Adverts - a gripe

[tobee]

I'm so sick of seeing the same old same old style of adverts.

There's an Amazon one and a one for oven chips that are getting on my wick.

It used to be that mum would be at home with a pinny on doing the housework and cooking.

Now they have it that mum comes home from work while dad's been at home cooking, doing childcare.

But things haven't changed that much because it's always the dad that gets to roll around on the floor with the kids being the comedy "fun" parent and mum tends to be the sensible one, maybe giving an indulgent smile.

If a woman/mum is funny in an advert it's usually in a slightly grotesque over the top way. "She's gone a bit crazy"

I don't know if others agree? Maybe I'm just in a crappy mood. I think adverts are an interesting indicator of current trends that are being pushed. Companies desperate to be relevant, trying to get the zeitgeist.

The worse ad I've seen in ages was the Vicks vapo rub one where the mum rubbed the gunk into the kid's chest and then was shown to do the same to the dad's - her husband's chest. They got rid of that quite quickly.

On an adjacent point, while I'm at it, is comedy, in this country, is still heavily male centric. And women are still a bit of a token.

I feel it’s part of a wider issue of how women are seen.

I just wish adverts would stop focussing on being politically "correct" and more on selling their product. I do the cooking in our house (because I enjoy it) and I work but then again my husband does his fair share of the house-work when our cleaner isn't here. TV adverts feel very "in your face" with their political statements. I don't care whether a business is woke or not but I do care if their products are any good or not. I really do like the dishy guy in the Flash advert though. The one who gets on the floor in the cream coloured chinos and sings "flash ah-ah, it works miracles". That's discounting the annoying and banal music that's supposed to be "funny".

I just wish adverts would stop focussing on being politically "correct"

Don't worry, BigFatBully, ads* *being 'politically correct' never really caught on, it was almost always Mum doing things for a family of dependents, including the husband.

I think I remember that Vick one, was that the one where the husband is literally clinging to the wife's feet and she has to drag him around as she ministers to the family although she has flu too?

There's a Currys ad on at the moment which really annoys me, tobee ,where a harassed mother - with a husband, or at least some adult male in the chaotic kitchen - falls in love with and is swept off her feet by and rushes madly to be united with ........................
a fridge. Yes, ladeez, the answer to all your romantic, emotional and physical needs: a fridge from Currys.
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I saw this advert on SM. I know this is important as many men don't look after their health. The format still pee'd me off. Why is it always up to women? Are there adverts telling men they should be talking to their wife, Mum, sister about getting tested for health issues? No, because we sort ourselves out.

IA. Mum is always the "oh, you" supportive captive audience for the hilarious dad and his whacky antics. Re comedy - the phrase "dad jokes" really grinds my gears and epitomises male-centricity, as if only dads can crack terrible puns. By the by, my mum's the funniest person I know!

I also like the ordinary everyday family adverts where the mum's black, the dad's Middle Eastern, and the kids are all plucked from a different colour spectrum. So lifelike!

That advert!!

😱🙄

I miss the advert where the two dads pop baby in basket onto cake conveyor belt in some restaurant and forget about them so delicious is the product. It got shot down as sexist but is so true. I know two men who left their children behind in a pub - neither is called David Cameron, either. It's a male trait - they forget kids.

I agree. I think retailers (and other companies) as a whole should stop trying to tell us what to think and go back to just selling us things. It’s all disingenuous bullshit anyway. A corporate entity doesn’t have “values”, it’s not a person with thoughts and feelings. The values they purport to have are just what they think will make people like their brand, buy from them or ensure they don’t get negative publicity because they have been deemed to be engaging in “wrongthink”.

Yes, it's all so preachy these days. Companies like Ben & Jerry's involving themselves in political statements, the Dylan Mulvaney saga etc. I want to say to companies "focus on providing great products and running your business and let us decide our political/social views for ourselves."

I must be missing all the uber-PC ads, I mostly watch a bit of ordinary telly, I don't do SM - maybe that's where they all are. Maybe companies are more scared of TV-viewers' critical faculties
Every now and then there is an ad that makes you go 'yeah right' because you know that it's women who actually do that task in real life, not some dashing chap...

Things I would assume that advert was suggesting BEFORE assuming it was urging women to talk to their menfolk about prostate cancer.

• Bad Netflix follow-up to The Crown, in which Kate Middleton assumes control of Royal Family and sacks Charles, William and Mike Tindall (poor casting choices)
• The difficulties of being the only woman on the parish council in rural English communities.
• Woman mulling over invitation to join Take That's depleted line-up to 'address gender balance'.