Advertising that reinforces stereotypes.

Or, basically, almost all advertising. And this usually applies to sexual/gender stereotypes, at least in the United States, though this is mostly because racism is no longer a politically correct idea.  ^*

Just one example:

Sure, they're Played for Laughs, but...does that really excuse it? And perhaps we're supposed to laugh at the guys, but, then what about the girls?

(Also, see much of U.S. sitcoms. The Only Sane Man is usually a lone girl or woman, and is usually weak to temptations like chocolate, shopping, and fancy clothes anyway. The man is the idiot, and the boy is either a doofus or a brat. Or both. Etc.)

I recently saw a Pepto ad where there was an Asian man with a funky bow tie, pinkish dress shirt, suspenders, and a gay voice. Asians are nerds + Asians have no dicks at the same time.

Camp Gay —> lol he must be gay —> Gays have no penises, and he's Asian anyway so lol

edited 10th Jan '11 9:32:48 PM by snowfoxofdeath

The ones that have been getting on my nerves are the 5 Hour Energy ones. Men get the energy to do their high salary earning jobs all day! Women get the energy to run on the treadmill and drive the kids places.

@GMH Is it bad I thought that commercial was hilarious?

^^^ How does acting camp gay —> have no dick?

Not sure if this is the right place, but I like the Starburst ad with the Scottish Koreans.

edited 10th Jan '11 8:49:41 PM by melloncollie

No, if you were at least laughing at both sides.

@GMH Well, I laughed at the males more, but yes.

Beer advertisements have a history of sexism.

And Heineken produced what has been called the most sexist beer commercial ever in 2007.

edited 10th Jan '11 9:36:01 PM by Grain

Well, I didn't say that you had to laugh at both equally; the fridge is implied to contain items of greatly lesser financial value than the closet does.

Advertising uses stereotypes because they make advertisement easier to understand for the target audience. Also, so that they might add their product to an existing picture of what is normal and expected the target audience has. They could make advertisements that do not reinforce stereotypes (or, rather, do not reinforce particular ones) if they assume that the target audience doesn't share that particular stereotype.

I can tolerate some of the product advertisements to a low extent, but I agree with the OP's first post. Now the public service announcements are ones that really grind me.

I recall one PSA in particular that basically has a montage of a bunch of women slapping, kicking, and otherwise beating a man in each clip. The commercial then fades to black and provides some preachy statement about how you should be faithful to your significant other. If that commercial had a gender reversal, I can pretty much guarantee it would be a PSA warning against the dangers of domestic violence. When your husband or boyfriend is cheating on you, don't hit him. Be mature, gracefully leave him and find someone better. Kicking him in the testicles is not a testament to the virtues of womanhood.

Not oppressed by sexism? That's laughable

Personally, I remember a cleaning commercial in which the husband utterly screws up and requires the wife to step in and do the job.

edited 10th Jan '11 9:40:01 PM by CommandoDude

I find sexism against either gender to be quite annoying. And that's exactly it—if anything, those beer commercials stereotype men as being extreme dolts, with priorities in this order:

1. Beer.
2. Certain sports, usually including (American) football and baseball, and sometimes including hockey or auto racing.
3. Pretty women.
4. Dislike of cleaning/organizing and general preference for being a slob.

@Grain: That video bothered me. Probably because it suggested that negative male stereotypes in advertising almost exclusively affect women.

Agreed. It seems like a lot of commercials, especially beer related ones, equally portray men and women terribly. Women are nagging or childish sex objects and men are perverted idiots.

@OP: stereotypes Played for Laughs? Sure. Go for it. We should laugh at them, because they're silly.

Advertisements that use stereotypes are just leeches; they'll suck whatever blood they can get. If a certain statement sells a product, a company will use it. They really don't care.

And if people are getting their ideas about gender norms from a freakin' beer commercial, well...maybe there's a bigger problem to consider.

I loved that commercial GMH, I liked that it played on both stereotypes.

First, you have a bunch of women going nuts in the closet full of purses and shoes and such, HAHA STEREOTYPES DEM WIMMINZ LUV CLOTHES AND ARE OVERREACTING!

Then the guys roll into the fridge and are all like OMG BEER EVERYWHERE! THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME BECAUSE WE'RE MEN AND WE LUV BEER! RAAAAAAAAHHH!

It's kind of like a sexism trapdoor, you see the first part and are like "wait a minute..." and then the second part comes along and you're like "Ahh, fair play I see."

I don't think both genders being equally stereotyped makes it any better, personally. In fact, it makes it worse, because more people are adversely affected.

The biggest adverse effect of modern gender stereotypes is suppressing individuality, and setting up people who don't fit those stereotypes for problems. As an autistic woman, for example, I'm constantly finding that, despite having a secure female gender identity, I keep getting the subtle message that I'm not a real woman, because I act more like a stereotypical male than a stereotypical female.

I agree with Drunk. A company has no opinion. A company is not its leader. A company exists to make money, and you can't complain if the ads that make money reflect our own sexism.

@ Barkey: Well, the fact that it made fun of both genders was kinda amusing, but simply added chuckling to my facepalm.

Laughing while facepalming, at least, takes the edge off the pain.

I don't always watch beer commercials, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.

Also, look at your average Old Spice or Axe commercial. Now look at The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. Now back at the former. Now back at the latter. Sadly, they're not the latter. But if they eschewed vulgarity and focused on the more noble aspects of classic sexism they could sound like the latter. The sexism in the Isaiah Mustapha commercials is just... charming, somehow, in a Good Old Ways fashion.

edited 11th Jan '11 1:05:58 PM by RawPower

Sure, they're Played For Laughs, but...does that really excuse it?

Yes. Lighten up.

@Raw: Seconded.

I believe that advertising is an important part of the cultural assumptions that have utterly fucked up my sense of gender identity. Unfortunately, I don't think we can simply ban advertisements. Hell, I'm not sure we can even say "I won't buy what they advertise"—I knew a woman who absolutely hated American Apparel's ads, but still bought their clothing because she believed she was strengthening the American economy by doing so.

^^

This. If that commercial that makes fun of both stereotypes equally is taken as reinforcing those stereotypes, then you're taking a TV Commercial way too seriously.