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| This Year's Most Female-Unfriendly Super Bowl Ads |
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We all know a Super Bowl just ain’t a Super Bowl without the sexist ads. Never mind the fact that just as many women watch the Super Bowl as men, and that a lot of them especially like to tune in to watch the commercials—nope, plenty of companies remain members of the “boobies = $$$” school of thought. This year, though, the organization Miss Representation started the #NotBuyingIt hashtag on Twitter, encouraging users to point out which ads were especially demeaning to women. Here are a few of them: For Teleflora, Adriana Lima imparts some advice: “Give…” (flowers) “and you shall receive…” (sex). For Kia, Adriana Lima simply appears in a man’s dream, alongside a giant sandwich, more scantily clad babes, and a really fast car (whereas, the woman’s dream is of her being swept off her feet by a Prince Charming type and subsequently riding a horse off into the grassy distance? I’m pretty sure I’ve had dreams about giant sandwiches, but never horses and green hills). For Doritos, a girl who for some reason has nothing better to do than sit and bother her boyfriend while he watches football, can’t get him to pay attention to her. So she steals his bags of Doritos and pours them over her naked body in bed. Then the guy walks into their bedroom on the prowl for his beloved neon orange snack, makes a cartoon-jaw-drop face, and pounces on her. Huh. So that’s how to make boys pay attention to us! Why is that advice never in Cosmo? THE GODADDIES, inexplicably starring Danica Patrick, the most successful female racecar driver. 1. Left these for the end because it’s not as though anyone expected anything actually clever (or just not sexist) from them. For one GoDaddy ad, Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels paint a naked model with GoDaddy logos while explaining the benefits of a dot-CO domain. Because that makes sense. 2. In the other, Danica Patrick and the Pussycat Dolls take two gape-mouthed boys up to GoDaddy’s Internet Cloud—where she explains some stuff to them about the product but WHO CARES THERE ARE HOT WOMEN AROUND HIGH FIVE. Then, when the boys ask, “Is this…heaven?” Patrick responds, “No…this is,” while a beam of light emerges from her genitals. What do you think about these ads? If you tuned in on Sunday, were there any other ads you thought were notably offensive?
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Comments (14)
  written by Ecs, February 09, 2012
I'm pretty sure Cosmo does say you should pour Doritos on your naked self to get attention...
written by WakeUp&SmellThePepsi, February 09, 2012
Aren't these ads equally offensive to men? These companies are trying to sell their product to an audience while simultaneously implying that all that audience cares about is sex, sex, sex. Or is it okay to stereotype men this way?
written by MeganMK, February 09, 2012
No, it's not ok to paint men in this light either. We all suffer under the patriarchy!
written by carol s1, February 09, 2012
To be fair to Kia, at the end of the ad he ignores all of the other stuff and goes and gets his wife and they ride off together. I thought it was cute. Sadly they only played the whole ad once and now he just sees the girls and stuff. That's not so cute.
written by shar gorgiiss, February 09, 2012
Well, what about all the girls screaming for Motley? Was that NOT sexist? Or are we letting that one ride (pun intended) since it's a rock band, and that comes with the territory?
Despite that, I gotta admit that I'm excited the Crue is in a commercial.
written by Sarah Lawrence Hinson, February 09, 2012
I have two girls and I don't want them growing up thinking it's OK to be objectified by the media like this. OK that's the emotional argument. (They didn't like the ads, either, by the way).
Now for the business argument. Writing as a MAJOR decision maker - these ads piss me off. Really? Do advertisers still think women are in the stone age intellectually speaking? I've watched Miss Representation and I know how powerful the female decision-making demographic is. Whoever created this ad made a really, really, bad business decision. You better check out #notbuyingit on twitter to see what more than 50% of your audience really thinks.
written by TheDiscerningBrute, February 09, 2012
I was hoping the Go Daddy commercials would involve the killing of elephants. That always sells domain names. That or genitals radiating with the light of 1000 computer screens.
