deeply, deeply weird.

I wouldn't call it 'bullying' either, to be honest - for a start, you see one instance of a kid being a little shit, which isn't bullying, and I can't think of a single kid I know who hasn't done something deliberately mean (and/or destructive) to their sibling at some point. I chopped my sister's Barbie hair off once cos she annoyed me. She coloured in Robbie Williams' eyes on my Take That diary. It wasn't bullying, it was just thoughtless, mean kid behaviour.

I feel like people are taking this advert WILDLY out of proportion. You're telling me nobody has seen a kid play dress up or behave badly before? I've got a photo of me and my cousin, about 7 years old - he's wearing a princess dress with his hand on his hip, posing, and some expertly applied blue eyeshadow (my handiwork) and I'm wearing a cat costume. We weren't a fucking safeguarding risk or a trans allegory, we were being children.

There are so many points sailing over your head I'm surprised you're not deafened by the whooshing noise. I can't be bothered unpicking any more of your post as that would just sail over your head too.

The best bit is that Scarpa thinks this is all normal behaviour from a child...... urm OK. Bet tidying up your house at the end of the day is fun.......

So many TRAs on Twitter claiming that what is depicted in the advert is just normal childhood behaviour.

Explains a lot I guess....

I chopped my sister's Barbie hair off once cos she annoyed me. She coloured in Robbie Williams' eyes on my Take That diary. It wasn't bullying, it was just thoughtless, mean kid behaviour.

So why is it depicted in the ad as joyful and just a child 'just expressing themselves', something to celebrate?

If either of my kids ever did any of the stuff that kid is doing, especially at 8 or 9 years old ffs, they would be in seriously deep shit.

Response from John Lewis.

Disappointed the conspiracy theories aren't true and it's just boring, predictable misogyny.

@Franca123

The best bit is that Scarpa thinks this is all normal behaviour from a child...... urm OK. Bet tidying up your house at the end of the day is fun.......

No offspring in this house, the only mess comes from me!

@Franca123

Do you not think it's weird for a load of grown ups to encourage a child to act like a sexy adult woman? I mean, that's weird? Come on?! If that's not weird, what is?

I think it's weird that you're reading that as 'sexy adult' behaviour, to be honest.

@Thefartingsofaofdenmarkstreet

I chopped my sister's Barbie hair off once cos she annoyed me. She coloured in Robbie Williams' eyes on my Take That diary. It wasn't bullying, it was just thoughtless, mean kid behaviour.

So why is it depicted in the ad as joyful and just a child 'just expressing themselves', something to celebrate?

If either of my kids ever did any of the stuff that kid is doing, especially at 8 or 9 years old ffs, they would be in seriously deep shit.

Yeah, fair enough. Same with the first one they did with the little girl - if that'd been me as a child, my mum wouldn't have been like, oh what a joyful child, let's just claim on the home insurance! It'd have been a stern warning and cleaning it up myself. But whether or not the ad should be trying to portray if as fun or cute, it's not inherently sinister or unusual for kids to behave badly - the message is clearly (to me), in an exaggerated way, that kids and life are rarely neat and perfect and that when things happen you want good home insurance to deal with it.

Not, as you'd assume from this thread, that wilful criminal damage by your bullying and overly sexualised (?) child should be tolerated and that everyone lives in fear of their five year old boys and you should insure yourself lest their terrorise your homes.

@KimikosNightmare

You're telling me nobody has seen a kid play dress up

Oh good straw man there given no one has said that.

or behave badly before?

And another good strawman there - as no- one has said that.

Tbh I can't recall my own son deliberately destroying another child's toys but if he had you could bet everything you own neither I nor his father would be sitting like a lump of wood going" oh well, that's just what children do"

Well, no. And nor did my parents when my sister and I did mean or destructive things - we got a bollocking and were told to make it right (in an age appropriate way - give your sister one of your own babies, or clean off the marks off their Take That diary, to use my examples). We weren't encouraged to do it and we were given appropriate consequences.

If you want to argue the ad is showing poor behaviour from a child in a positive light, fine. I've no argument there.

What I think is utterly bizarre is people acting as though this child (in a clearly stylised, exaggerated advert designed to show the messy unexpected stuff that happens in your home, hence the need for insurance) is somehow a symbol of: bullying, patriarchal control of five year olds over their cowering mothers, wildly unusual behaviour for a small child, pro-trans allegories, anti-trans allegories, sexualising of children, or anything else.

More point missing.

Actually the ad is saying exactly what you say it isn't. The whole point of the ad is one doesn’t need to worry about such brattish behaviour because it's covered by insurance.

