If you haven’t already seen this on Twitter, here’s something terrible for you: the image above comes from a catalog for Bloomingdale’s.
Because, apparently, a group of actual human beings sat around a table trying to come up with new ways to sell clothes this holiday season and decided that, really, there was no better way to do that than by conjuring up visions of holiday-themed date rape.
The ad copy is bad enough, but the picture really clinches the ad’s full terribleness: the happy woman, enjoying herself obliviously at some holiday party while her predatory “best friend” contemplates the best way to render her unconscious.
Happily, enough people were publicly disgusted by the ad and its creepy implications that Bloomingdale’s has now apologized for it, though somehow I doubt they will feel apologetic enough to rerelease their catalog with the offending image removed from it.
To me, one of the creepiest things about the ad was its implicit invocation of the notion of the “friend zone,” that mythic land where poor suffering men are exiled by cruel women who just can’t see that the best guy for them is already sitting by their side listening patiently as they cry about the latest bad boy to break their heart. You know this stale old story by heart.
The idea of the “friend zone” turns a woman’s lack of romantic interest in a guy into a sort of injustice that she has supposedly inflicted upon him. It encourages a seemingly contradictory sense of wounded, hopeless entitlement amongst guys who would do far better if they either accepted the friendship of their crush for what it is, or, if this is too painful for them, just moved on.
Guys who see themselves as being trapped in the friend zone feel they are being denied something — well, someone — that should rightfully be theirs. After all, they’re such nice fellows, the best friend a woman could ever have!
But really not.
Needless to say, a “best friend” staring at a woman and thinking about ways to spike her drink is not a friend at all. Neither, really, is any guy — well, anyone of any gender — who considers themselves stuck in the friend zone, which is not actually a zone of friends at all; it’s a zone full of thwarted, passive-aggressive clingers-on who think the fact that they’re your friend(and not something more) is a terrible crime against them. And that’s just as creepy as this Bloomingdale’s ad.
@raysa – Your aside reminded me of my freshman English (the subject taught in American schools, not the literal language) teacher in high school. She gave us a list of times we could use the word nice in our writings and not have points deducted. 1. It appears in a direct quote that is properly end or foot noted. 2. To describe the little old lady we helped cross the road. End list. 🙂 She gave the exact same reason you did; that it means almost nothing and tells her even less about what we mean by it.
Kestrel :
She sounds like an excellent teacher.
DeBecker talked about “charming”, too, that it’s not really all that positive an attribute.
Change “a charming person” to “a person charming me”, the intent changes some.
Interesting semantics. 🙂
I believe this is the XKCD comic about the friendzone:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/friends.png
This is like a life insurance provider running an ad telling you to knock off your loved ones to collect on the policy, and being surprised when the entire fucking world tells them they’re tasteless hacks.
@Orion
There very often is a special window in which you can ‘avoid the friend zone’ — because the last thing they want is to be a woman’s friend — by establishing romantic attraction, i.e., that the woman you’re interested in expresses interest in you. The problem is that when women don’t want to date or sleep with PUA-types or ‘nice-guys’, instead of avoiding the friend zone by accepting that she’s not interested and moving on, they hang around, convinced that one day she’ll decide, completely out of the blue, that she’s in love with him or at least wants to fuck him.
“But baby it’s cold outside?”
“Say, what’s in this drink?”
(TW: Rapeyness)
Hello.
The Friend Zone stuff reminds me of a (maybe not quite so) old (and machist) proverb : “Better be loved by an ugly than be friend with a beauty”. I suppose it is in order to satisfy some ego ?
Have a nice day.
The song, overall, is still probably more creepy than charming, but this is worth reading:
“…the line “Say, what’s in this drink” needs to be explained in a broader context to refute the idea that he spiked her drink. “Say, what’s in this drink” is a well-used phrase that was common in movies of the time period and isn’t really used in the same manner any longer. The phrase generally referred to someone saying or doing something they thought they wouldn’t in normal circumstances; it’s a nod to the idea that alcohol is “making” them do something unusual. But the joke is almost always that there is nothing in the drink… I’ve heard it in [scenes where someone] is giving up bits of information they’re supposed to be protecting, … making a fool of themselves, [or] where someone is experiencing feelings they are not supposed to have.”
Source: http://persephonemagazine.com/2010/12/listening-while-feminist-in-defense-of-baby-its-cold-outside/
I know the song lyrics are misinterpreted as being about rape when they aren’t, but I still think the song pushes a rape culture narrative. The idea that women are sexual gatekeepers who must pretend not to want it when they really do want it is really toxic. No means maybe is something too many men still tell themselves. The notion that women are just playing hard to get when they say no makes it so easy for rapists to pretend they made a mistake and thought they had consent. It makes coercion socially acceptable.