All of the men depicted are awful also. It seems like every commercial portrays men as perpetual toddlers incapable of parenting cooking or cleaning, glued to televisions, ignoring their families, and taking pride is being total asshole. This crap is a bad deal all around.
written by Emma Larkins, February 09, 2012
I'm almost not even offended anymore. All I can think of is how much money these companies are wasting with outdated, inane advertising strategies.
I don't watch a lot of television, but the other day I really took some time to pay attention to the commercials. At best, if done well, they provided me with 30 seconds of minimally painful entertainment. At worst, I wanted to buy the products even less after seeing the ad. Most people don't buy things based on obviously faked testimonials or outright lies. If I want to get a product type that I don't have a lot of knowledge about, I'll go to the Internet to get some honest comparisons of the pros and cons for various brands. Okay, so that doesn't help big companies trying to rake in profits, but there is plenty of innovation that could be done to help companies connect with their users. In our culture, people want and need to buy things on a regular basis. Pointing us to the right things to buy shouldn't make us want to stab our eyes out.
written by Karli, February 09, 2012
I think this the reason why companies put these silly ads out there: a large number of the (mostly male) populace are, sadly, stupid and have a bad taste. These are the one that will like and respon to these dumb ads. If this didn't work on them, companies would not create them.
 written by Teresa Jusino, February 09, 2012
I think dismissing the power of advertising is a bit short-sighted. After all, we just sat down to watch a bunch of ads on purpose and NOT in the context of watching something else. And even though we were watching them specifically to pick them apart...we're talking about them. Some of us might even email them to other people being all "Can you BELIEVE how sexist this is?" And then THOSE people will be talking about them.
People love to talk about how advertising "doesn't work," but it works better than you think. Advertising isn't about getting you to buy a product. It's about getting you to talk about a product. It's about getting brands in people's heads so that later, when they're in the store, and they're buying a thing they were already going to buy (like chips), and they have a choice between several brands, they'll choose a name they remember (like Doritos). Commercials aren't designed to make you buy something you wouldn't have bought already, they're targeted to a specific kind of person who would buy this thing, trying to get them to remember a brand name. My problem isn't that these commercials were geared to men who might fantasize about scantily clad women, driving fast, and impressing Motley Crue. Because many do, and there's nothing wrong with that. My problem is that there were no commercials that marketed specifically to women in a way that makes them feel included. My problem is that these are the ONLY ads available for these products. I'm not mad that these commercials exist. I'm mad that commercials geared to me DON'T exist.
written by Tim M., February 09, 2012
Blah, blah, blah. Isnt there something better to write about than another article whining about how women are degraded on television? Seriously, people. Men are discriminated against as well, but you dont see articles like this about it. Why? Cuz, that would be sexist, wouldnt it? Someday, and I truly hope its soon, people are going to realize part of being treated equally in a society is treating others equally. Pretty simple notion, but one that many dont seem to grasp........especially the writer of this article.
written by Selenie G, February 10, 2012
Actually the most offensive commercial to me was the Chevy truck commercial where no women survived the end of the world...how were these guys gonna propagate? I would've preferred a. Chevy truck full of bikini babes than no women at all. I think Teresa J hit the nail on the head. And Tim let us bitch ok. There are male-centric websites and if men wanna bitch about how they're portrayed get to it!
written by Laurenne, February 10, 2012
So the Super Bowl commercials bother the folks at BUST, but not the super anti-feminist show Toddlers and Tiaras? How am I supposed to take anything BUST says seriously when you pick and choose the things you decide to get upset about? If you're going to write feminist blogs, it's either all or nothing. You can't say Super Bowl ads are wrong because "boobies=$$$", while in the same breath saying it's okay to watch a show that teaches this to little girls just because they're SO CUTE! Come on BUST, you sound like a big bunch of hypocrites.
written by RebekahSM, February 11, 2012  A colleague of mine was able to "live" as a professional softball player for two years just barely paying her bills. As it is, professional sports are a very unfriendly place for women. This is why it saddens me so to see Jillian Michaels and Danica Patrick stoop as low as they have. These women are supposed to be role models for young women. So the answer is "if you can't beat 'um, join um'?" Why aren't these women refusing to be part of the machine that crushes the female spirit? It really hurts, Jillian and Danica. I thought more highly of you...
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