As promised, here is the next batch of old posts, saved up because of a logging-in problem I'd been having until recently. Also, since I will most likely be posting my final project today, it will appear below this post, since I think that's how blogger does these things. I may re-post it tomorrow morning to make sure it appears at the top, though. Anyway, as promised:

Eleventh Post: The Axe/Dove Conspiracy

Seeing that these two companies were owned by the same parent company wasn’t a big deal for me. I honestly don’t think it reflects poorly on Dove, or at all on Axe. It’s great that Dove is trying to get their message out, and the Axe video we watched was so blatant that it was hard to see it as a threat to feminism or whatever. I don’t think people should ignore whatever Dove has to say simply because another company with the same owner happens to use contrarian images and themes in their ads. It’s not the same company; in fact these two companies operate completely independently of one another. Not a big deal at all in my opinion.

Twelfth Post: Heineken Robot Girl

Wow. I had seen that ad a few times before; I found the music annoying, and that was why I didn’t like it. Also the girl in it looked a little creepy, with her permanent smile and fact that she was a robot. I hadn’t even considered the whole Heineken-keg-as-uterus angle. Pretty shocking stuff. But I wonder, after the ad man got the idea to have a mini-keg stored inside someone, where else can it conceivably fit? I mean, assuming (since it is a beer ad) that they’re using a 108-pound girl, there simply is nowhere else put a mini-keg. They can’t move the keg up and have it come out of her chest, since that would means that for a few seconds, we would be looking at a beer ad without boobs, and we can't have that. Let’s be realistic; that is simply a part of the world we live in. If the ad guys came out and said it was an accident, I would believe them; if they said it was deliberate, that they meant to imply women would be better off with beer for a uterus, then I would be offended and actually pretty pissed. But it’s not like I was going to drink Heineken anyway; it’s not my brew.

Thirteenth Post: Gay-Vague

I’m not sure I follow this whole ‘”gay-vague” concept. If I understand the book and lecture, it’s advertising with secret gay messages encoded, stuff that us in the straight community won’t get, but gays can? Very odd. Isn’t this just the sort of thing that people are always accusing ad men of, that they program in subliminal messages? How have those allegations made people in the industry look so far? And now they’re apparently doing it deliberately. That aside, I think it’s good in a business sense to advertise to gays. All most stereotypes are at least grounded somewhat in truth, and the gay dudes I’ve met are always the best dressed; why not advertise to them? How many straight guys do you know who will see a shirt in an ad and then rush out to buy it? We just don’t shop that way. Advertising to gay dudes may be a way to move more men’s products, since they apparently don’t shop like normal men. So gay-vague advertising is good, I guess.

Fourteenth Post: Pornographic Themes

This was interesting. Everybody knows the first rule in advertising is “sex sells,” but this is taking that to a whole other level. As a guy in college, I am not entirely unfamiliar with porn. Dominance/submission and other long-standing conventions have a proud heritage within the porn world. However, with this concept crossing over into everyday advertising, one worries about the ramifications. Who knows what effect that could have on the psyche of a young girl when she gets older? If she’s internalized, for example, the submissive role women (always) play in porn (except in dominatrix fetish stuff), but she got it through advertising, how many different things are going to be wrong with her? There’s a reason we don’t let kids buy porn, and I don’t actually think it has anything to do with, you know, the actual sex, or at least not exclusively. Thematically, a lot of the stuff in porn (I hear) is stuff for, literally, more mature audiences. A porn viewer needs to be able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and for that to happen I assume the person has to reach a certain age; ads don't have a minimum viewing age. If this porn theme stuff is out there, it's getting into people's heads long before they'll have developed the ability to seperate the messages within an ad. The girl may be sprawled half-naked at the feet of some dude, but a child wouldn't be able to tell that the message isn't "women should always be sprawled at the feet of men," but rather "buy this shirt."

Fifteenth Post: Complicity in Stereotyping Continued

Women. I hear all the time how women still get less pay than men (although every time I check information.com, law firms are paying both genders the same), and how women still aren’t treated as equals, and I believe it; it’s a problem that needs working on. But when I’m buying groceries, I pass, as I suppose we all do, the celebrity rags, Cosmo, and the Cosmo-like magazines. Every time, it’s always “how to tell when he’s cheating," “how to keep your man interested,” and “new secret ways to please your man that he won’t tell you.” Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about equal pay and equal rights, but come on. We all know that men are biologically geared towards leading the pack, and women are biologically geared towards having children; we know this. So this is how women fight that huge uphill battle? “How to Tell When He’s Cheating?” Men may be genetically predisposed to think of women as child-rearers without a place in the workforce, but to a certain extent, you (women) do it to yourselves. This is perhaps a little more honesty, or at least forthrightness, than can be found in most people, but this is just the way I feel. Women want to be treated seriously, but you don’t get respect by waving banners; you get it by acting seriously. “How to Keep Your Man Interested?” Try putting down the Cosmo and reading something of substance; engage him in a serious conversation. I've really enjoyed the rare candid conversation with self-aware women, even, especially, when she disagrees with me, provided she can back it up. I’ll be the first to admit, men need to meet women halfway; maybe an agreeable first step for everyone could be to hide all the Cosmos.