Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel— 4 rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. 5 For in this manner, in former times, the holy women who trusted in God also adorned themselves, being submissive to their own husbands,
— 1 Pet 3:3-5 (NKJV)
My wife described the message of the following Pantene commercial as “Don’t say sorry and have pretty hair”. What struck me about it is how it is the direct opposite of what the Apostle Peter tells us is pleasing to God.
It strikes me that feminists like to promote every interaction as inherently adversarial. It’s as though they feel that life is one big fight. This probably explains how eager they are to turn on one another (if you read their trashy media, you’ll note they fight among themselves at least as often as they fight for their positions against other).
This is a very childish, infantile ideology, and it approaches paranoia: the position that everyone is “out to get me”.
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Boxer,
Indeed. These are all common everyday interactions. One imagines a man not even thinking about them at all.
What’s annoying is men do this all the time too. I’ve stopped myself from doing it and replacing it with “Excuse me”
“Sorry not sorry” is just bitchy.
In all these depicted interactions, “Sorry” is the functional equivalent of “excuse me”, which is something I say all the time. I have never found it demeaning to be polite, but then I’m not an entitled, empowered wimminz…
Pantene makes men weaker. Now I know my problem. My wife is such a long-valued customer, going through 4 oz. per full shampoo, that she is some kind of beta tester for them, seriously. They send her 8 oz. “trial size” in return for her feedback, all the time.
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“It strikes me that feminists like to promote every interaction as inherently adversarial. It’s as though they feel that life is one big fight.”
Bingo. That’s exactly what feminism is, both in theory and in practice – a never-ending fight against “the patriarchy.” They see the patriarchy in everyone and every thing they come into contact with, so it all falls victim to their wrath.
The messages:
1) selflessness is oppressive
2) women are victims
3) so be
bitchyselfishAnd implied, of course, “men are to blame for all of this” and “it’s us vs. them.”
It’s tough being male these days, for reasons we’re all aware of, but it’s just as tough being female. They are constantly bombarded with this self-destructive worldview. Resistance requires divine assistance.
And this is why my family doesn’t watch TV (we just watch movies/shows on DVD) — total control over what we watch, and no commercials.
I’ll do you one better Dalrock:
Enjoy your weekend.
“It strikes me that feminists like to promote every interaction as inherently adversarial. It’s as though they feel that life is one big fight.”
This is why feminists can never be happy, which subtracts from their femininty.
Just wanted to point out that the goal (explicit or implicit) of any advertising is to create or exploit dissatisfaction. So feminazi rhetoric is a natural fit for Madison Ave. 🙂
Ugh. As I was saying, Elspeth, constant bombardment.
Somehow I have my doubts that a feminist in her old age, alone and miserable, will be consoled by the memories of stuffing her face with greasy burritos. But that’s the
bullshitmagic of advertising.8oxer refers to feminists
This is a very childish, infantile ideology, and it approaches paranoia: the position that everyone is “out to get me”.
Well, it is an ideology that derives from Marxism, you know…
As Shulamth Firestone made very clear in her rant Dialectic of Sex.
I’ve reached the point, after years of observation, where I consider ALL advertising in electronic media to be, by default, some combination of insulting, mendacious, nihilistic, and juvenile, pandering to the basest of human instincts. For this reason I pay no attention to it, unless some rare gem that is the polar opposite of what I just described should emerge to catch my attention. I have yet to witness any such phenomenon and probably never will.
Boxer says,
In all these depicted interactions, “Sorry” is the functional equivalent of “excuse me”, which is something I say all the time
There is little to add to this – I usually say “Pardon me” to mean the same thing. I’m not actually asking to be pardoned for some transgression any more than the women in the commercial are expressing actual remorse for some transgression: it’s just a social convention when you have to interpose yourself into a conversation or you encounter trivial accidental physical contact.
Manners are grease on the wheels of civilization, sweetheart – you’re not “Bowing to the Patriarchy” or “Internalizing your Oppression” by being polite.
The problem is that these women have bought into the idea that their gold-plated, bubble-wrapped lives filled with goods and services – provided mostly by men – is somehow oppressive to them, and that the merely polite phrase “I’m Sorry” means that they have actually internalized guilt feelings for born female in… teh Pay-Tree-Ark-Eeeee!
Who would you rather be: the pretty young brunette in the air conditioned office… or these guys
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCLJhxfj608)
Yeah… modern American women are soooooo oppressed.
@Dalrock
Good Post Mister “D”.
“”What struck me about it is how it is the direct opposite of what the Apostle Peter tells us is pleasing to God””
After the last 2 posts of yours I went and bought a New Testament Bible.There were so many NT quotes in the last 2 posts from commenters that I could not keep up! Been about 20 years since I even picked up the NT. The irony is that when I went into the Christian Bookstore to purchase it the salesman recognized me. He was a little dumbfounded as to why a Jew was purchasing a copy of the NT? I explained to him “for reference within a ‘Christian Manosphere Blog’ that I read”….He replied..”Really?….sounds good….give me the site address”…..L*
[D: Thank you.]
@MarcusD
Have yourself a great Canada Day Weekend my Canuck friend!
So rather than being demure (whatever your view of this is), they’re told to “be strong and shine” by… being rude… and in the case of hogging the blankets, being selfish?
Pardon me, excuse me, sorry, do you have a minute, etc….these are politeness, manners, and class.
Leave it to feminists to take a word out of context and say it’s apologizing.
Marco Rubio, supposedly a Republican, is staking his claim as 2016 White Knight In Chief to Stanton’s Heroes. He spends 9:00-16:00 of his latest video going through a litany of goodies he seeks to provide to “abandoned” (3:56) Single Momz. (So-con Cal Thomas was on Twitter today endorsing this video)
earl
Leave it to feminists to take a word out of context and say it’s apologizing.
Well, when one looks a the world solely through the lens of “oppressor / oppressed”, any gesture of any sort of humanity by the “oppressed” to the “oppressor” can be castigated as submission to evil, or at least prolonging the oppression.
