Comments on: Talk about a bait and switch. The Tebow Super Bowl ad left me hyped up for more hype.

By: Eric Dienstfrey

Eric Dienstfrey — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:10:16 +0000

You bring up a decent point, but I think we are justifying one ad’s rhetoric at a higher standard merely because we disagree with its political message. Everyone writing on this page appears to be both ‘pro-choice’ (if we can move past the conceit of those terms) and environmentally progressive, if not in practice than in ideology. But perhaps there’s nothing wrong with this approach.

By: Evan Davis

Evan Davis — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:05:24 +0000

It seems that part of the reason for taking a look at the FotF ad is to uncover its peculiarities: genuinely innocuous on the outside, potentially pernicious on the inside. One could say the same thing about the Audi commercial (that tagline does hit hard), but after watching it again, it seems as though Audi is parodying the authoritarian fervor many environmentalists unleash on others. We laugh at the Audi ad because we recognize the absurdity of equating a thrown-away battery with murder. Does that make the ad more insidious? I suppose an argument could be made that yes, since we are laughing, the hidden message can be communicated more completely. However, its layers of meaning still appear to be less damning than the FotF piece. Less weird, perhaps, but also less damning.

By: sarah

sarah — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:57:26 +0000

I could not agree w/ this more, Misty! I was mortified by the misogyny in the ads in general, and this idea that a woman should have no “decision to make” when her life is at risk when pregnant was just mind-blowing to me.

By: Myles McNutt

Myles McNutt — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:52:46 +0000

This is especially clear with the ManCrunch ad they were proposing to air, which is just horribly made – at first I found it confounding that the two guys in the commercial were clearly fake kissing, until I realized that of course they weren’t actually kissing, because the commercial was clearly never intended to be seriously considered for the Super Bowl. They knew precisely what they were doing, and the ad was entirely irrelevant to their plans.

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:27:35 +0000

yeah, it was MoveOn, with an anti-Bush ad. CBS said it was too controversial, so it played on CNN instead … and meanwhile, Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake provided WAY more controversy than CBS would’ve had to worry about with the MoveOn ad. Ah, sweet karma 🙂

By: Misty

Misty — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:10:12 +0000

I completely agree, Myles. We might have seen this coming a few years back, when another advocacy group (MoveOn, maybe?) submitted an ad that was rejected as too controversial. I bring up that example to further illustrate your point. Even when an ad doesn’t run, like the ManCrunch spot from this year, the “earned” media results in far more brand awareness than the actual 30 seconds.

By: Kyra Glass

Kyra Glass — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:34:20 +0000

Liz, thanks for the heads up on the timing of the Planned Parenthood ad. I had received mis-information from a radio program claiming that it was rejected by CBS, something that appears to be false after double-checking further. Yet the circulation of this mis-information in itself is interesting.However while I find the tone of the planned parenthood ad interesting I apologize for my false assumptions about why it was or was not aired.

By: Eric Dienstfrey

Eric Dienstfrey — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:10:06 +0000

I think we are ignoring an equally problematic ad last night from Audi in the form of a “green police” satire. Even though the ad promoted a fuel efficient automobile, it made environmentalists out to be liberal fascists through both police state imagery and the tagline “Green has never felt so right.” Buy an Audi to avoid the wrath of those obnoxious liberals. Perhaps I am baffled that the political statements of this ad is getting virtually no attention, whereas an innocuous ad from FotF is galvanizing–in my opinion exhausted–rhetorical analysis.

By: Liz Ellcessor

Liz Ellcessor — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:59:04 +0000

Kyra, to be fair, I don’t think the Planned Parenthood ad was ever submitted to air on CBS – it would have been too late in the process to get a spot, and as an organization with actual services and operating costs, they couldn’t afford it.

Otherwise, though, I agree – I remember the “Women Deserve Better” ads from a few years back that were designed to suggest that abortion is always a last resort and direct women to pregnancy care centers. The message is that these people care about you and your future baby and will help, while abortion will only cause more problems. The goal is to get people to the point seen so often in 16 and Pregnant – “I could never do that” – regardless of their actual circumstances and desires.

By: Anne Helen Petersen

Anne Helen Petersen — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:07:08 +0000

This is a popular (and salient) idea right now, as demonstrated by the portrayal of child birth (and the duty of the mother to her unborn child) in the fourth book of Twilight. I’m not spoiling anything to say that Bella, pregnant with a half-vampire baby, has her body torn apart by the rapidly growing fetus — it breaks her spin, cracks her ribs, and basically starts to eat its way out of her. NO JOKE. But she refuses any attempt at even getting the baby out early, as it’s her duty to have this child. No matter the cost, women are made to have babies….