Will Super Bowl Ads lay off bikini babes for #MeToo?
Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen
PRX
4.6 • 675 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2018
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Even in this increasingly fragmented media age, the Super Bowl is one of those rare television events that really captures the country. Nearly one in three Americans -- more than 100 million -- tunes into the game. And while the NFL viewership in past eras has been overwhelmingly male, that’s no longer true: for the Super Bowl, nearly half of television viewers are women.
And yet, commercials that air during the Super Bowl are infamous for their retrograde, sexist portrayals of women. But in this year of Me Too, will commercials finally reflect a more enlightened view of women? Jeanine Poggi from AdAge joins Kurt to review some of more sexist spots from recent Super Bowls -- and a few feminist moments.
Poggi says that advertisers -- and their agencies -- should be on notice.
“Any advertiser who this year goes into the Super Bowl with an ad that’s showing women half-dressed or any of the stereotypes we’ve seen in the past, like the nagging woman,” Poggi says, “will get a lot of blowback.”
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | from PRX. |
| 0:06.4 | This is Studio 360. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm Kurt Anderson. |
| 0:12.5 | Americans are talking a lot right now about how male culture depicts and regards females. |
| 0:20.7 | And it occurred to us that commercials that aired during the Super Bowl aren't male culture depicts and regards females. |
| 0:28.4 | And it occurred to us that commercials that air during the Super Bowl aren't a place you would look for enlightened portrayals of women. |
| 0:33.9 | I mean, if you'd been trying to raise your, I don't know, fourth grade son as a feminist, |
| 0:38.9 | you might have steered him away from ads like this one in Super Bowl 36 for Bud Light. |
| 0:40.9 | Honey, I've got the black teddy on. |
| 0:44.1 | Yeah, okay. |
| 0:45.6 | And I put the satin sheets on the bed. |
| 0:47.9 | Yeah, yeah. |
| 0:48.5 | Be up in a minute. |
| 0:49.8 | I've got cold Bud Light. |
| 0:54.2 | This, of course, is when the husband gets interested and races up the stairs and dives onto the bed. |
| 1:01.5 | But finally, a year ago, at least one Super Bowl commercial was actually woke. |
| 1:07.0 | It was an ad for Audi. |
| 1:10.4 | What do I tell my daughter? |
| 1:16.3 | Do I tell her that her grandpa's worth more than her grandma? |
| 1:23.4 | That her dad is worth more than her mom? |
| 1:29.3 | Do I tell her that despite her education, her drive, her skills, her intelligence, |
| 1:36.3 | she will automatically be valued as less than every man she ever meets. |
... |
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