Nothing new in this, by the way, back in the 1980’s I knew a older male feminist who regularly insisted that it was oppression for women to smile. His line was: A woman’s smile is like a black man’s shuffle where “shuffle” was intended to be a subdued, submissive way of walking, in the Jim Crow era South. It was not the first or last time that I heard an attempt to equate male-female relations with segregation, by the way, a notion that has pretty much always struck me as both ludicrous and extremely condescending, not to mention historically ignorant.
But I digress…
PS: If I remember rightly he also insisted that the shaving of body hair was oppression as well. No idea what he would make of the modern “wax everything below the eyelashes” style.
Once again I thump the tub of “swimming in feminism”, the above vid links being more examples.
We can dispute and discuss all we want, but advertising and other parts of pop culture are shoving the party line at us, all of us, continuously. Some will chose to engage the culture, and some will just Go Their Own Way. There’s not necessarily a need for consistency in this regard – few are ready to become Amish – but there should be a plan, a goal, an objective in mind. Fighting with culture vultures for its own sake can be a huge waste of time and energy, retreating can leave people around us without an alternate view to be exposed to. And those with children under protection must choose a more active path than those otherwise situated.
The superiour man knows when to fight the culture, and when to withdraw from it.
Time to re-read Sun Tzu, it appears
Take the Marxist idea of “class struggle.” Change the classes from “proletarian vs. bourgeoisie” to “women vs. men.” Now, “make the personal political” and there you have it, every interaction between men and women, individually and collectively, is inherently adversarial.
Dear Lyn:
The funny part is how unhinged they all regularly get by each other. Any time I go to one of the kooky feminist blogs, one of them is generally getting castigated by the others with accusations of not being feminist enough, being told to “check your privilege” etc.
I imagine feminists as a big bundle of poisonous snakes, all tied tightly together, furiously biting each other as they try to get free from their (self-imposed) ideological ropes.
Boxer
On the Rubio video: What did Christine do to cause her situation? Yeah its tough. Perhaps she is stuck there through no fault of her own, but you don’t develop public policy for rare cases like that when most of the cases (as has been noted in this blog many times) is that the cause of the single mother’s situation was that single mother.
It is like celebrating a teen giving birth. You may think you are striking a blow against abortion, but you will end up making it legitimate for teens to get pregnant in the first place, which ends up causing more abortions since the rate can go down, but the total number can still go up.
Now that is interesting: I did not realise that apologising – when you have not necessarily done anything wrong – was anything other than an English way of getting-by on an overcrowded island. Apparently you do it too, and the beauty of it is that it defuses any potential conflict: it is of course men who say it as often – if not more so – than women.
My opinion of the calibre of the average Marketing Dept. in Encorpera is pretty low, but to see the marketing dept. of Proctor and Gamble encouraging selfishness rudeness and incivility as a way to sell their shampoo strikes me as a massive FAIL.
The ad should be pulled.
Be assertive so that you can exploit your beautiful hair.
It would be bad to let it go to waste.
Just like wasting as little as possible of your youth and beauty on your future husband.
@Lyn87, re: “Manners are grease on the wheels of civilization”
Yes, very much so. But (you knew that but was coming) in another way manners are civilization. Besides hot baths, what I always mean by civilized is polite; conforming as best one can to a genteel norm.
Reminds me of responding to “gracias” in Spanish (thank you) with “de nada” (it is nothing). It wasn’t literally nothing, but that doesn’t make the point toxic. (I am not a native speaker, so I may be missing some fine points here.)
@AR ,re: “The superiour man knows when to fight the culture, and when to withdraw from it.”
Yes, but the when was yesterday if not before. Where and how are current concerns.
“
Don’t say sorryMake SAMMICHES and have pretty hair.” Long live the patriarchy!!!BradA says:June 27, 2014 at 6:21 pm
You forget that Rubio is a professional politician, as is every trough feeder in both the demopublican and republicrat halves of the uniparty. Rubio isn’t pushing this out of misguided compassion. He’s pushing it because wants to both hold onto and grab more power. He’s taking a page from the tried-and-proven playbook of his “opponents” (*smirk*) and pandering to an ever-growing subdemographic of useless eaters that he wants bribe into handijg HIM more power.
Absolutely amazing that otherwise intelligent adults continue to believe, despite decades of in-your-face evidence to the contrary, that Republicans are anything other than Democrats-lite.
re: The Rubio Video,
Holy cow, that reminds me yet again why I left the Republican Party all those years ago – that guy is a menace. His concern for “Christine” (the Republican version of Obama’s “Julia) is nuts. If he really cared about the “Christines” of the world he would tell them to keep their legs shut until they’re married rather than birthing a passel of bastard children that the rest of us have to pay for. So… her bills are high. Guess what? Mine are too, partially because of guys like Rubio and their concern for whores like Christine. If she gets a big tax credit, where’s mine? Her situation is entirely of her own making, yet this clown wants me to pay big bucks in taxes so she doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of her idiotic, hedonistic choices.
She really should be saying, “Sorry”…
To the men who pay the taxes she spends.
A lot.
jf12
Besides hot baths, what I always mean by civilized is polite; conforming as best one can to a genteel norm.
Just a day ago I finished reading the biography of Robert Benchley, and in some ways that would describe his philosophy.
Of course, that essential politeness is what made many bad things possible. Beatrice and Sydney Webb, for example, were surely quite polite. They also were Stalin’s bootlicking servants for years.
that reminds me yet again why I left the Republican Party all those years ago – that guy is a menace. His concern for “Christine” (the Republican version of Obama’s “Julia) is nuts.
A feminist is a feminist ect.
The “left” is feminist. The “right” is feminist. I don’t even try to keep up with politics any more. Feminism is everywhere in western society. It’s all bad. The barrel is full of bad apples, and the few that haven’t succumbed are effectively neutralized.
Are these folks in the public eye really this ignorant? Are they playing a devious part in a diabolical plan? Or, is it just that the temptation for power and monetary gain is too much for them to overcome? This society has abandoned common sense, logic, reason, and, most importantly, scripture in order to twist normal thinking into perversion.
feeriker,
Of course he is a politician and will do what politicians do. (How do you know when a politician is lying? When his lips are moving!) The point still remains that we must put a lot more thought into these things and speak up whenever even somewhat appropriate.
I would agree with you that doing so may not really matter, as I think the rot is far too deep, but I will still do it many times.
