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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Aug
27
Heineken does not think very highly of you
Filed Under beauty myths, marketing, media, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, products, sexism | Posted by Cara |
At least, that’s my personal interpretation of this ad for the Heineken DraughtKeg:
I found it via Bob Garfield at the Advertising Age. He calls this ad out for “portray[ing] a woman’s uterus as a beer keg” and being “arguably the most sexist beer commercial ever produced.” Unfortunately, he also second-guesses several times, and asks if he is over-reacting. I sure as hell don’t think that he is. And I thank him for bringing to my attention, not to mention being a lot smarter than the YouTube user who says that he “needs a robot like that.”
Heineken loves the new campaign so much that they have a whole website based off of the concept. If you’d like to tell Heineken what you think about the commercial, you can use this form and select “advertising” as the subject. Oh, and try to not buy any of their beer, huh?
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
That literally makes me sick to my stomach. I’m offended not only as a woman, but as a mother. To see that seriously makes me physically ill. This is exactly why I threw away my tv set 3 years ago and never got another one.
Pff, I don’t buy their beer anyway, but I won’t let them know that when I complain.
And I’m with Kate, that’s why I don’t even have cable.
Yeah, I pretended that I was one of their customers when I wrote. I don’t even drink beer.
Gah! Not only is this ad disturbing, but it doesn’t even make sense. So I should drink their beer because…. the creepy robot lady with the beer keg uterus told me to? I’ll pass.
uhh…
that is about all i can come up w/…that is disturbing…
i have always thought their beer was gross anyway…guess now i have an excuse…
and robots creep me out…
UGH. Yeah, I saw this commercial the other day and, needless to say, it totally creeped me out. I *am* a beer-drinker (when the mood strikes me) and have bought and drunk Heineken in the past. No more.
This was the comment I left for them:
I would like you to discontinue your current ad campaign in which a model is depicted as a cyborg beer keg, unless you plan to release an identical commercial using a male model as well. You’re not planning to do that? No, of course you aren’t; because only women are subjected to that kind of dehumanizing and disturbing depiction in advertising. I won’t be drinking your beer for as long as your campaign sticks in my head either, by the way, and it’s a pretty memorable commercial. Congratulations for creating the kind of meme that has exactly the opposite effect to what you were trying to achieve.
People are over-thinking this ad. It is creating a buzz like it supposed to. Let us see this model and her name. She is hot and can make most men smile.
. . . Wow, somebody needs to go back to 2nd grade Reading Comprehension.
..You need help if you interpret the keg as a uterus…WTF.this i the dumbest thing I’ve heard about this commerical….and if your offended my this commerical…its for fun…analzying it, and trying to make sense of it takes the fun out..
. . . wow. Sorry to spoil your “fun.”
Here’s a hint: If you want to lend weight to your feminist views, and portray yourself as an objective, well-informed, well-meaning person, try not to respond to your posters in a flippant and rude manner by insulting their intelligence. It just makes you look bad, in the end; especially since your first paragraph after the video could use an “it” added to the fifth sentence, to make it’s grammar correct. It might also help if you picked more meaningful battles than a 40 second TV ad that will be forgotten by 98% of the world in 6 months.
Hey, Really, thanks for pointing out the typo two months after the fact. I’ve fixed it now.
Also, I know that it’s hard to believe that when confronted with misogynist comments that suggest all women are good for is “making men smile” and “being fun,” not all women are going to grin and bear it. It’s also weird that I have a uterus and yet still have a problem with the suggestion that I exist solely to fulfill the desires of men, but I’m sure that with time you’ll get used to it.
Oh, and when did I claim to be objective? Can someone (anyone!) point out a single time on my blog where I have claimed to be writing from an objective standpoint? Because last time I checked, most blogs are based on opinion. And mine certainly is. The “you’re not very objective” troll is one of my all-time faves. Right next to the “gee, you’re not very conservative” troll and the “wow, you’re not a very good MRA” troll.
And sorry, but this is funny — though Really thinks that it’s silly to focus on an advertisement that will be inevitably “forgotten,” he got here by searching for “heineken robot girl.” Sounds like he cares a little bit more than I do . . .
[And now I'm done.]
I clearly care more. Except in a land of logic and reason. That person never said or suggested that was “all women were good for”, did he? Perhaps my browser filtered his post incorrectly. I don’t think anyone’s suggested that, here at least, including, most importantly, Heineken. And I certainly did look that up, two months after the fact. Did you troll my browsing history with one of those intrusive programs? Awfully creepy of you, if so. Or at the very least, Big Brother-ish. Not that that’s particularly surprising. However, I think I said 6 months. Which is three times longer. About the amount of time it takes the average, non-Super Bowl beer commercial to be forgotten by the average viewer.
And I would’ve pointed your grammatical error out the day you insulted that other poster’s intelligence, by lashing out at his supposed lack of command of English, if I would’ve been unlucky enough to visit this site that long ago. Ta-ta, enjoy yourself. I’ve wasted too much time here.
I didn’t say that he had a poor command of English. I said that he clearly didn’t read the post, otherwise he wouldn’t have left such a stupid comment. Also, as an English grad, I can tell you that there’s a big difference between a typo and a grammatical error. I certainly make both, but this time it was the former.
And if you go around on feminist blogs leaving comments about women who are and aren’t “hot,” no, you don’t think very highly of women or you would have more respect than that.
I don’t know what type of program you’re talking about. I do know that I can see where my hits are coming from. And I regularly see hits from searches for the Heineken ad. I figured that was probably you, too, looked up where recent views had came from, saw the search and made a leap of logic. And ta-da, I was right.
– And the reason that I bothered to point it out is that it happens very often. Men search for something that is degrading to women. They find a post where I call that thing degrading to women. The men naturally get upset, thinking that I’m calling them sexist (which I am), and tell me to “lighten up” and that it’s not a “big deal” without disclosing the fact that they’re only bothering because they’re worried about people taking away their particular brand of offensive fun. It’s both hypocritical and hilarious.
hienikin is a sexist company….I know personaly……..
I was offended by this commercial also .they think women are to be seen an not heard,
I am a regular guy, ex driker ironically, when I saw this ad all I could think is how really strange it is. Women are objectified to the point of being a beer keg with priviledges I guess. My hunch is the average non feminist oriented male would not find the ad too appealing anyway. Would be interesting to know the success of the camapaign. It certainly did not make me want to pick up.
Just curious, how exactly do you see this and think “That keg is a uterus!”?
I can see objectification here, but I can’t find the jumping off point for the leap of logic necessary to decide that “A woman has a keg in her; it must be her uterus.”