The blogosphere is abuzz today because advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has written a public letter to Unilever, the company that owns both Dove and Axe, charging them with hypocrisy. Why? Because Dove ads promote a positive body image, and Axe ads are degrading to women.
So, my roundtable question: are Axe ads genuinely more degrading to women than your average commercial?
Obviously, the commercials are really stupid. Axe purportedly smells gross, and I doubt I would date anyone who falls for the advertising enough to buy the awful product. While I object slightly to the "questionable hook-up?" ads for the body wash, the body SPRAY ads don't offend me more than a lot of other ads that genuinely objectify women-- these ads say, "if you buy our product, women will want to sleep with you." This is not exactly a new tactic--Axe is just far more blatant about it. I'm inclined to say that the campaign is degrading to everyone--men just as much as women.
Furthermore, while it's not technically hypocriticalfor a parent company to have 'children' companies that cater to different demographics, I've always found the Dove ads themselves somewhat hypocritical. It's great that they use real-looking women, but they do so in the context of selling us semi-expensive "skin firming" cream. They're sort ofsaying that these women are beautiful, but they're also saying they need to change the way they look. I think the ads do more good than harm, because it helps adjust the atmosphere--we're constantly bombarded with the infamous Size Zeroes, so having even an occasional Size Ten puts a chink in The Man's armor*. But it's still exploitative, and still telling us our bodies are wrong, and bad, and need fixing.
So, while I applaud Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood's efforts, I'm not going to get up in arms about it. Thoughts?
*Albeit a tiny, tiny chink.
Monday, October 15, 2007
All's fair in love and advertising?
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8 comments:
Well, just because Axe is reinventing the wheel doesn't mean one shouldn't object to their ads; further, the fact that the same company also has an arm that uses a pro-women smoke screen to sell products shouldn't keep keep them free from criticism. One quasi-good deed doesn't make up for a bunch of other crap.
If we agree that the goals are good (ie trying to reduce the objectification of women in the media), then the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood's move here is a good one, and the question becomes a matter of evaluating strategy.
As a matter of strategy, it cuts both ways. On the one hand, it brings a clear example of hypocrisy to light - appearing to operate on the theory that sunshine will shame the ne'er do well into proper behavior. On the other, maybe this public slap will only cause other marketing flacks to shy away from anything like the Dove ads in the future, for fear that they, too, will get shit for their other, objectifying, efforts.
But really, I think calling Unilever to account is a good strategic move. They shouldn't be able to get credit (and Christ, did those Dove ads win them points among media critics) if they continue acting like assholes in other arenas.
All that said, I think the Axe ads are funny, and are meant to be so, and I'm overall doubtful about claims that the popular media exerts an all-encompassing mind control on the populace at large (it's a bit insulting to claim everyone but the enlightened can't think outside of the frameworks provided by advertising, for one...). But that's a discussion for another day, perhaps...
I agree with Susan. The Axe ads objectify women no more than they objectify men. In the ads, the women are the ones with the overwhelming desires, and the men are the baffled nebishes who stare somewhat fearfully at these hyper-sexed women who are ready to pounce on their boyish prey. If anything, these ads portray women in active pursuit of their desires more so than typical advertisements, which portray women as passive objects of a man's fantasy and longing.
The weird thing is, while I find these ads absurd and kind of stupid, I find them surprisingly empowering. True, these women are under a magic spell of sorts and thus, one can argue, aren't exactly acting according to their own free will. Still, I admire the media's portrayal of a sexually aggressive woman who actually intimidates her target. It's a gender-role inversion that I find entertaining in theory (Axe managed to make it annoying in practice).
@Kim:
That's an interesting point. While I'm normally not a fan of the whole "sexual women are intimidating" thing, the ads depict women as intimidating, but still desirable.
I would stop short of calling the ads empowering, but the recent articles I've found online haven't really gone into HOW the ads are degrading. It's hard to deny that they treat women as sex objects, but at least they simultaneously treat them as sex subjects.
As I said, I applaud the CCFC for their action. Barking Goose--you make great points as well. Could you go into the ways that you find the Axe ads objectionable?
(I sort of can't believe I'm defending these ads at all--I hate them, and genuinely want to hear what all of you think.)
Susan:
You're right...calling them "empowering" was taking things a step too far. I think I was reacting to the ads being called "degrading," which I consider the opposing extreme.
So let's stop talking in extremes because they're stupid and one of the primary reasons why our society is so damn irrational. Let's, rather, call a spade a spade: the commercials are stupid, but not nearly as insulting to my femininity (though certainly more offensive to my intelligence) than the average advertisement. In fact, the gender-role inversion makes them a notch better than the typical ad. Therefore, I don't believe these ads deserve criticism nearly as much as, say, almost every alcohol ad and every frozen-dinner ad that portrays women as mothers desperate to satisfy the males of the clan.
I'd also like to comment on the Dove ads: I completely agree with you, Susan. It's as if they chose heavier women simply to better target the product. Lane Bryant uses plus-size models because they know that their primary consumers wouldn't believe that the product could effectively fulfilled their needs if the people modeling the product bore no resemblance to the folks for whom the product is supposedly intended. I believe the Dove folks are merely doing the same thing: they're using heavier women because they recognize that it will more effectively sell the product. They've probably done a gazillion marketing studies that proved that women prefer to buy products modeled by women with whom they could relate. I think anyone who gives Dove credit for anything more than a well-crafted campaign is being naive, though I'm glad that Dove has tapped into this social reality. The effects of their marketing research could help resolve some of our social ailments.
I'm feisty today, ain't I? :)
@Kim
Let's hear it for feisty women!
I do think there's some sincerity behind Dove's ads--check out "Onslaught" [http://www.adgabber.com/video/video/show?id=546804%3AVideo%3A34352] and "Evolution" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U]--though the same allegations of hypocrisy can always be made about both.
Wow, so this discussion has been far more interesting than my comment was (though the original post was very thought-provoking!), so I guess now I'll have to step up my game here..
I agree that talking in extremes is dumb. That's kind of what I meant by arguing that seeing the CCFC's move as strategic is really the question...though interpreting the ads in question is also interesting.
What I meant by seeing the Axe ads as objectionable was mainly their stupidity - I mean, really, do teenage boys need any more convincing that women are irrational and that only appeals to their vanity/innate urges will make them (Axe users) attractive to women? Christ, if my siblings are any indication, most of them still think that a motorcycle is the way to score chicks.
One might also see some of the content of the Axe ads as nasty in that it portrays women as wholly beholden to lust (humping drain pipes in one example), and, as Susan mentioned, being seen as a threat because of it. Though I do take Kim's point that the gender-role inversion has some value, I think that it's less a case of inversion and more of a reversion to the other half of the binary of Western roles for women: instead of virgins, women are aggressive, seductive whores in the Axe ads.
In both cases female rationality is excluded from the realm of possibility, which is where I'd locate an objection to the ads if you pressed me on it. So they're not only one-dimensional portrayals, they're unoriginal and derivative to boot.
Gosh, I could have this conversation eternally.
Goose, how about a cup of coffee sometime? :)
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