====
My father used to do monthly crusades for the poor in my hometown. He would give away a lot of free food and clothing, after preaching a reasonably strong message. I am no longer convinced that is the right thing to do though. You need to help people get out of their poverty and that starts with habits. That would require holding them accountable, something that is quite unlikely today, even in those who should know better.
22 seconds in –
Well, that’s one of the stupider commercials I’ve ever seen.
I’ve reached the point, after years of observation, where I consider ALL advertising in electronic media to be, by default, some combination of insulting, mendacious, nihilistic, and juvenile, pandering to the basest of human instincts. For this reason I pay no attention to it, unless some rare gem that is the polar opposite of what I just described should emerge to catch my attention. I have yet to witness any such phenomenon and probably never will.
They are super super rare, but this one from a few years ago caught my eye. I wish I could find a higher quality version. There’s layers and layers of startling imagery in 29 seconds, from the retrograde and patriarchal idea that a wife might actually be attractive, be sexually attracted to her husband, who is himself clearly the breadwinner, and is responsibly making a good living without being a dunce, and who has kids, and so on. Of course, a commercial like this is like sighting a unicorn.
You need to help people get out of their poverty and that starts with habits. That would require holding them accountable,
A previous pastor of mine spent decades in the mission field (Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mexico). They learned very early on that giving poverty stricken people food and supplies was fruitless. The recipients of charitable donations would just gamble, trade or sell their portions to support their favorite vices and would be right back in the bread line so to speak. They soon made changes so that accountability and work were a part of the process.
CAF:
Friends wife is cheating on him.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=892775
—
@Mark
Thanks. You too.
As a white American male all I can say in response is;
“Sorry. I’m going to the Phillipines. Sorry.”
@Farm Boy wrote:
Be assertive so that you can exploit your beautiful hair.
It would be bad to let it go to waste.
Just like wasting as little as possible of your youth and beauty on your future husband.
=================================================================
A youngish woman acquaintance of mine was lamenting on FB recently how at 31 she has found another patch of grey hair and is finding it increasingly difficult to find an angle where the crows feet around her eyes are not noticable. Then, she blathered on about how this isn’t where she planned to be in life, but she’s surrounded by good friends, has her own money etc. etc, standard modern woman claptrap.
The thing is, I’ve noticed the things she mentioned, and thought a while back that were she celebrating her 6-10 year wedding anniversary, her husband would be well pleased with her attractiveness, but in searching for a husband, she’s long past her prime.
…and another thing: suppose in a few weeks time someone were to mention this ad, and then ask what product it was attempting to sell. In ones forgetful and busy life what is there in the ad which makes one think, Hair Shampoo? The women are all well coiffured, certainly, but so are women in all adverts. The ad thus does not achieve its prime object – to encourage you to buy the shampoo and thus merely reveals the fantasies and unpleasant attitude of the over-paid women who work in Proctor and Gamble’s marketing department; I assume the ad agency largely do what they are asked, but even if the idea was theirs, P&G should have said No to the concept long before it reached being filmed. As I said the ad is a massive FAIL. Sorry about that.
I liked when they stopped apologizing to people at work. But their “sorry, not sorry”‘s to their husbands were just rude.
What surprises me is that there is actually somebody out there who came up with that dumbass vid and thought that it would amazing. Shaking my head.
Women are always apologizing?!? Huh?!? Out of my thirty years of marriage, I could count on one hand the number of times my wife has apologized to me. My apologies to her? Almost daily, because she demands being apologized to, even for trivial things. Now of course, I can’t claim that my wife is typical, but from what I’ve been able to observe of married couples close hand, I don’t think that my situation is all that unusual. “Why are women always apologizing?” Because they’re NOT!
“Sorry. I’m going to the Phillipines. Sorry.”
Sad, isn’t it? I keep reading about how fellow American men are going abroad to find lifemates. I wish I could say that I love my country’s women as much as I love the rest of it, but I can’t.
The worst scene-lets are the ones involving chairs. In the waiting room one, there are clearly other chairs available, so it’s a stupid scenario to begin with. Ignoring that…why pick the middle seat? (Nevermind her purse gets a seat to itself.) She’s apparently not familiar with urinal selection protocol 😉 as most men would have instinctively chosen one of the end chairs given the choice of all three.
The conference room one with the guy squeezing in was so dumb they don’t even show an alternate take in the second half of the commercial.
Finally, why is “Thanks” not the appropriate word when handing their child to her husband?? “Sorry not sorry” is dripping with attitude that diminishes her–not to mention is needlessly passive-aggressive. Why would they think that’s an example to follow?? That’s not strong. If anything it’s typical of somebody compensating for a feeling of inferiority. This commercial is as tone deaf as it gets. The actress’s delivery of the line lacks conviction, suggesting even she thought it was dopey on some level.
Marketing is about influencing people to make a particular decision – nothing more. And it is a very big business with a lot of research behind it. They wouldn’t run the spots they do unless they were pretty sure they were going to actually sell their soap.
Here’s where it gets interesting. Both P&G and Unilever (makers of the Dove line of women’s toiletries) compete for the same demographic: women affluent enough to spend extra money on beauty products. Let’s fact it, soap is cheap to make, and women can buy it for less than what they’ll pay for P&G or Unilever products. Those companies have to offer something besides utility. Both of those companies have reached the same conclusion, which is that in order to sell their overpriced beauty products to women, the best way to do that is not to overtly tell them that the products will make them pretty like the models in the ad, but rather to give them a good feeling about themselves as women, and mention the brand in passing, along with a website where they can go for further reinforcement. The ads will play over and over on shows women watch, and are meant to eventually condition them to associate a particular brand with a particular feeling. The P&G ad in the article isn’t an explicit plea to buy Pantene: is an invitation to join in a collective movement of female empowerment. They display the phrase “Be Strong and Shine” when they switch from from “Sorry” to “Not Sorry” halfway through the commercial – which is deliberate word-play, because the traditional selling points for hair products for women are that they make one’s hair strong and shiny. So the long-term subliminal message is that Pantene not only makes her hair strong and shiny, but that it allows her to Be Strong and Shine herself.
