Super Bowl Recap

I’ll be contributing a piece to In Media Res in a couple weeks that will explore a few of the more obvious ads in greater detail, but I want to do a general overview here, too.

Rather than look at any ads in particular (although I am working on some specific thoughts about the Dockers commercial that I will post later), I’d rather look at some broad themes that played out over the course of the broadcast. These all overlap, yet are distinct enough to provide a framework.

1. Voices

Tracing who gets to speak in manvertising, and how, is crucial to the project of understanding the narrative ideologies at play. This year’s crop of ads played out a fascinating and clear set of rules for speaking, limiting women’s voices very carefully and containing the apparent threat of what can come of them.

This ad from Intel illustrates the way in which women’s silence is often barely noticeable, yet seems to play an inexplicable, crucial part of the narrative. The way in which the commercial opens with two young men in a basement, with a young girl walking down the stairs as they say “they’re invading” is head-scratching, and is a perfect example of the dugout.

Bud Light offers another variation: men hijacking spaces in which women’s voices do have an opportunity to speak. Even more disturbing is they way women’s voices, which here are being used to discuss intellectual topics, are quickly redirected into topics of sexualization. This is a classic manvertising tactic, as evidenced by the exaggerated humor of the male “misunderstandings” of the conversational topics.

This Motorola ad foregrounds the female voice as having mysterious sexual power over men, but is then pulled back and safely put away. This is a classic example of the fantasy of women having and using sexuality but containing it under the guise of protection.

This Bud Light ad, though, is by far the most disturbing. The woman, attempting to take charge of the group of survivors, demonstrating a technical aptitude and leadership skills, is immediately drowned out by a prototyptical manvertising character, the dumb guy who only cares about beer. Her efforts are thwarted, twice, by his unwillingness to let her spoil the fun. Here, the woman’s voice is an disruptive annoyance.

By contrast, look at the way the male voice is associated with authority, patriotism, and “common sense.” There’s a hint of manvertising here, too, with the slight exaggeration — presumably to downplay the troubling OVER-patriotism that suggests some sort of teabagger mentality.

2. The Male Gaze of “Lesbian” Desire

Advertisers love to bring this trope out during the Super Bowl (and sports, in general). This might be, I would speculate, a way to alleviate some of the anxiety male viewers have at seeing all those big men grappling with each other for four hours. There were two ads this year that played out lesbianism for men’s pleasure. To add to the previous category, both also offer a look at women’s voices, too. The first, from Go Daddy (my nominee for company in most urgent need of permanent retirement from future Super Bowls), is full of women speaking… in the context of a sexuality aimed at pleasuring the viewer. Both also play with lesbian desire, as the two women seem to want to perform for Danica Patrick.

Amazingly, the Super Bowl rejected this third ad for Go Daddy that also plays with stereotypes of homosexuality — but this time it’s a former football player involved. Yes, there are some exaggerated stereotypes at play here, but are they any more offensive or regressive than the cultural fantasy of two women performing for male pleasure?

The last ad came just after the final post-game show ended, meaning Labatt’s had to pay a far smaller fee. I’ve searched and cannot find this video online, but here’s the website for the upcoming promotion. At the end of this commercial, the two women pictured below strut out bump their asses together suggestively, a parodic moment of pornographic movies with scenes involving two women performing for men.

3. Women as Sexual Objects

The oldest and by far the most consistently used tactic in Super Bowl commercials. Two examples stood out to me of the way women become nothing more than bodies, sexualized objects to be used as narrative devices to convey meaning.

The first is from Bridgestone, which decided it would be hilarious and awesome to spend a ton of money on this:

The second is from Kia, which went for the old “party in Vegas” motif, complete with nameless, identity-less sex object women in the background to convey how amaaaaaaazing this party is. Nothing says “sweet party” more efficiently than hot women dancing.

4. Classic Manvertising

These ads adhered most fully to the definition I’ve tried to craft on this blog: exaggerated humor that attempts to deflect criticism of deeply regressive depictions of male masculinity.

4. The Return of Resentment

These final ads are much darker… the humor starts to fade and is replaced by hostility. The first, from Dove, is somewhere in between manvertising and darkness, with the absurd singing voice, the “funny” narrative, and the goofy looking actor. Yet the message in it is moving toward hostility and “taking back” masculinity.

And then, of course, there’s this last one. No commentary is really necessary, except to say that it’s a deliberate move by Dodge to stir up controversy. In that way, it’s sort of the dark side of manvertising: rather than deflect criticism through humor, the ad can COURT criticism to draw attention to itself, and then perhaps say that it’s deliberately exaggerated. Any way you look at it, though, it’s openly hostile toward and deeply resentful of women.

As I said in my last post, manvertising seems to be changing slightly. This last ad represents what could be happening: a return to outright aggression, resentment, and anger. It’s a deep cultural fantasy that’s being played with, men as victims, and has been mitigated for some time now through absurdist humor. Whether or not that humor will start disappearing in favor of anger remains to be seen… and depends a lot on the financial reaction to the advertising.

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