This ad is actually incredibly offensive. I'm all for sexy advertising but there's nothing sexy or appealing about a women being portrayed as a silent beer coasters while three men(?) drink off of her. I think what bothered me most, though was the text: "Share one with a friend"... seriously? That's such blatant objectification. It portrays women as no better than beer, serving the mere purpose of entertaining men as they bond while they fuck us. Eww. The supposed sex here bothers me, too. It's clearly not good sex (based on the woman's only slight movements) and portrays the woman as nothing more than a body for three others to fuck, which is disgusting and not sexually empowering whatsoever.
Sexism is alive and well in this ad. If nothing else we have to admit that advertisements serve to sell more than the product they are promoting. If that wasn't the case, why would they use hot, half naked women to get products noticed? Advertisements also sell concepts of normalcy, and in this case, create a culture where it's not only ok but sexy to objectify women, use them solely for the purpose of male bonding and beer drinking, and "share them" with their friends. Women (people in general) deserve better than this.
I objected to the link. I posted an explanation underneath it to which many people replied that i was being overly liberal, overly sensitive, and unable to take a joke. Then someone compared this commercial to this Calvin Kline ad of David Becham modeling underwear. The guy was clearly misunderstanding the definition of "objectification." The term is used to signify when a person is seen purely to serve a purpose and their attributes and appearance are separated from the rest of their worth to reduce that person to an instrument (or object) solely for the pleasure or use of another person. When men are photographed half naked (as in that ad) men aren't objectified in the same way women are everyday due to the social context. We live in a country where women are second class citizens and commercials like the Guinness one only serve to perpetuate and glamorize that status.
Research just this year found that men are more likely to think of women as objects if they viewed pictures of stereotypically sexy women beforehand. "Researchers used brain scans to show that when straight men looked at pictures of women in bikinis, areas of the brain that normally light up in anticipation of using tools, like spanners and screwdrivers, were activated. Scans of some of the men found that a part of the brain associated with empathy for other peoples' emotions and wishes shut down after looking at the pictures. Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, said the changes in brain activity suggest sexy images can shift the way men perceive women, turning them from people to interact with, to objects to act upon."
7 comments:
yeah, that's really nasty.
She looks to be unconscious. and yes, either way, it's offensive and is a perfect example of objectification.
At least we know how Guiness gets that creamy head now ;-(
I am Australian and watching that commercial made me think of footballers having group sex sharing only one woman (which in Australia they call bunning). The old school coaches tried to explain it away as a bonding session between team mates.
That was sick and wrong
This commercial is so foul. I can't believe that in the 21st century, women are still so objectified. I'm at a loss as to what's worse - treating her as a table or as a group sex appliance.
you have GOT to be kidding me. disgusting.
Just to defend Guinness here: They didn't make the ad, they didn't pay the person who made the ad, they denounced the ad.
The person who made the ad is entirely unaffiliated with Guinness.
The commercial is sick. But if Guinnes didn't put it out then its another issue entirely. The thing is that it displays a culture that doesn't value sexual interaction as some previous generations did. But the video reflects group sex porn. That's part of western culture. The fake ad is only reflecting what the culture is beginning to think and "say" more publically. Group sex culture is not new. But only a culture over exposed to sex would know the context of the add and not reject the add because they have seen the interaction before.
The real article that should have been focused on was the study and not so much the beer ad. The one thing the study didn't do was ask background questions to tie in some common threads between the men. The biggest one is do you watch porn and masturbate. We know that the part of the brain that digests porn is different the part of the brain that digest sexual intercourse. The other thing to look at is how do they precieve media? I can say that if I saw a woman being shot in a magazine or on the computer I would have a different reaction then if the action was in front of me. The same can go with the pictures. Are the pictures tools or is the person? That is what is needed to be known before we can go any further.
The last thing that I find funny is that no one said "Well their born that way." The study tries to make this a purely biological study when in all honesty it truly is not. But every sexual decission is seen as biologically influenced. But one set of sexual actions, homosexuality, is accepted, while objectification, is seen as a bad biological response. When in actuality since both are biological response they are neither good nor bad but natural. But if you hold to the belief that one is subject to biology you are now faced with a darker morale problem. Can you say one action is okay on the basis of biology and the other is not?
Thanks for the study in the article I will pass it around to some of my friends.
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