Of course the women in the commercial are all conventionally attractive, and the girls around the conference table who had the three-stooges-like avalanche of “Sorry’s” were all drop-dead gorgeous. They know what sells, so they knew well enough not to use average or ugly women to sell beauty products. Contrast that to Unilever’s gambit to sell Dove products using the “Real Beauty” campaign. The brand was barely mentioned – it was all about making average women fell better about their appearance, with the obligatory website to learn more. It differed from the P&G “Be Strong and Shine” campaign in a few significant ways: it was serious rather than cute, it was long rather than short, and it used average women rather than models… and it was an expensive flop that generated a lot of bad press (even with feminists) for infantilizing women.
Ads aimed at men aren’t much better, but they are different. Think of all the truck ads you’ve seen over the years, which are marketed to men. The guys are rugged and chiseled – not a dough-boy in sight. Hard hats are the norm. The subliminal emotional appeal is still there – “Real men drive rugged trucks like this.” But unlike the ads for women’s beauty products, the ads for trucks tend to be explicit about performance, with much talk about foot-pound of torque, towing capacity, and cab dimensions. Men generally need to know that what they’re buying will work – just making them feel a vague sense of empowerment isn’t enough.
“Why are women always saying ‘Sorry’?”
.
Because saying ‘Sorry’ is frequently one of their passive-aggressive ploys that means the opposite.
Lyn87, cogent observations. Now I’m wondering why there isn’t a hunky handyman millionaire in the advert. Perhaps that’s being saved for the next revision?
@Roger, I agree. Women do not tend to be apologetic or submissive, at all, except around alpha males. Roughly, the message of the commercials to women is that these products will make you treat alpha males like beta males.
Feminism is unrestrained sin as a “human right”
Speaking for myself, all the outer beauty in the world is for naught if she doesn’t have inner beauty to compliment it. She can have the body of Pamela Anderson, but I can’t be bothered if she has the IQ of, well, Pamela Anderson.
Dear Lyn87:
This is such an interesting analysis, as I assumed the opposite.
I saw it as opening up an aperture of insecurity in the audience: to make the viewer feel mediocre in some way (hence the supermodel quality people featured in the ad). Pointing out simple courtesies, and painting such normal interactions as conflicts, achieves as much. The brand was astutely placed to suggest that buying it would help the woman “triumph” in her fight against men.
The point, in my analysis, was not to make the audience feel good about themselves, but to make them feel substandard, and offer them the means to become “strong and empowered” like the caricatures on display (who were actually acting like assholes in a couple of those scenes).
As Emma the Emo pointed out, the commercial also subtly endorses taking out the professional-sphere frustrations on the husband/boyfriend/fwb … That’s what’s most interesting. Most of the public interactions “after” the brand was supposedly invoked weren’t overtly rude, but the private ones (sorry, not sorry) definitely were.
Boxer
Ugh…. Why does everything have to be turned into some sort of social agenda these days. Makes me glad I don’t watch TV anymore and have to see these types of smug commercials…..
I would have expected the woman sitting next to the man to have said “sorry” more sarcastically, though I agree that sitting in the middle seat in that case is at least a bit inconsiderate.
The one where she completely takes the covers in the final one illustrates the selfishness completely. She got what she wanted AND her man close to her.
My wife just watched this and was appealed, and she is only slowly taking in these concepts (over the past couple of years).
That should say that my wife was appalled. Stupid of me to choose spelling correction too quickly.
MarcusD says:
June 28, 2014 at 12:23 am
“Friends wife is cheating on him.
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=892775”
As someone pointed out “Dear Abby and Ann Landers say Do not tell” and others have said so as well.
I personally think if you know for sure someone is cheating and its usually pretty obvious you have a duty to tell a friend or family member, come what may, but then that’s male imperative thinking, not female imperative which wants cheating to flourish because it suits women to have it that way.
In response to my:
the best way to do that is not to overtly tell them that the products will make them pretty like the models in the ad, but rather to give them a good feeling about themselves as women, and mention the brand in passing
Boxer sez,
This is such an interesting analysis, as I assumed the opposite.
I saw it as opening up an aperture of insecurity in the audience: to make the viewer feel mediocre in some way (hence the supermodel quality people featured in the ad).
The two are not mutually-exclusive. You are certainly correct that advertizing seeks to exploit a felt lack, but there are two ways to do that: point out a lack the target audience already feels, or seek to create that feeling. In either case, the product or service being advertized purports to fill that need.
I don’t think most advertizing professionals are really red-pill in the sense that we are, but they get paid good money to understand how audiences think, and the most powerful group of consumers on Earth are western women. Having said that, the successful ones (who land accounts with corporate giants such as P&G), have to have some level of understanding of female psychology.
Which brings me to the seeming dichotomy between my point and yours. Western women are constantly few a steady diet of “Yugo-girlism” from the moment they emerge from the womb. On the other hand, simple interaction with the real world – and men in particular – teaches all but the most dense women that the hype is not really true. As TFH is fond of saying, “‘Feminism’, far from helping women, has instead exposed the full extent of female inferiority (moral, mental, economic, spiritual, civic, parental) far more visibly and irrefutably than was ever possible before ‘feminism’.” One doesn’t have to accept TFH’s full indictment to understand that no modern western woman can possibly believe that she is worthy of the constant praise she gets simply for being female, unless she’s either mentally unbalanced or an abject idiot.
So on the one hand they want to believe that they really are “All that and a bag of chips,” but on the other hand they know – at least subliminally – that the only reason most of them aren’t picking berries and living in grass huts is because of affirmative action and the exertions of men. And, as the Dove Real Beauty ad I referred to earlier shows, women really do tend to be hyper-critical of their physical flaws, although usually not their moral ones (like taking pleasure in depriving their children of their fathers and legally robbing decent ex-husbands for everything they have).
The P&G commercial masterfully walks that fine line between the lies she’s been told since birth and desperately wants to believe, the inadequacy she feels, and her aspirations for both physical beauty and empowerment vis-a-vis men.
@ Chris Dagostino, I think IQ is highly overrated. I’d rather be happy than smart and it seems like the two are mutually exclusive on a regular basis.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/28/The-new-divorce-Italian-style-just-don-t-get-married-in-the-first-place
All this stupid advert is doing is advising women to be bitchy, rude and entitled. Yeah, that’s going to get men respecting you…
I’m so sick and tired of adverts telling women how awesome and powerful they are, so much better than men; and then the next advert being about abusive men and ‘violence against women’ blah, blah, blah, they really need to pick one, they can’t have both.
