No thanks, Belvedere vodka. I think I’ll be going with pretty much ANY OTHER BRAND than you the next time I purchase vodka.
After a flurry of complaints online, Belvedere offered this “apology.”
Yeah, pretty sure “sorry if you were offended” does not count as a real apology. Neither does this: Belvedere Vodka, I’m sorry you’re so fucking clueless.
@pujeemuhs
WHUT? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLROFL!!!!!
No.
Jesus fucking Christ, Antz, what planet do you live on?
Ozy is right, by the way, if you have an issue with how offensive this ad is–regardless of why–just write to the company. It takes less than 20 seconds to go from googling the brand name to clicking the “contact” option to shooting them an email. I assume you’d rather sit back and complain, though, since that’s pretty much all that MRAs are good at.
I’ve got a question for older Manboobzers: Has advertising always been this bad? I feel like it’s getting worse, at least in the short term.
katz, take a lookee here.
I’m not an “older Manboobzer”, but I will answer anyway:
I can’t say about advertising, but I do know pop culture representation of the sexes is more and more extreme. The claim that we live in a culture that promotes genderlessness is absurd.
I am quite a young Manboobzer, but: It seems to me like this whole pseudo-retro, half-satirical hypermasculinity thing has gotten a lot bigger in recent years. The whole thing where men go in their Man Cave to drink “It’s not for women” soda and eat “Manbulance” beef jerky and practice their Man Skills before washing off with an Axe Detailer. It seems to have really crept up the last couple years.
There’s sort of a wink in it, like “it’s not for women, ha ha, like we’d really say that”… and sort of not, because yeah, you did actually say that.
Do I count as older? I’m nearly 40. Holly is correct – there’s been more and more of this kind of retro sexism with a bro twist over the last 5 years or so. Back in the 80s I don’t recall seeing anything like this, at least not in a mainstream context.
What Holly said.
I was around for the 1970s and 80s and there was about the same level of gender binarism, but it didn’t have this level of anxiety to it. There was bad rape-oriented pseudohumor like the trope about the caveman with the club dragging the cavewoman by the hair, but the word “rape” just in itself wasn’t a punchline like it is now.
I’m not “older” (or at least I hope I’m not yet!), but I did watch a lot of commercials from the 70s for a class a few years back, and they were simultaneously horrifying and reassuring – horrifying in that ads from the 70s were frequently so overt in their sexism that they were truly painful to watch, and reassuring in that however bad many ads today are, most of them don’t come right out and explicitly declare that women are all morons who are only good for sex and cleaning your house, so we’ve at least made some progress. That said, none of the ones I watched were just hideous rape “jokes.” So this ad may have them beat on the seriously-not-cool front, which is pretty fucking sad considering that we’re talking about commercials containing entirely serious lines like, “It’s so simple even your wife can use it!”
I feel like ads have gotten somewhat worse in general in the last five years or so, but I admit that might just be that I’ve been watching more TV, or because I’ve forgotten the terrible ones from ten years ago by now. I do think there’s been something of an uptick in commercials that appear to be aimed squarely at the “bro” market – between Hardee’s, Axe, that Dr. Pepper nonsense, and basically every beer ad ever, I get the impression that a fair number of marketing teams think the ideal consumer is male, roughly 19, obsessed with boobies, and dumb as a brick.
Heh, and apparently I am both (a) a slow typist and (b) not just imagining things, since two people already beat me to the “it does seem like there’s been a lot of ads for bros in the last few years” point while I was posting.
@CAssandraSays – I love Mad Men but too many of its fans are morons with no critical thinking skills. I’m sure that show’s not the only thing to blame, but it has really shed light on how stupid and shallow people are.
Actually I’m pretty sure that this trend predated Mad Men by several years. Also, I think the difference between the ads from the 70s that the new ones are playing off of and the current ones is malice – there’s a lot more anger and coded desire to do harm to women in the new ads, whereas the older ones were more patronising.
Yeah the Bridgestone tire ads are a good example of that. Violence toward women used for humor.
Yeah, this. The theme of the recent bro-ads is more like “carve out and protect your man-space” and “take women down a notch” as opposed to “you already have a man-space, I’m sure” and “women are already down a notch.”
As far as the trend over the last five years or if it’s longer, it’s hard to tell what you mean because all the backlashes sort of meld together. But it does seem like since every dudebro’s started aspiring to be a middle aged misogynist racist alcoholic nymphomaniacal narcissistic Master of the Universe I’ve seen a lot more fedoras and jokes that were unfunny 50-100 years ago.
Not to be too much of an old farty fuddy duddy, but it may be less that ads patently endorsing rape and DV started being created only a few years ago and more that the internet has brought these ads to everyone’s attention. Now it’s not just a localized community that gets to gaze upon the abject horror of an ablist rape joke or a joke about DV — it’s everyone.
I remember being 40! Yes, ads recently have gotten a bit backlashier (I know that is not a word) but the vintage ads were gross in their own, special way.
Advertisers have always traded gross stereotypes and rarely broke that mould.
(Big lurker/reader, rare commenter here)
Regarding good vodkas: Grey Goose is pretty much on par w/ Belvedere, as is Ketel One.
Hangar One and Level are good too.
There’s also Rain which makes organic vodka from white corn.
Ciroc is quite nice (it’s French and made from grapes).
Also, if you are lucky enough to live by a West Coast Trader Joe’s, their Black Sea vodka is pretty much amazing. (and yes, full disclosure, I DO work for TJ’s…at least until Sunday…)
Hope that helps.
