For my last Ad Review, I decided to dive further into stereotypes.
Cleaning ads in the past have often portrayed women as the only ones who do the
cleaning in the household. I have seen media in the past where women look so
happy to be cleaning their entire houses, while their husbands begrudgingly
join in. While some women do like to clean, this generalization is not very
realistic. Silverman and Rader (2012) explain that ads like this influence how
we read gender roles (p. 390).
However, there seems to be a change in this stereotype
trend, as more and more cleaning companies are incorporating men into their
commercials. For example, we can compare these two Mr. Clean commercials below.
One is from 2002, and the other is from 2017. They are drastically different in
how they send the message that their products do a good job getting things
clean.
In the most recent commercial, we see that the woman does
not look excited about the cleaning tasks that are awaiting her. When she
realizes that her husband is eagerly ready and willing to help, she can’t
contain her excitement. Mr. Clean has made an attempt to move away from the idea
that only women are motivated to get the cleaning done.
I also came across an interesting article, which explains
how the U.K. is working to put a stop to advertisements that have
"damaging gender stereotypes." I think this is a good idea, as many
of these advertising stereotypes are outdated and irrelevant in today's
society.
Silverman, J., & Rader, D. (2012). The World is a Text:
Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Visual and Popular Culture (4th ed.).
Boston: Prentice Hall.
Retrieved December 2019, from https://www.insider.com/sonic-the-hedgehog-trailer-video-redesign-after-fans-hated-original-2019-11)
During Module 4, we have discussed how fans can have an
impact on the media. In many cases, fan groups tend to have a certain ‘power’
over media conglomerates, because they are able to share ideas, observations,
and knowledge so quickly. The internet has helped play a big role in this, as
Jenkins (2006) notes that fandoms were already knowledge cultures before the
internet, and now the new use of technology only makes them stronger (p. 141).
Jenkins goes on to explain that media conglomerates may have a love-hate
relationship with fandoms because of this. Today, I will be sharing a positive
example of this fan-media relationship.
(Video Source: Entertainment Access- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gy-XaZaA78)
Above there is a video that compares both the old and the new trailers that were released to promote a new Sonic
the Hedgehog movie. The original trailer immediately received a lot of
backlash online from fans. There was a lot of criticism from fans about the appearance
of animated Sonic. “…After fans reacted to the ‘horrific’ appearance of Sonic
in the first trailer, the movie's director, Jeff Fowler, responded with a vow
to change Sonic's look, which meant delaying the release until 2020” (Murray, 2019,
para. 2). This surprising response was happily accepted by fans, and a new
trailer was soon released. This example
backs up the idea that…“Fans can quickly mobilize grassroots efforts to save
programs or protest unpopular developments” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 141). While some
media companies may not respond as well to unsolicited feedback from fans, I
believe this was a good move for the film to make. It seems that fans are
willing to wait longer for the film now, since the director is willing to
listen to them and has taken their criticism seriously.
References:
Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring
Participatory Culture. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Murray, T. (2019, November 12). “The New 'Sonic the
Hedgehog' Trailer…” Insider. Retrieved December 2019, from https://www.insider.com/sonic-the-hedgehog-trailer-video-redesign-after-fans-hated-original-2019-11