“Speaking for myself, all the outer beauty in the world is for naught if she doesn’t have inner beauty to compliment it. She can have the body of Pamela Anderson, but I can’t be bothered if she has the IQ and temperamentof, well, Pamela Anderson.”
FIFY. And yes, heartily cosigned.
Makes me glad I don’t watch TV anymore and have to see these types of smug commercials
Even more ubiquitous than YouGoGirllllllll commercials are the ones portraying boyfriends and husbands as modern-day Laurels and Hardys. Electronic media advertising is absolutely overflowing with that shit.
“It strikes me that feminists like to promote every interaction as inherently adversarial. It’s as though they feel that life is one big fight.”
It always seems to be the feminist lesbians that initially concoct the more wilder paranoid scaremongering about men. If I was the sort of person to think cynically I’d conclude that their agenda is to attempt to instil in heterosexual women a deep overriding unease and fear of men, killing their sexual attraction to members of the opposite sex and promoting constant conflict and leaving them no were else to go but into the cult of the sisterhood (into the ‘safe spaces’, the refuge from the manufactured conflict) so that the feminist lesbian’s selection of potential sexual partners increases. Given much feminist brainwashing occurs on campus it’d certainly explain the phenomenon of LUGS and BUGS. (Lesbian/Bisexual Until Graduation)
I also doubt it’s coincidence that the idea that ‘women are more sexually fluid than men’ implying that women’s sexuality can ‘switch’ under certain circumstances, whereas men’s sexual desires are largely fixed, also finds it origins from this grouping either.
@Matt
Yes, I remember that ad from not long ago. Definitely a cut above the usual misandric garbage that Samsung itself routinely spews out in hawking its product line.
It’s hilarious watching these complaints from ‘men’ that have chosen not to have drive and determination to live, invest and work in the epicenter of content in the entire world (Los Angeles area). It remains the current epicenter of art and design in the entire world, and it will continue to be that for the next 10 years. It’s easier to live in a place where the ‘jobs’ require one to be less bold since the end product doesn’t really influence the whole world (like the meaningful work here does). When people are mentioning (blaming) this company and that, the ad agencies, etc. you’re mentioning people that ultimately answer people that work from the epicenter: Los Angeles. When you’re ready to ‘change’ it to your own will, whatever that is, you’ll choose to move here, be the best in the world at what you do, earn the respect of the best in the world in the content, art and design epicenter of the world. That attracts investors and increases the reach of messages.
Politeness and submission aside, both of which I heartily endorse and agree with, I think the idea of not living in apology is a good one. Healthy confidence and positive self image go a long way in helping to set goals, improve your life etc. I think that the pantene commercial had a chance to raise up positive feminine self esteem and strengths like pleasantness, grace, charm, confidence, serenity etc. but really missed the ball, and the disparity between what they could have said and what they did is really an absolute shame.
I’m certain these Liberty Mutual “Humans” commercials aren’t deliberately misandric. They’re just trying to fit in with what everyone thinks: it’s all men’s fault, all the time.
Out of 13 vignettes, men are the idiots aka “humans” in 11 of them. Only in 2 out of the 13 are women the “humans”.
Um, is this a L.A. real estate ad? Or is the satire going over my head?
Dalrock,
Is the LiveFearLess who commented at 7:42 p.m. the same one who comments occasionally? The reason I ask is that the link from his name in this thread leads to a different site than the one his previous comments link to… oh, and this one is talking like a lunatic.
L.A. as the world-wide center of excellent in creativity… that’s freaking hilarious.
Chris Dagostino
Speaking for myself, all the outer beauty in the world is for naught if she doesn’t have inner beauty to compliment it. She can have the body of Pamela Anderson,
I’m assuming you have not seen Pammy lately….
God is Laughing says:
June 28, 2014 at 4:38 pm:
“I think IQ is highly overrated. I’d rather be happy than smart and it seems like the two are mutually exclusive on a regular basis.”
Do not seek wisdom, for a wise man is never happy
As far as I can tell, the smarter the woman, the more quarrelsome and cunningly manipulative they become.
8oxer
The point, in my analysis, was not to make the audience feel good about themselves, but to make them feel substandard, and offer them the means to become “strong and empowered” like the caricatures on display (who were actually acting like assholes in a couple of those scenes).
Well, sure, that’s Advertising 101 – create the need, then offer the solution. It’s more obvious in older advertising, to be sure. See deoderant adverts from the 50’s, for example, or hair color aimed at older women in the 60’s – 70’s, one slogan was “Hate that grey? Wash it away!”
As Emma the Emo pointed out, the commercial also subtly endorses taking out the professional-sphere frustrations on the husband/boyfriend/fwb … That’s what’s most interesting. Most of the public interactions “after” the brand was supposedly invoked weren’t overtly rude, but the private ones (sorry, not sorry) definitely were.
Julian O’Dea pointed out on some blog or other a few years back that women tend to do their worst acting out in private, where there is only one witness (the man). I think he based that on personal experience & thus it is a bit dated. Nevertheless, the tendency of strong & empowered professionalwimmen to treat their male Significant Others like a kicking-dog or a whippingboy is hardly a secret. Frankly I’m a bit glad to see it openly flaunted on an advert, it provides a possible opening for a bit of subversion.
@Cail
I won’t speak for Livefearless, but there is definitely some truth in the fact that Christians don’t produce or support much excellence in art, and that is a problem.
@Lyn87 Thank you for the compliment.
A man I reached out to a while back responded to a vision I shared with him. He gave me some of the best advice I’ve been given in my life. Years prior to that, he voiced the “Think Different” ads, and he decided that they should use the ads with the voice of my friend Richard Dreyfuss instead. Why? He said it was about Apple… not about himself.
You’ve heard the words they voiced in the ad: “Here’s to the crazy ones… because the people who think they are crazy enough to change the world are the ones who do.”
That man also said, “When you think of Nike, you FEEL something different than a shoe company. In their ads as you know they don’t ever talk about the product… What’s Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes, and they honor great athletics. That’s who they are, that’s what they are about.”