I'm not by the way "gender- critical". My objections to this advert is I'm expected to celebrate brattish, destructive, bullying behaviour as expressing the child's identity and something to be joyful about.

patriarchal control of five year olds

He is not a 5 year old. He is I understand 8 or 9. Is there anything which hasn't sailed over your head?

@KimikosNightmare

More point missing.

Actually the ad is saying exactly what you say it isn't. The whole point of the ad is one doesn’t need to worry about such brattish behaviour because it's covered by insurance.

I'm not by the way "gender- critical". My objections to this advert is I'm expected to celebrate brattish, destructive, bullying behaviour as expressing the child's identity and something to be joyful about.

Oh I agree, it's misleading and will probably land them in hot water when people get mad at them due to being unable to claim for the same stuff the ad shows. I worked in advertising for a long time, including very briefly on TV ads - I'm not sure how someone didn't stop them before they got to the point of implying that wilful childhood destructiveness is covered by insurance when (I presume) it's not.

I'm not saying it's a good advert, I'm just baffled at some of the absolutely wild interpretations of it on this thread. Some posters seem to think that they're showing a child doing something so out of the realms of normal that it's sinister - my argument is that (whether covered by JL insurance or not), plenty of children do stupid destructive things at times.

Scarpa it honestly just sounds like you know very little about children. You can't accurately guess this child's age, you can't recognise this sexualised behaviour as off and you can't see that willfully breaking stuff is not typical to this degree or by this age. Why have you waded into something you so clearly know nothing about?

@KimikosNightmare

patriarchal control of five year olds

He is not a 5 year old. He is I understand 8 or 9. Is there anything which hasn't sailed over your head?

That's an important point.

A younger child in the 2-5 age range would work better - that boy is obviously old enough to know he's trashing the place. Toddlers going mad - unintentional damage - fine, would be fun to watch.

But maybe JL thought the pouting and posing that they clearly wanted for some reason would be too obviously creepy in that age group?

I think that is a good point. I can imagine they had the idea and conceived of a little child having a tantrum. But then they thought let's be fashionable and bring in drag. No one wanted to say no, as that's transphobic and they ended up with this dogs dinner.

@Franca123

Scarpa it honestly just sounds like you know very little about children. You can't accurately guess this child's age, you can't recognise this sexualised behaviour as off and you can't see that willfully breaking stuff is not typical to this degree or by this age. Why have you waded into something you so clearly know nothing about?

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

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 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.

I get the comment about 'to that degree' but because it's TV, scenarios are often exaggerated. Like how using a particular brand of tampon doesn't make you strut everywhere for the rest of the day like you're on a catwalk and like people don't walk around exaggeratedly sniffing their clothes and sighing happily when they use fabric softener, adverts often show exaggerated or stylised versions of actual things for visual impact. Take a thing, turn it up to 11. No, I can't imagine a kid would go on a rampage through a house flinging shoes about and flicking photos on the wall and chucking glitter all in one go - but one of those things wouldn't be bizarre or unusual behaviour (or at least in myself and cousins at that age, and in my niblings/other kids I know), it's just that it's being exaggerated for TV.

Don't think I need to be a child behaviourist to be able to have an opinion on any of those things and I happen to think you're wrong on some of them. The nice thing about a public forum is that you're allowed to share your views, and it's broadly assumed that you can mentally add the words "...in my opinion!" to the end of the vast majority of posts - including mine, and yours.

Absolutely awful. What on earth were there ad development people thinking.

Wrong messages on just about every level.

Makes me quite disgusted about shopping there.

Actually, the main terrible message is that females have to let males behave however they wish, 'just let it happen', and repair the damage afterwards.

For me, the sex of the child and the fact that he’s wearing clothing associated with the opposite sex is largely irrelevant.

I hate anything that sexualises children. I find beauty pageants for young girls just as tasteless as I find drag for young boys. I would find it equally grim if it was a girl acting the same way.

The main problem is that he isn’t getting carried away and not noticing he’s making a mess (as I believe was the case with the earlier advert). It’s very clear that making the mess is his entire point. He’s reveling in destruction.

Indeed I think one of the major problems with some modern parenting is the failure to understand the difference between activity that results in accidental breakages which should be dealt with as being thoughtless behaviour they will likely grow out of (having fun with a football inside and dancing or climbing on things would come under this heading) and deliberately destructive behaviour, which is very different from thoughtlessness and which, if left unchecked, is likely to result in criminality.

Both behaviours should be kept in check, but there’s a major difference between lack of foresight and lack of respect.