Gender Stereotypes in Advertising - The Big Game

Every year the Superbowl of advertising is, well, the Superbowl. Many of the ads that aired in this year's Superbowl had rampant gender stereotypes but not all were 'offensive'. There were also a few ads that gender stereotyped men, a group not usually vocal about offensive ads. So where is the line between acceptable, tasteless, and offensive use of gender stereotypes in an ad?

 One of the most offensive was Axe's commercial Lifeguard. It not only portrays women as helpless but also that they are objects of rescue. It implies that to repay being saved a woman is expect to fall in love with her rescuer, typical knight in shining armor.

Verdict: tasteless, because ultimately it seems as if the ad is parodying the knight in shining armor gig with the astronaut showing up at the end. But regardless are they using gender stereotyping to deliver their message: yes.

Kate Upton washes the Mercedes CLK in slow-motion. I don't even understand this commercial. It's almost like they didn't even try. This is how I imagine the ad meeting going: "What will sell cars?" "I dunno, boobs?" "I don't know, isn't that a little classless?" "What about boobs in slow motion with super cheesy Vegas stripper music?" "Sure, seems legit."

 

Verdict: tasteless, offensive, and not funny. This commercial is like a dead horse that Mercedes decided to put lipstick on. The genre is old, offensive, not clever, and only appeals to teenage boys on Reddit.

Now here is a curveball, a commercial that gender stereotypes men as stupid, laughable (by squirrel standards at least), and overweight.

 

Verdict: funny, not offensive (to me at least) but still uses gender stereotypes to sell its product. Did you catch that the woman could eat as much chocolate as she wanted?