Nike: Athletes. Pantene: Women. I don’t use the products, but I know the source of those concepts being utilized through more than the media, entertainment and influence you have not escaped from.
What is church? What is the real meaning of this word? The new cathedral is known as content, art, design, media, entertainment, technology… The list is longer, but that’s not even the point. I’ve yet to meet one person that has global power that shares the beliefs you say you have. You wanna change it? There’s plenty of space here for those that are obsessed with doing what brings the kind of hope you say you have inside. Are you ready to take the kind of risks we have taken to create what you say should affect the whole world?
Is the LiveFearLess who commented at 7:42 p.m. the same one who comments occasionally?
If I understand the info on the linked web page correctly, it appears that he has suffered a stroke and in recovery.
@ Mark says:
June 27, 2014 at 5:28 pm
Hope you’re still here. Let me help you advanced your learning of the NT.
This is the bible on CD as narrated by Alexander Scourby. It’s in MP3.
The entire NT is, fortunately, the last CD. So you can put that one in a player and have at it.
And you could have had a little fun with the cashier. When he asked you about a Jew buying a NT, you could have responded,
“What’s so strange about that? The entire bible was written by Jews.”
Lyn87 @ 6/27k 7:36 pm,
Hey bro: we were punching each other out just a day or two ago; nice to find something we totally agree on!
BradA, re ‘gracias’:
The Tzeltal Indians in Chiapas have a very similar exchange:
Hocol Awal. “Difficult, you say!” [Thank you]
Mayuk Wocol. “Nothing difficult!” [You’re welcome]
I have, of course, *no idea* if this usage in earlier versions of Mayan languages preceded the arrival of the conquistodors or not.
It always seems to be the feminist lesbians that initially concoct the more wilder paranoid scaremongering about men. If I was the sort of person to think cynically I’d conclude that their agenda is to attempt to instil in heterosexual women a deep overriding unease and fear of men, killing their sexual attraction to members of the opposite sex and promoting constant conflict and leaving them no were else to go but into the cult of the sisterhood (into the ‘safe spaces’, the refuge from the manufactured conflict) so that the feminist lesbian’s selection of potential sexual partners increases. Given much feminist brainwashing occurs on campus it’d certainly explain the phenomenon of LUGS and BUGS. (Lesbian/Bisexual Until Graduation)
I also doubt it’s coincidence that the idea that ‘women are more sexually fluid than men’ implying that women’s sexuality can ‘switch’ under certain circumstances, whereas men’s sexual desires are largely fixed, also finds it origins from this grouping either.
That’s a common context, but the substrate still has to be more malleable. I don’t think, for example, that similarly predatory men would have the same success rate at flipping college aged young men into GUGs or BUGs by seducing them with a combination of misogyny and, well, seduction. Guys who get turned off of chasing real life girls opt for porn or xbox rather than getting it on with other guys. Girls are different there. So there are some underlying differences at play. I suspect that the root of the difference lies somewhere in the deep past where a kind of sexual bonding among multiple wives of the same harem master male was beneficial to themselves as a kind of co-wife bonding, and perhaps also entertaining/erotically arousing to the shared husband, and that over time this bred in a greater openness among females to same-sex activity than among heterosexual males. The difference shouldn’t be overstated, however. While I do think there is definite truth to the idea that women *are* more flexible than men are to a considerable degree in these areas, nevertheless the vast majority of women are completely heterosexual in practice (even if non-heterosexuality, or at least non-heterosexual elements, may play a role in erotic fantasization for a number of such women).
Lyn 87 has a high regard for the abilities of ad agencies and their client’s marketing departments, and has put forward a highly sophisticated and not necessarily unpersuasive explanation as to the effectiveness of the P&G ad. Even so, how often does an ad fail miserably or has to be pulled for one reason or another which none of the highly paid marketeers noticed either at inception stage, or at any time before the completion of the little movie and its broadcast. No problem: these marketing departments print money thus justifying a replacement ad. Obviously I disliked the shampoo ad but then being a man I do not watch television or even were I to do so progammes aimed at females, so I wonder what females think of it.
These won’t be familiar to Americans but Kellogg’s Kelly Holmes Ads (for Corn Flakes) were from more than one point of view a disaster; and then decades ago there were the popular Bank Manager in your closet ads and no one can remember which bank was being promoted (because it wasn’t any of them). Joe Bugner aspired to be world heavyweight champion but the picture of him flat on the canvas on the front page of the next morning’s papers with the brand name (Winfield) of a now defunct high street chain on his shorts was the kind of bad publicity you should not be able to buy. I recall two sets of ads produced for the legal profession (in general) both of which for different reasons backfired (one because it was both cringe-worthy and seriously misleading; the other, for a while, made lawyers a laughing stock – lawyers seeking sympathy is never going to be a popular cause unless the lawyers are shown to be women) and I never got the purpose of the ‘Tell Sid ads’ and always wondered what the purpose of Hanson’s ads were because they never explained what Hanson did or where I could buy it, whatever it was (though the ads claimed to be doing ‘rather nicely over there’ – ‘there’ being the United States – have you ever heard of Hanson? If so perhaps you can tell me what they did). It is not the case either that I am entirely ignorant as to Advertising either as I have twice read Winston Fletcher book on the subject which despite its cogent arguments entirely failed to persuade me. In Britain, adverts have to meet a certain standard: they have to be ‘decent legal honest and truthful’ but I would have though that by their nature ads can never be any of those things for at the very least they must accentuate qualities and down play or ignore weaknesses.
Doubtless someone reading here and in marketing can now explain why I am entirely mistaken and will do so.
…and then there is Jackie Stewart, a former Formula 1 world champion who is paid £1,000,000 a year to wear a cap (when not at home) with the RBS logo. Given the unpopularity of that Bank I would have thought Stewart would think twice for his safety whilst wearing the cap. Another case of buying bad publicity.
