Now I realize most of you who visit this site (those very few of you) almost never, if ever, watch the Spike TV Channel....and maybe that is the simple answer to my following commentary.
Spike TV has a new ad for the channel that has two women licking the same cone of ice cream. For clarity's sake, it is a close up of just their faces, the ice cream cone is center frame, and each woman licks the cone and looks at the camera seductively.
I don't think I need to spell out the connotations of this commercial for you. What bugs me is not this commercial per say, but the fact that a similar commercial was summarily yanked the day after it aired during the super bowl.
That commercial was for snickers and it featured two men who were so into eating the same snickers bar that they end up kissing. This, of course, offended people in relation to their views on issues of homosexuality.
Not wanting to get sidetracked on a rant about that commercial being pulled, I will just say this: No one (to my knowledge) has protested Spike TV's ad, much less gotten the ad pulled. Granted Spike TV has a much smaller audience than the Super Bowl, but you can't tell me that Spike TV's ad isn't being left alone because of America's patriarchal, homophobic society's double standard of assualting anything remotely 'gay' while simultaneously fantasizing about anything 'lesbian'.
Spike TV Ad
Posted by Grinth Thursday, March 22, 2007 at 11:58 PM
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5 comments:
9:27 PM
While I won't disagree about the double standard with regard to homosexuality, I think you failed to mention, though I'm sure you noticed, that there is a very hetero overtone to the women's actions in the Spike TV ad. The ice cream cone is a quite blatant phallic stand-in. That two women's tongues are coming into that close of proximity is definitely playing with the lesbian fantasy, but the centrality of the phallic object suggests that the male is prominent and it is really hetero play. The Snickers ad, by contrast, was completely about the homosexual connotation, or at least what I saw of it.
That's not meant to nit-pick, and the phallic object talk puts me danger close to speaking my dreaded Freudian, but it just popped into my head on reading the description.
11:58 AM
I haven't seen the Spike TV ad you mention, but having seen others, I agree with Vampire's comments about the central image being masculine. It isn't just to excite men but also to reassure them that they are central to the network's programming choices (which is in itself a lie, we all know that ad revenue is what drives TV programming.) Spike TV is, after all, television for (assumedly hetero) men. Women are the playthings, the candy, the windowdressing with benefits. The message is if you're a hip and manly dude, you at least think about two women licking your cone.
This is in stark contrast to the image of the Snickers ad. The men in this ad are not hip; they are overwhelmed with desire for a candy bar (and I don't think that it is intentionally symbolic of a phallus... that was probably an added benefit.) When their lips touch (in the manner of 101 Dalmations' spaghetti noodle scene), they must "prove" their manhood through pain, tearing out chest hair. The message here is that Snickers is so delicious, you might accidentally do something "gay" and although you may have to try to live that down later, isn't it worthwhile for the great taste and enjoyment of a candy bar? Ultimately that questions sexuality rather than affirming it, so the ad got pulled because Snickers is not going to spend their media dollars joking about the sexuality of the people they want to buy their product. (Maybe they thought that outside of the context of a Superbowl audience, they weren't going to win enough people over with the punchline.)
5:48 PM
I watched Spike TV back when I had cable, mostly because they showed a lot of CSI reruns and Bond flicks. When (if) I graduate, perhaps I'll turn my cable back on and watch it again. sigh...
I was going to make some remark about ads for Oxygen and Lifetime, but I can't remember any specific examples at the moment... I could be wrong, but it seems that last time I had cable, the ads of these "women's channels" were just as insistent in reinforcing patriarchy and the heterosexual "norm."
9:38 AM
Both are on youtube. The Spike TV add was, quiet frankly, appealing. The Snickers commercial was quite hilarious. Social evolution is very interesting, isn't it? I suspect the more we get over our hangups, the more we discover who we really are...
6:34 PM
Hey G what ya doing mate long time no Write. Sometimes i think your american sensors just go way to far. I have seen the snickers add your talking about and honestly if America wasnt run buy religiouse dik wads you guys would have some decent Tv. Tho i cant say much comming from Australia we have 3 comerical tv channles and one cable content provider woot go us.
Tho even our sensors have their head screwed on wrong. we dont have a X clasification so they just ban all x rated films exept in canbera of course the pollys need their porn
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