It hit me towards the end of it that what I was watching was something I have never seen before. That may be because I don't pay any special attention to advertisement or whatever, but seeing this was, well, very surprising!
It was a Tide and Downy commercial about a father with a messy little girl who loves her princess dress. The man talks about how she wears it for days no matter how stained it gets. He then tell's us that it's his responsibility to do the laundry! All ads previous to this one that I've seen have had women in the role of caretakers of children (primarily) and as the only ones who did the laundry. I think this is incredible! Like we are coming out of a dark cave we've have been lost in since the advertisement world of the 50's made it clear that women's roles were that as housekeepers, and nothing more!
Maybe I'm overreacting, but seeing this, not even a month after women were given pass to join infantry in the army, making our army an all-inclusive one, is incredibly exciting. Is that a pretty strenuous connection to make?
There seems to be a feeling that this is just "advertisers trying to suck you in." Maybe people don't understand that: Even if advertisers are trying to "prey on what you think," changing to reflect your values is a good thing. Advertisers are trying to get as much money as possible. If they think there's a market out there for people who think that gender roles can be abandoned wholesale that means that there is a large population of people who believe gender roles should be abandoned. That is a change I want to see. Changes in advertising, as lil points out, are symptomatic! This is a good thing!
It is a very good thing, yes! AlderaanDuran gave an example of a woman who was anchored in her views toward gender roles. He also mentioned that even young people might very well have these ideas as ingrained in their minds as, say, the older generations. If more commercials like that Tide and Bounty one I saw are being produced, even if the intent is just simply avarice, they have the added effect of engendering new modes of thought into maturing audiences, which in the long run can help to disestablish centuries' old prejudices. I, for one, am very optimistic about that, as you are StephenBuckley.
khaaan says Advertising is rotting you mind and destroying your soul. It is fouled pollution of the worst kind
and yes, we must look at advertising with a deep cynicism, but at the same time these things also jump out at me. As I mentioned here following the superbowl. The cross-dressing macho men in the Doritos commercial, the Calvin Klein ad you linked, and the supermodel-nerd kiss from GoDaddy seem to imply a new direction for men in America.
While advertisers just want to sell products, they ARE changing their message. I began to see mixed race couples on cell phone commercials a few years back, black women bank managers selling bank services, long before Condaleeza Rice, and so on. These ads would not be out there if there wasn't a receptive audience. Sometimes the media reflects a trend, sometimes the media creates a trend. I'd like to hear from any of the cynics here. I could be wrong.
Gender roles are just ingrained in some people, not just advertisers, and I think they just cater to that becaue that IS their market. I've even met girls who don't like the idea of a man doing laundry or doing dishes. One of my fiancees friends apparently made the comment to her over "girls night out" last weekend that she finds it weird that I (the man in the relationship) do the dishes and laundry. It stemmed from my fiancee posting a pic of me doing dishes on Facebook, which most people responded with comments like "Lucky!" and "He's a keeper!"... but two of her girlfriends saw it as a negative, and said it was "weird" and "un-manly". I was honestly kind of shocked to hear this coming from women. Who wouldn't be happy that someone else was doing some chorse regardless of gender? Not offended at all because, wow who cares, but they apparently "wouldn't want any man they date to do that kind of stuff". I should note both of these women are single, and one of them, and I quote "I just want to find a man who can beat up my ex-husband, and fix my house." But she would be fully willing to do all of the stereotypical "womanly" duties around the house like cooking, dishes, laundry, etc, but expects the man to take care of money, the house, lawn, etc, "stereotypically manly stuff". Some people, even young people, are still very much ingrained with gender stereotypes and gender roles when it comes to relationships, chores, and life. Perhaps the media is reinforcing that, perhaps it's them just catering to their market which they've researched thuroughly, or most likely it's a little of both instigating each others existence.
As of 2011 one in 3 "primary caregivers" of children are fathers. The recession was disproportionatly hard on men and now women account for more than half the workforce. Marketers don't care. They just want your money. If there are more men doing laundry than ever before, sell those suckers detergent. I'm all for equality (shit - I watched my daughter this afternoon while my wife went to the office) but I try to avoid tying my hopes or dreams into what marketers think of me.
I tend to be pretty cynical when it comes to the motivations of marketers. Do I think that Tide and Downy see the male market as an emerging one? -Perhaps, but I'm more inclined to believe that what Downey and Tide have done is to give their target demographic a glimpse of what they think they envision as their ideal. I'll admit, I don't do any of my daughters laundry but I do make her meals, change her diapers, sing with her, play with her and take her to the park and the museum, give her baths, read to her, put her to bed etc. Point is, I'm a very involved father and partner with my wife. But my wife does my daughters laundry, I don't think she would ever like me to do it either. She's a perfectionist and has her way of doing it. -this mostly involves the "folding" part. I do all of my own laundry though but I just use whatever products my wife prefers. I would guess that there aren't a lot of fathers out there that have a say in which laundry detergent they use. Are they out there? Yes. Is their number growing? I'd bet it is. Is it a quickly enough growing segment, so big they will tailor a marketing campaign towards them? I doubt it. While I think that the household duties are definitely changing and more fathers are stay-at-home dads (I know a few) This ad is still meant for women imo. But I could be wrong in their motivations. -I hope I am. I have to say, I think my wife would go nuts being a stay at home wife and I would go nuts being a stay at home dad. It's a hard balance, but we manage.
Oh wow, I haven't seen that one. What I got from that was anyone who is a stay-at-home parent is basically occupying an effeminate role. I think it pushes sexist stereotypes even further by using a man in that one. That's definitely not what I pulled from the one I saw before. It just looks like as far as media is concerned any household position is an effeminate one. I agree that it's probably not that they are trying to cater to an emerging demographic with these ads, and it's probably no more complex than, "We need an ad commercial by the end of the month!"