I can think of theoretical ads that would be honest and truthful, if they don’t try to create the demand for their product but rather simply say “If you need X, try ours: we do it right.” For example, an ad for an auto repair service (let’s postulate that they’re honest and competent — there are such out there, although there are hucksters as well) that simply says “Have a problem with your car? Call Al’s Auto Service. We guarantee our repairs for six months, or your money back.” Followed by, say, a 15-second clip of an actual customer saying “I had problem XYZ, and Al fixed it out. And it cost less than at (competitor name)’s place. Thanks, Al!” That’s not going to create any demand for auto repairs — nobody wakes up and thinks “I’m bored, I think I’ll take my car to the mechanic.” But if Al really is a good mechanic, and word of mouth matches his claims, that ad would bring in more customers without manipulating anyone.
But since manipulation usually works better in the short term, ads like the theoretical one I just mentioned are few and far between. I have actually seen some like that, usually on the Internet, so it’s not 0%. But I think it’s in the single digits, percentage wise.
LiveFearless,
Here’s the problem with declaring L.A. as the center of the universe of creativity (that’s what I assume you mean – if my assessment of your opinion is incorrect then let me know).
“Artists” are not the only people who are creative. I’ll go so far as to say that “artistic-types” are rarely highly creative at all. (I am using the terms “artist” as it is commonly understood – musicians, painters, actors, etc.) L.A. is not the center of anything else, except maybe the Southern California drug trade.
Take a gifted painter, for example. He can sit on a rooftop in Dubai and paint a picture of one of the most beautiful and impressive structures ever built by man: the Burj Khalifa. Is he an “artist?” Sure. But his work is entirely derivative. Most people make the mistake of thinking that the guy who paints a picture of a building is an “artist” – while the nerdy architects who designed it are not. I disagree in the strongest terms: the guys who nugged their way through architecture school… who took all those courses in advanced math, and physics, and metallurgy are the true artists here… MUCH more so that the guy who smoked dope and went to painting class to learn how to create a pleasing picture of the stunningly-complex work of his artistic betters (the architects).
Another example: I was in the military for more than twenty years, and I have seen movies about people doing what I – and people like me – used to do in real life. Without going into unnecessary and personal details: there was a major motion picture a while back about an actual battle (I was not there), and one of the important characters in the movie was a soldier who worked for me in Afghanistan in real life. Who is more creative? Who is the superior artist? The professional actor who played him in the movie, or the guy himself, who had to come up with life-and-death solutions on the fly while a large group of people was trying to kill him and his companions?
Yet another example: I spent several years at a particular military installation working on a freakishly complex set of problems having to do with conducting asymmetric warfare. I had no specific training for my task: although asymmetric warfare has been around for thousands of years, this was a new problem set that nobody had ever tried to solve before… NOBODY was trained in it. I won’t describe the layers of complexity here: my explanation wouldn’t make sense to anyone not immersed in it anyway. But I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the solutions I crafted and implemented had a lot more “global reach” that some strip of celluloid produced in the L.A. Basin during that time. You’ve never heard of me or my work (although you probably have heard of a couple of people I trained when they made the international news). Nobody is ever going to make a movie of the work I did toiling away in obscurity in a windowless building, but if Hollywood did make such a movie, the actor who played me would be a lesser artist than the person he played (me).
That’s the thing: you speak of these L.A. hacks as if their creativity was original rather than derivative: based on portraying the superior creativity and artistry of the people who really do change the world.
Brad Pitts gets it: “You shouldn’t speak until you know what you’re talking about. That’s why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? I’m a fucking actor! They hand me a script. I act. I’m here for entertainment. Basically, when you whittle everything away, I’m a grown man who puts on makeup.“
Opus,
I said that ad agencies do a lot of research… not that they are always right. In fact, I specifically referred to the “Real Beauty” ad campaign as an “an expensive flop.”
Carry on.
@Lyn87
The plural of data is more data; the more data you have the harder it is to make a decision, which is why choice – other than Hobson’s – far from being desirable is stressful (this also applies to female candidates for marriage). Ultimately a decision has to be made but all too often the decisions of the marketing department (females with degrees in Women Studies and entitled attitudes with expense accounts and Air Miles) merely reflect their personal preferences.
Carry on Regardless is appropriate.
One quibble, Opus, then I have to go. You won’t find many women with degrees in Women’s Studies making important decisions in major marketing firms. That’s not to say that those decisions are not made in the sea of feminism we all swim in (they are, of course), but that – in the advertizing world – real results matter, and reality has an anti-feminist bias.
@Lyn87
(Los Angeles) is the epicenter of content in the entire world. This is it… It is the epicenter of art and art design, and because we are a short distance from Silicon Valley we have our own great technologists here. In the future… who will own big content distribution? It’s going to be one of the big cell carriers.
~Kevin Wall, an investor in Facebook when Facebook only had 20 employees and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Wall
if Hollywood did make such a movie, the actor who played me would be a lesser artist than the person he played (me).
~Lyn87
Celebrities I’ve interviewed that have played such roles would agree with you.
@Dalrock What struck me about it is how it is the direct opposite of
In other words, globally popular content concepts are against certain belief systems.
Is this surprising?
How many people with those beliefs have invested their lives into doing the work to ‘change’ the engine of global culture creation?
How many people with those beliefs have the power and influence to change global perception management?
@Lyn87
You mentioned Brad Pitt. Billions of people have heard his name. How does this happen? What perfected the engine that creates fame and keeps people and concepts famous? When I mention Los Angeles, it is the area where fame is designed. Fame is fed through here and from here.
The Pantene ads are there to relate to their audience: Women. The ads are working. Sure, they sell more shampoo. They are also changing culture and changing perceptions.
To change the world, concepts must become globally popular (globally famous). That’s the magic that occurs here.
The work from Los Angeles changes and creates cultures around the world.
The work from Los Angeles changes and creates perceptions around the world.
Pantene Inspires Women Around the World
@Lyn87
You are right that there is a lot of art that goes unrecognized in windowless jobs, but I don’t think many architects would make the argument you do here. If we measure the art according to its context, then we can judge it better.
Movies, paintings, books, and all those things are more purely art. I mean that in the sense that you’re not supposed to walk away from a film or painting thinking that you witnessed the very thing, but that you were informed about the very thing.
And you’re discounting an incredibly large number of people according to your own standard. What about the guys who made the lights and cameras and computers and accounting plans and CODEC formats and set designs…the list of artists you’re not recognizing goes on and on.
It’s easy to underestimate the power and durability of symbols and stories of films, paintings, and advertisements. You must know this because even now you are trying to explain it to Opus.
