This last week I’ve been out of town visiting relatives, so I have been disconnected from my computer and TV until last night. Imagine my delight when male-turned-ally Stephen sent me a link to this:
I think I need another vacation.
Stephen covers a lot of the key points as to why this sucks in his blog post, so I’ll let you all read that and give him the page views. I will say this, however. Too often are feminists accused of hating men. I find this hilarious because as a feminist I do not hate either gender/sex/identifier. The people who really hate men are the people at the top of the patriarchal tower of power. They obviously must hate or have little respect for men if this is how they choose to portray men in their advertisements and television shows/movies/etc. They are the ones calling men clownish, brutish, stupid, inept, emotionally stunted, and childish. They are the ones who paint a media-saturated broad stroke that reduces men to sex-crazed beer guzzlers who crave a mommy-figure they can fuck in between making roasts and doing laundry. This is the message They send about men. Not me, the feminist. I don’t reduce every man to a baby/idiot/douche bag. Granted some men do behave as a idiot douche bag, but they live in a patriarchal culture as well as I do, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, even if I don’t especially want to talk to them.
No, I won’t do what They do. I won’t believe what They believe, because I don’t want men to be brainwashed into believing they are as the media says they are and abdicate responsibility. I expect more; from myself, from media, from men, and from feminists.
I also expect more from my readers, which is why I am including the e-mail of the Klondike Bar Corporation. Go forth and unleash hell, my sisters.
I'm horribly offended. While I don't think Tony ever listened to me, I know that Mike hears about 90% of what I say. The other 10% is when he thinks i'm talking to myself or the cats and that's totally understandable. In these cases, i repeat myself and he hears me, doesn't just listen. he HEARS what I say and he responds as such. Men are not bumbling fools/idiots/douchebags and if people are going to generalize and give these labels then I believe they should target our half of the species too. Women are bitches/liars/cheats and 'douchebags' as well. Such deductions about a persons character should not be made about a generalization based on race, hair color, eye color, gender, etc, it should be based on who THAT PERSON is. Big pet peeves of mine...
ReplyDeleteKlondike Bar wrote back:
ReplyDelete"Hello STEPHEN,
Thank you for writing to us.
We do apologize for the experience you reported concerning Klondike Commercials.
Unilever Ice Cream markets its various brands in ways that are meant to entertain and engage our target audience. It was only intended to be humorous.
We certainly do not wish to offend anyone. You may be interested to know that all of our commercials and advertisements are pre-tested and various techniques are used to evaluate consumer reactions. Based on the results of our pre-testing procedures, the presentations are chosen for their majority appeal. Please let us assure you that your comments are extremely important to us in evaluating the success of our commercials and advertisements.
We will certainly forward your comments to the Marketing staff. Consumer comments are very important and evaluated on a regular basis.
Sincerely,
Your friends at Klondike"
In other words: We did it for the money. I wonder if they even really read my message, because I acknowledged multiple times that I understand that it was meant as a joke and that they have to advertise to make money in a way that catches people's attention. I also explained that even if its "just a joke" they're still contributing to the problem and even setting it up as the norm because unfortunately people accept what they see in the media as the norm.
I got pretty much the same form reply. It's frustrating, but it's important to keep writing those letters. They can ignore three of us, but not thousands!
ReplyDelete