Playboy's Mirror Advertising

There was a post on Feministing about this - I found it so terrible I had to post it here.




What gives them the right?!

Rustlers' "Date" Advert

In the continuing spirit of ranting over advertisements, Rustlers has now caught my attention. The advert is for a microwave burger and begins with a date ending at a house, the man goes into the next room to make a drink and the room the woman has remained in becomes a microwave, allowing the man to speed time from the woman sat on the sofa to the woman sprawled out in her underwear. The end idea is along the lines of "if only everything was as quick as Rustlers". Whilst searching for the video on Google I came across a piece in a local newspaper regarding views of the advert in question. The article quotes the senior brand manager at Rustlers as saying that:

"We believe that the advert is tongue in cheek and empowers women, as it is the woman in the ad who has decided to take her clothes off, not the man...The whole theme is that you can get a tasty Rustlers snack in just 70 seconds, there's no waiting round so you are fast forwarding to the best parts of life"

Just how are women empowered through this advert?! The argument that the advert empowers women because it is the woman 'deciding' to take her clothes off is completely defunct since prior to the microwave experience, when asked by the man if she'd like to remove her coat she declines. So instead he uses the microwave technique to get to the stage which perhaps she was not willing to do. And fast forwarding to the best bits of life? How about the courting of a woman, getting to know her, building up trust? Apparently none of that is important - it's just about getting the sexual pleasure by the looks of fines. And Rustlers wonder what's happened to our sense of humor?

Chocolate manufacturers gone mad...

Seems Aero is the latest chocolate manufacturer to jump on stereotypical thoughts of women. Hunky man? Check. Chocolate? Check. Because we're so hormonal that the sight of a bare chested male does funny things to our brains and short-term memory.

Lad Mags Age Restrictions

Whilst in Co-Op today I saw that some lad mags have now been given an age restriction with the buyer having to be over 15. I'm not sure whether this is an national move or just a move by Co-Op, but it's definitely a move in the right direction in my eyes. What concerns me, however, is the age they have chosen - why 15 or over? I'm not too up on laws in this area but isn't the age to watch hardcore porn/purchase porn from licensed sex shops 18 or over? I not implying that what features in some of these lad mags is close to hardcore porn, but they still feature the exploitation of women's bodies which is inherent within porn. As individual cases go, some people are maturer than others and so forth, but perhaps 15 should be raised to 18* - especially since to buy alcohol we have to be 18 and we now have to be to buy tobacco. At 15 we shouldn't be presenting the kind of values featured in lad mags to boys who are in the process of growing up and forming their own ideas about life.

*in an ideal world we wouldn't have lad mags but here I'm just stating that since they do exist, whilst they are circulation this is one way I see of combating certain problems with them.

SUBTEXT ISSUE 5

it's that time of the year again, a new issue of subtext

treat yourself, treat your mum, treat your friends
(or leave copies round your school/college/uni/workplace)