@Livefearless
Ooooo! Burn!, as the kids used to say when I was a kid.
@LiveFearless:
“They are also changing culture and changing perceptions.”
By virtue of being a fact does not make something in fact virtuous.
It seems like you are driving toward a point that you have not made completely yet. You have obliquely implied our esteemed blog host ought to avail himself of this potential. So, out with it, man. Make your point boldly without the soft shoe bit.
I, for one, am curious about what you mean. Your posturing helps no one.
If you don’t want to tip your hand, that’s a different story. But maybe direct private messaging would make more sense.
LiveFearless,
I’ll grant that America has been influential as far as cultural imperialism. We don’t take and hold continents like previous empires (The quintessentially-British saying, “Whatever happens we have got, the Maxim Gun, and they have not” comes to mind). When we go places we tend to bring the bulk of the troops home once our business is done, and when we do stay (post WWII Europe and Japan, for example), we do so as guests and protectors rather than rulers and occupiers.
But I would argue that our consumerism and the fruits of American technical innovation have been far more significant exports than our “art.” In other words, the number-crunchers and behaviorists of Madison Avenue and the anonymous techno-nerds at places like JPL and DARPA are the sources of our current world-wide influence to a far greater extent than Hollywood.
Fame =/= influence.
Out of 13 vignettes, men are the idiots aka “humans” in 11 of them. Only in 2 out of the 13 are women the “humans”.
It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that some poor schlub at the ad agency that created this commercial got fired for allowing even 2 women to be portrayed as duncettes in that ad. That just isn’t done.
Cane,
I mostly agree with your point – I was not discounting the guys who “get things done,” but I cannot give due credit to every cog in the machine, and I would fail if I tried. The guys doing the jobs you mention do indeed apply creativity to their work – some more, some less. The guys on the light-bulb assembly line much less than the Lighting Director, for example. But it was mostly-anonymous “Beta males” whose technical skills informed and empowered their creativity to figure out how to make the pretty lights and other gadgets in the first place.
I’m the first to admit that I have stood on the shoulders of giants – the work I did in asymmetric warfare was just me starting with stuff that other men figured out, and taking it further down a particular path. At other times in my life my vocation required very little creativity, and there should be no shame in honest work.
Having said all that; I hope that I have not understated the power of imagery. If so, I did not mean to. Influence is all about imagery and ideas, and I think the Pantene ad is a brilliant piece of blended images and ideas considering their target audience (women with money to spend on overpriced beauty products) – time will tell whether or not it sells shampoo.
I would suggest that such nuances are key to the ideological apparatus — like the odd woman you meet who got screwed in divorce court and is paying hefty child support and spousal maintenance to her estranged homemaker husband. She’s the extreme outlier that they point to when we protest, the excuse that suggests “fairness” and the reason that nothing needs to change.
Regards, Boxer
Lyn 87 is attempting to shift the goal posts as between science and art. I disagree with his semantics.
On the subject of females with Women Studies degrees (and the like) in Marketing Departments, I strongly beg to differ; these women (and the men) all have ‘soft’ degrees, like Communications and Journalism. These (you only have to hear them speak) are not the cream of the countries Intellectual Elite, which is why they are in a soft option like Marketing; their job is to look good (though not too good) and to talk the jargon: they are part of their companies conspicuous consumption; signalling; to demonstrate that even if the company spend one hundred million a year on advertising they can still make a profit. These women spend vast amounts of time talking about the significance of their work, attending pointless conferences (preferably with foreign travel) and tweeting about the importance of Digital – which is surely a sign that that it is not very important – and have the same faith-based views as any devout religious believer They change jobs every two years or less which makes nonsense of their assertions that their present job is the best job ever with the best company and the best colleagues. These women are Corporate Courtesans and with an N to match.
I agree with Brad Pitt and I have noticed a regrettable tendency for Americans to confuse the roles their actors play with real ability. Happily the only English actor(ess) I can think of who fancies herself a politician is the wasp-chewing Glenda Jackson (Junior Ministress) who was as unpleasant in The Commons as she was in her movies (but even uglier) – I saw The Music Lovers and ever regretted her full-frontal performance a sight I wish always wish would erase itself form my memory – Natasha Kinski she was not.
Lyn 87 is attempting to shift the goal posts as between science and art. I disagree with his semantics.
No, Lyn87 is attending to multiple semi-overlapping conversations in the same thread.
“On the subject of females with Women Studies degrees (and the like) in Marketing Departments, I strongly beg to differ; these women (and the men) all have ‘soft’ degrees, like Communications and Journalism. These (you only have to hear them speak) are not the cream of the countries Intellectual Elite, … ”
True enough. But do they know the difference between “country’s” and “countries”?
All your replies (whether or not I agree with every jot and tittle) have been consistently interesting and thought-provoking, and have kept me interested. As a member of generation-microsecond-attention-span, that’s an unusually stratospheric accomplishment.
I dub thee knight of the androkingdom, and bid thee keep posting, for as long as you find it worthwhile.
Boxer
So…as hinted above, all women are secretly lesbians in the end? That’s kind of a silly claim.
re: anonymous techno-nerds. Most fame nowadays is built on false advertising, i.e. self-promotion either self-funded or with loans from ghost investors who (usually wrongly) believe that false advertising will lead to real fame and real roi. Dennis Rodman is an example of a person who is/was far more famous for his efforts to be famous (e.g. “Bad As I Wanna Be”) than anything he did in his original profession.
In contrast, many of the techno-nerds are as anonymous as they wanna be. Others have to be, by policy.
The bad habit of apologizing for basically existing is not an inherently female thing at all–more of a generalized insecurity thing, but hey. Whatever says GRL POWERRRZ must be good, right?
Well, there you go again, ascribing the meaning of human language to the hisses and pops that Feminists make.
Those women made no apologies. They barked a polysyllabic | ˈsɑːri | , which can not be reliably associated with any Feminist behavior. Gorilla sign language carries more data load than anything a Feminist utters.
Why can’t you people understand this?
Natasha Kinski:
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Hey guys,
saw this commercial while watching a popular female TV show and thought of this thread. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s done by the same ad agency.
you go grrls!
what makes you think these women are even feminists? the lack of submission?