What commercials do you hate??

[Sundae]

Dana I often rage at the inherent sexism and gender assumption in adverts.
Sometimes it's just because of who they are pitching the ad at. For example there are very rarely men in adverts for supermarket clothes lines - because their customers are mothers not fathers - the familial idyll with no men in sight still jars me.

Sometimes I try reversing the genders in adverts to see if they still work - very often it makes them ridiculous. Many of them present men in roles that we'd never accept for women - apprearing clueless and bumbling and enjoying being patronised.
The Renault advert is an exception; the man escorts a beautiful woman home just because he loves driving his new car so much, not because he wants to put the moves on her. It's gender specific without being sexist imo.

Advertising paints with a broad brush. And (in this country at least) tends to bleach to white as well. You can easily tell dubbed adverts from the States (another of my bugbears) because there is more variation in skintone.

I think we're on an upwards curve though.
Watch some of the adverts from our childhood and see how we still developed our own opinions. Girls and boys today will do the same.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Sundae

Dana I often rage at the inherent sexism and gender assumption in adverts.
Sometimes it's just because of who they are pitching the ad at.

There's this reverse sexism thing going on where commercials targeted at women always have a stupid helpless husband.

I think you're right on when you say it's all about who they are pitching the ad at.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by glatt

There's this reverse sexism thing going on where commercials targeted at women always have a stupid helpless husband.

I think you're right on when you say it's all about who they are pitching the ad at.

That is the basis for a lot of the "situation TV comedies", particularly in the 80's and 90's.
My wife and I call them the "dumb daddy". (e.g., Cosby Show)

Going the other way, Lifetime Movie Channel advertises itself as the "channel for women".
But most of the films that appear there are of women being stalked,
murdered, beaten, and anything else that can feed to a woman's fear.