Could it also be that the entire point of the exercise was not lost whatsoever, but its an internet thread wherein not every time one makes a comment it need to be a soul searching diatribe regarding gender inequality.
It may just be my opinion, but the original ads are as farcical as the gender swapped ones are. I am not one to feel threatened in my masculinity, humanity, or sense of self by any advertisement regardless of era or topic. I mostly think “someone thought THAT was the best way to market a product?”
@Barleycorn if given the choice, many couples will rationally decide for one of them to stay home and it doesn’t matter which gender it is. But if the expectation is that one of you MUST stay home and is relegated to that role without choice or input…neither men nor women are happy with it. Plenty of stay at home dads and moms are content with their role as a house-maker for sure; however, there must be a willing choice involved.
In my household, if we were to do it over again…I’d have stayed home with our 3 kids. I am better suited to being a stay at home dad, and my spouse is much more in tune with climbing a corporate ladder.
Point taken. Nor did I, really. Just saying that the ludicrous sexist BS had insidious toxic effects for a lot of regular guys as well. I was hardly a victim, but I didn’t really enjoy the advantages it gave me.
Pssst… but given the original context the role reversal is completely lost/wasted in this satire. If they want to do some satire around advertising and gender roles, they’re going to have to approach this very differently.
Pssst… the difference is the men have the freedom that the women in these eras did not to choose how this makes them feel. There’s absolutely 0% chance of harm coming from these ads.
Sure, ads feature a hopeless ideal. And most ads feature non-realistic circumstances. My favorite are the “has this ever happened to you” monuments in As Seen on TV type ads.
The ultra masculine men I pictured are also not the “norm” for the average male either - but neither are the models used for these mock ads.
If you did that, you need either both of them to exude the same levels of masculinity, or exaggerate it and have the masculine one take the female role in the vintage ads.
Honestly, I kinda like the idea of this too.
Look at me, I sound like I didn’t sleep through all my art history classes…
Indeed. Feminists have been saying this for years. Too many men do find the privileges of gender inequality too tantalizing to give up, however. Hence, here we are today.
To be honest I love those ads just for their surreal nature. I’m still not sure what the casino one is advocating, sticking your ass out at the pit boss when he asks you to leave after cheating at slots?
My favorite is the one about this incredibly plant thati’ll boot your stamina and whatever other clickbaity shit…and the plant in the picture is aloe vera. I really think these ads are designed by robots, literally just generate clickbaity title, pick word from title, google image search, pull random result. I guess this makes them marginally better than these ads because there’s no intent…? Definitely with people further up about how i would’ve helped greatly if the men in these ads were much more masculine though.
Like I said, I think it’s cute… and I’m not assuming to know exactly why it was made. All I was saying is that it’s not good satire (if that’s the point at all).
I think the original ads are a reflection of the attitudes and presumed roles at the time, etc…
when you mentioned “though provoking” I instantly thought of an entire thread filled with the back and forth of “men suck” “#notallmen” etc etc. Sort of what always seems to happen on bbs when gender inequality comes up.
Yeah, I don’t find any of the original ads nor their mockumentary gender swap versions to be much more than shrug inducing…except for the Van Heusen one…that one is great imagery to me. And it is because of the look she is giving him. It is very different than the look from the old advert.
Forgive my second reply, I deleted my other comment because it didn’t make my point very well.
It is important to examine what the “ideal” (if it could be called that) of women being unable to open ketchup and wearing heels during chores or stroking a christmas vacuum is and who it was meant to appeal to.
An ultra-masculine man would look more out of place, but might not actually convey the power dynamics of the original ads.
Any guy who doesn’t get it why the men pictured are not uber-masculine is seriously missing the point; none of the stereotypical archetypes we’ve been force-fed by our society are accurate representations of real, three-dimensional people with individual agency - they’re all meant to manipulate the viewer into feeling inadequate so they they will buy whatever product is being pushed.
You mean to say that advertising isn’t really about honestly connecting with customers participating in the true free market and value exchange of capitalism? You propose that those ads are trying to manipulate us all into feeling crappy about ourselves unless we just buy something we might not really need?
My cognitive dissonance is kicking in. It can’t be true…
I agree, but it would highlight the dichotomy of the gender swap that the parody ads are making. And in this case, they aren’t selling you anything, they are poking fun at outdated ads and ideas. Even with the gender swap, the people presented are still unrealistically beautiful people (I wish my skin was so clear), so their point (at least my take away) is less about the unrealistic ideals in the ads being absurd, but the sexist views and rigid gender roles being absurd.