BTW, didn’t comment on the ad because I don’t feel like vomiting right now…='(
Seriously. And we keep saying ‘what rape culture?’ ~_~ I mean, when I first heard just the slogan I thought -ok, a slighty unexperienced lover?- hell, do the female of that and that could be amusing! but then there was the image and I wanted to throw up.
We don’t get this brand over here and if we ever do – i’m sure as hell not buyin it! ‘i’m sorry you’re offended’ or no – i’m sorry, but NO. Means No btw.
erghghghghgh Antz, you’re a troll, plain and simple. Hope you’re not laughing at the mere fact people respond to you, because the responses are good for educating the mras too scared and knowingly full of crap to post here.
Of course AntZ, one of the shitty shitty things about adverts is what they say about “oh men will be persuaded by this ad LOL they love to buy into the frat boy rapist image”
Yes, absolutely, that is very disturbing. However, there is a VICTIM in this picture, and they obviously don’t get disturbed about rape, rape victims, or imagery. In this case that is MORE disturbing to anyone not broken.
The reason I see your trolling so clearly here, is there’s no way you’re that thick that you can’t say this is both against men and women. And for people arguing here against AntZ who, just because AntZ said it won’t give an inch on the misandry, that’s silly and wrong headed. How would you like a company to market to your gender based on their opinion that you love and engage in, and find funny… abuse. If this ad was geared toward mothers abusing their children, we could see how insulting that was, maybe a child with a black eye, and a mom taking a swig and similar slogan. You might say OH did an MRA make this ad?
So yes, this is absolutely a very serious direct insult to men. But again, that the entire subject is RAPE HA!, and the picture is so graphic, that is going to be the priority in discussion. I was triggered by this ad, for me it was only because I had just finished watching Iron Jawed Angels mere seconds before I saw it, and that movie already had me emotionally raw. Otherwise, I would not have had a real trigger.
———————————-
HORRIBLY OFFENSIVE APOLOGY: I skimmed through the comments to see if anyone mentioned this, but…. and I’m really really angry right now. The apology talked about encouraging responsible drinking. LIKE THAT WAS THE ISSUE. Not that they portrayed rape as a joke, not that they showed a terrified woman, which means the ad execs knew exactly what the fuck this entailed, it’s not like out of sight out of mind… or innuendo. Yes, date rape might involve, “irresponsible drinking” including someone trying to render another person unconscious. But to call that not drinking responsibly? That’s a criminal assault! This is rape. This is not about drinking responsibly or “hey now we don’t advocate getting others drunk” I mean that’s not even the point. In the ad the woman was very very upset. She is terrified.
The only thing that saved me on this ad was to focus on the man. There’s something unrealistic about that, and so I just looked mostly there when examining the ad.
Also AntZ, you just proved how little you think of women, and abuse and rape, so… I for one am not going to let this go. You’ve proven your own heart here (and that you’re likely a troll).
Damn, I made it sound like I saw comments toward AntZ that were not giving an inch on misandry. I did not, I skimmed over comments, and that was supposed to be some conditional phrase. If someone is doing that… If.
David, if you have time, can you post another entry quickly? Even one on kittehs like you sometimes do? No pressure, just a request.
What a bunch of arseholes! I hope they go bankrupt.
That collection of disgusting vintage ads did not seem to have this one from Pitney Bowes entitled “Is it always illegal to kill a woman?”
The image is a painted picture. A man in a brown suit, white shirt and yellow tie with green circles on it is caught in an exasperated expression, elbows in, hands palm-up, fingers of his left hand splayed, fingers of his right hand together. The object of his exasperation, a woman with a green skirt and coat combo with a white shirt, crosses her hands, turns her head up and away from him, and closes her eyes in a stubborn expression.
The ad copy begins: “For six months I bend the ears of the home office to get a postage meter. I win … Then the only good, fast, dependable, honest-to-Gregg stenographer I got, this redhead Morrissey — balks at a postage meter!
“I have no mechanical aptitude. Machines mix me up, kind of,” she says. As if we asked her to fly a P-80. I almost blow my top.”
Long story short, he cajoles her into trying the meter for two weeks with a promise to dispense with it if she doesn’t like it. Then he finds that she’s tied a pink bow around the handle. She says it’s a wonderful machine and she gets the mail out so early that she can get to the ladies’ room before the gossip starts.
The whole thing looks like it’s from the Fifties or maybe the Sixties. Somehow it doesn’t look like the Seventies to me.
I see that and I think, goddammit Pitney Bowes, I have to use one of your meters practically every day and now I’m going to be reminded of your crap ad frequently!
Only Antsy could look at something like this and think the most important theme is misandry and that those concerned about the misogyny it represents are bigots.
Honestly, he cannot be anything but a Poe. This is too dense. Black Hole dense.
It would be like seeing an ad denigrating the intelligence of african-americans and calling it racist towards white people. And then decrying people complaining about racism against POC as bigots.
The ad is indeed ugly and atrocious, but one thing it is not is misandrous. Two guys making jokes about raping women to each other aren’t misandrists, they’re a) misogynists and b)being awful. Two white people making jokes about black people to each other aren’t racist against whites, they’re a) racist against blacks b) being awful.
All of this leaves me with one nagging question: what other world did Antsy find a portal to when he shoved his head up his own arse (leaving his fingers free to type about what he sees, naturally)?
My money would be on Narnia, but then again I’ve read The Magician’s Nephew, so really there’s no knowing.