This is a follow-up to my blog post from Friday.
I didn’t end up watching the Super Bowl yesterday, but my partner watched it at a friend’s house and he brought along the End-It Bingo sheet (created by Riverview Center which I found on the Men’s Anti-Violence Council blog).
My partner and his friends took the Bingo card seriously. Not only did they make a mark each time a commercial fit into a category, but they noted which company’s commercial warranted the mark. They marked off almost all of the squares on the sheet and added a few more categories. “Street harassment” became a category when Pepsi Max included it in one of their commercials.
Overall, my partner felt that the companies that produced the most offensive ads were Go-Daddy (no surprise there), Sketchers, and Pepsi Max. He said he was the most surprised by the Sketchers commercial, saying, “I didn’t think they’d take footwear to that extreme.” When I read through his Bingo card today, I saw that he wrote Pepsi Max the most times in the various boxes. Thumbs down to these companies!
I wasn’t sure how my partner’s friends would react to the Bingo sheet since it would bring up serious subjects during a fun event. But they were really supportive and actively participated. My partner said the Bingo card got them all thinking critically about the commercials and noticing how companies were trying to sell products. It also made them more aware of and appreciative of the companies that didn’t have to resort to violence or sexism in their commercials (the Volkswagen commercial with the kid in the Darth Vader mask was a big hit).
What were your thoughts about the commercials? Did you use the Bingo card?
patrick says
I venture to say that darth vader commercial was sexist in its portrayal of gender roles. Mom is seen at home making a sandwich. Dad is seen coming home from work wearing a tie, in a brand new car, then entertains the child with lavishness. That commercial is all sorts of things, but not cute.
Mark says
Sounds like maybe patrick is more of a star wars fan. Equality means that the mom can make a sandwich. If all commercials had people in non-conforming gender roles (so dad is washing clothes in all the tide commercials and mom is always under the car working on something in the chevy commercials) wouldn’t there be a negative reaction to that depiction, as well? I understand how you can feel like you’re being continually presented with stereotypes, but I’d agree with the post that the star wars VW commercial was cute. For all we know, today was mom’s day telecommuting day and she owns her own engineering firm. The other issue may be that I heard there’s an “extended cut” commercial. I haven’t seen that, but perhaps that included more opportunities to offend. So, you’re right in that mom didn’t have to be depicted making a sandwich. But, I think it’s a bit much to let that un-cute the entire commercial.
b says
We watched a bunch of these commercials on the YouTube b/c we didn’t get to see them live, and I was particularly incensed by the Go Daddy and Pepsi Max ones. There was another one that probably didn’t seem super sexist to a lot of people but that I thought was just wildly offensive. Now I can’t find it again, but suffice to say, I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the guys won! Thumbs up to them for playing sexism bingo during the SuperBowl too!!