Our reader, Elizabeth A., drew our attention to this ad and she does a great job of describing what, exactly, is so disturbing about it:
The sexism at work here is nothing new. It's just your tired, old, run-of-the-mill objectification of women as inanimate objects [robots] whose sole purpose is to sacrifice their own desires so that they may cater to the tastes [for draught keg contents] of the implied male viewer. In fact, the image in the commercial of a woman emptying herself for a man while keeping a constant smile is actually a disturbing reification of many women's experience. Socialized to abnegate themselves, women may try and try to please other people, draining themselves of energy, until they are as empty as used beer cans. While the images used here are distractingly sexy, the underlying message is a terrifying turn-off, yet another example of how Heineken's execs underestimate their target audience [hey, hetero men, you don't want female companionship, just a fembot-like servitor!], insult women and leave everyone feeling demoralized and worse for wear.More from Elizabeth at her blog: Blog of Stench.
3 comments:
April 14, 2008 at 5:57 PM
To me it kind of seemed intended for the male viewer who drinks too much of their product by preying on their desire for the creation and perfection of actual, literal fembot servitors since overconsumption has likely rendered them physically and intellectually unattractive to real live women, or at least to women who think a man who desires a beer keg he can copulate with is freakin' weird.
Significant capital is actually being invested toward precisely that goal (realistic sex-bots), and there will be much to discuss if/when male or female "dolls with benefits" (and maybe artificial intelligence to spice things up) become widely available.
April 14, 2008 at 7:15 PM
I think that's being overthought. I think it's just a commercial by someone who said "Hey. I like girls. I like beer. I like robots. Let's put them together."
There are plenty of commercials of men serving alcohol and acting sexually and they're rarely commented on. I'm a straight woman and I see this commercial and I think it's a cool looking fembot giving me beer, that's really awesome. I don't think that's sexist. I think that's putting lots of things people like into one flashy commercial.
April 15, 2008 at 3:20 AM
I love Elizabeth's use of somewhat obscure latin cognates. 'reification' in particular gives me a frisson of fifth-declension-memorization flashbacks. 'servitor' and 'abnegate' are pretty cool as well.
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