Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Media Circus' "best" sexist ads.

Media Circus' recent post rounds up some of the most sexist ads ever... in their words, " Anyone can make sexist ads but it takes a certain amount of focus, greed and sheer insensitivity to make ads like [these]." Well put.

You'll probably recognize the Dolce & Gabbana ad from a previous post of mine. For those of you who are lazy link clickers, I've posted one of the worst offenders (I'm not surprised by the amount of sexist beer and liquor ads, but a tech company that sells servers?). It's definitely worth a look over on their site. It's one thing to see one sexist ad here or there, but as a body of work, it makes you realize how prevalent this stuff is. More interesting were some of the reader comments on the post- all guys- some of them celebrating the imagery, and others debating whether some of the ads were
sexy or sexist. There's a definite difference, and yeah, you can have a sexy ad.

What I've also noticed is that the majority of the ads that I blog about are over the top in their sexism or use of gender roles. Sure, there are ads where you can debate is it sexy, but much of what's out there clearly crosses the line.

2 comments:

Karali said...

i dont get how this is sexist...
Can you please explain?

Jennifer said...

Well, it alludes to women performing, or not performing, oral sex. And would the ad play the same way if a guy was in the picture and not the lovely model?

There are ways it could have been way more offensive, but it still is enough to raise my eyebrows. It'd be interesting to learn where the ad was published and how long it ran for. My bet-- whatever publication didn't have a primarily female audience.