All of that makes me not want to defend Baby it’s Cold Outside even though it’s not literally about spiking a drink.
Aerinea: Yup, that’s the one I was thinking of. Thanks for digging it up.
Really unimpressed with that exegesis. It’s just a long explanation of why a woman’s clear, unambiguous “no” shouldn’t be taken as a no.
The fact that she uses a lot of social factors that sound like excuses can be interpreted just as well the other way: She’s fishing around for a reason he’s more likely to accept, because he obviously won’t take a simple “no, I’m not interested” as an answer.
I wonder if at least some of the “women date assholes” trope can be attributed to guys being able to more easily recognize when another guy is an asshole on account of 1) the asshole usually isn’t making an effort to hide it from the guy; and 2) guys may be more attuned since they’ve had to put up with the antics of these types of toxic males since grade school.
I mean, sure, there is plenty of jealousy available in that “she chose him and not me; what a dick.” But, there’s also a dose of “how could you not have known he was a jerk?”
Related: “He’s an asshole. Anyone with a haircut like that . . . you know he’s an asshole.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFKXAGJ3qvM
You’re talking about it. Mission accomplished. That was the point. To get people talking about Bloomingdale’s again so people will think of them during the holiday shopping time.
What I’d like to see is Macy’s, or whoever, run an ad campaign that boils down to, “Hey, shop here. Our stuff is the same mass-produced stuff they have at Bloomingdales, and the prices boil down to what’s on sale at which store, but unlike Bloomie’s, we know better than to advocate date-rape. Macy’s: Shopping for people who aren’t awful human beings.”
That was basically what Bertolli did after Barilla execs made homophobic comments.
“Because, apparently, a group of actual human beings sat around a table trying to come up with new ways to sell clothes this holiday season and decided that, really, there was no better way to do that than by conjuring up visions of holiday-themed date rape.”
And Manosphere argues “there is no such thing as rape culture” just because when we walk down the street we don’t see everyone getting raped left and right. That’s literally what they think a “rape culture” looks like.
“The song, overall, is still probably more creepy than charming, but this is worth reading: ”
Yep, I always thought “Santa Baby” was creepy too. That voice. Just, no.
@katz
What a wonderful advert. Go Bertolli!
“Yep, I always thought “Santa Baby” was creepy too. That voice. Just, no.”
uh…dafuq? “That voice” is Eartha Kitt, and she was a goddess.
Why are the most vocal women the least productive of anything of value, and the most productive of bile and vengeful thoughts?
Case in point: the advert above isn’t necessarily about date rape. OP has made this inference, and then gone on a huge rant as if the whole world is against women. After all, the picture doesn’t “clinch it” as any media theorist could tell you. The image does not present any necessary ideological content. For example, perhaps the woman has spiked the man’s drink and is laughing at how stupid he is. Why does OP place the evil intentions in the male figure? The image itself does not determine this choice.
Because the ad features a man leering at a woman. It’s put in the perspective of the male gaze and clearly addressing him.
Also, as we’ve already said, even if the intent isn’t to rape, it’s still wrong to give someone a drug without their knowledge and consent.
What the discussion of the intent and message of an ad has to do with the productivity of vocal women, I don’t know. Who are you even talking about? The author of this blog is a man, so your whole shtick about the scourge of women daring to have opinions is a little misplaced.
@internet victimologist
1. The OP is a man. Hi David!
2.Context matters.As WWTH already mentioned, the fact that the man is leering at the woman implies that he is the one who spiked her drink. His position and facial expression indicate that he is the one doing the spiking. She is laughing and looking away, oblivious to him. He is leering at her, clearly watching her with intent. It’s not hard to figure out that he’s up to something.
3. Regardless of who spiked the drink, it’s still wrong. You say that it’s not necessarily about date rape, but you are incorrect. Men and women (and non-binary people) can be raped. Even if it was the woman who spiked the man’s drink (and the ad implies otherwise; see #2), it’s still a reference to date rape and it’s still wrong.
4. More context. Ads, like all media, do not exist in a vacuum. This ad uses similar colors and styles as the video for “Blurred Lines.” Do you think that’s an accident? I don’t. By creating that association, the marketing people at Bloomingdale’s were hoping to be able to cash in on a popular song. The problem there is that they are associating their ad (which is already about spiking someone’s drink) with a song that features a man trying to coerce women into sex. That’s a pretty clear link to date rape.
Are we gonna have to do the IRL career roll call again?
SFHC: Probably not worth it, since IV is almost certainly a drive-by. And even if he’s not, then he’s still not worth the time and effort.