Superbowl commercial sexism: #NotBuyingIt

Superbowl 46 was yesterday, and the Giants won, and someone has really small hands, and that’s pretty much where my football expertise ends. But I did watch a number of the commercials, because – and this is a sign that American capitalism is alive and well and not at any risk of being overcome by President Obama’s Kenyan socialism – the ads are almost as big a deal as the game itself.

If you were on Twitter during the game, you might have noticed the hashtag #NotBuyingIt, which was started by Miss Representation and designed to critique the depiction of women in these very expensive, very widely-viewed ads. As Maya noted at MoJo, “women make up about half of the Super Bowl’s audience and they’re more likely than men to tune in for the ads, rather than the game.” Yet, Superbowl advertisers have no problem insulting women in their ads, and they “do an especially good job of missing the point by acting as though dudes are the only ones watching.”

So, what was on offer last night from Madison Avenue, that bastion of feminism and fairness? Here’s a taste.

This ad from Kia sends a pretty clear message that men and women are totally different species with totally different dreamworlds. A woman dreams of riding across a meadow on the back of a white horse with a handsome fairytale princess under a rainbow sky. But a man dreams of driving a race car while Adriana Lima and thousands of hot bikini-clad women cheer him and Motley Crue plays and something about a giant sandwich and a boxing match.

And these two worlds are so separate and different that a Kia is the only thing that can bring them together.

Speaking of dreams, this GoDaddy commercial, in which the domain name company promised us that using its cloud technology would be like coding in the middle of a pornographic dream, was one of the biggest fumbles of the night, according to Hulu. We’ve come to expect nothing more than this garbage from GoDaddy.

And while I’m sure Danica Patrick is grateful for the endorsement deal, there is something revolting about a corporate sponsor taking a woman who has made it in a highly male-dominated and masculine field, car racing, and putting her back in a woman’s rightful place: in a skimpy costume under the male gaze.

And speaking of fairness and equality, H & M wants you to know that crushingly unrealistic beauty standards aren’t just for women and girls anymore! Now men can hate their bodies just as much as women do! Hurrah for equality!