GMMUS

Ever since this blog was assigned I feel that I am keeping my eyes open for media that is sexist, racist, anti-feminist, etc... While there is quite a bit out there and most are blatantly obvious, I've found more often than not that these ads aren't offensive or wrong or what have you. I feel that when I come along a YouTube video spouting "most sexist commercial" that more often it is someone reaching or taking offense on everything. One example is a Folgers coffee ad that I do remember seeing.

[insert video here]

Here's a quick summary: daughter comes downstairs to her Dad making coffee. He says to her that she was out late last night and the daughter then puts up her ring finger showing her engagement ring and that you don't have to worry about me anymore in a half-hearted manner. Thereare quite a bit of ways you could take this from what I've read up on other peoples views. One way is the way I think it is and that is that the commercial is portraying the old fashioned notion that the Dad is to watch over the daughter and make sure she is safe until she gets married which is a major old fashioned goal and then the husband would take care of her. It's not that the woman is unable to do so herself it is that she made her choice in marriage and she proclaims that I have someone else to do that for me. The other way that some people are taking it is that the woman is defenseless and hopeless and she has to have someone watching her all the time and only once she gets married off can she stop having her daddy look after her and now have her man protect her. I think to assume that would be to assume that the woman is defenseless in the first place. To assume that she is defenseless would then assume that she needs the help rather than just reassuring her Dad who if anything is sexist (assuming he has to watch over her), that she is ok without him. There is a part that I disagree with and that would be a third option that Folgers could have shown: her not having to have a ring to say that she doesn't need daddy's protection anymore. That would definitley be the new school approach but that I believe in lies the problem. I feel that everyone who says the ad is sexist is assuming that the woman is in the third option and to show anything else is sexist. It's not necessarily to sexist to be old fashioned but at the same time to think that you must be new school to not be sexist is absurd. I feel that she hasthe choice to feel the way she feels and to assume that she should be a certain way is ridiculous and wrong. Folgers made a comparison between their old fashioned coffee and the old fashioned ideals of marriage and that's that.

What do you think?