By David Futrelle
So there’s a new Nissan ad featuring Brie Larson, and the internet’s biggest babies want you to think that they’re OUTRAGED.
I mean, maybe they really are outraged, I don’t know, but whether they’re sincere or just faking it, these performatively angry dudes (and a few dudettes) want us all to know about it. They’re trying to make Nissan into the next Gillette, yelling and screaming on social media, making videos, and doing all they can to convince the folks at Nissan that getting “woke” will make them broke.
The subject of all this alleged outrage is actually a rather tame commercial, a generally uninspired and unoriginal attempt to use “girl power” to sell cars. In the ad, we see a woman and her boss standing outside eating tacos from a truck. He tells her she’s not getting a promotion; she looks crushed. Suddenly Brie Larson appears in a brand-new NISSAN SENTRA!!! and tells her to “drop the taco, get in the car.”
Larson then takes the poor office worker on a speedy tour of the nearby streets, highlighting the car’s allegedly superb handling and some new feature that keeps you from backing into things. The idea is that if Nissan doesn’t “compromise” in kitting out this new model Sentra, the office worker shouldn’t compromise at her job. Larson deposits her new friend back at the taco truck and she stalks back to her boss to (we assume) demand the promotion she was unfairly denied.
Somehow this is supposed to make all sensible people FURIOUS. And indeed, a quick survey of some of the spots inhabited by the internet’s most furious reveals the standard outrage. In the comments to a YouTube video in which Larson explains her thoughts about the ad, internet piss babies drop their little bombs.
“Nissan. You went Full Gillette. You never go Full Gillette. “
“Nissan: Get In loser, we’re going bankrupt.”
“Just like that I’m no longer considering Nissan for my next car”
“‘He who goes woke, inevitably goes broke.’Old /pol/ish proverb”
“Now I have to sell my Nissan, thanks Brie. You blank face plank of wood.”
“I love watching companies burn to the ground. It’s quite entertaining.”
“Thanks to women like this, and companies like nissan, we are ushering in a new conservative age around the world!! Please, keep making ads like this, it will ensure atleast another decade of conservative rule. “
“BRANDS BE ADVISED, Going “woke” will lose you my business, I understand on the surface this whole “social justice” thing might seem like a positive force that promotes equality, but I assure you it’s not. Wokeness is an authoritarian extremist ideology of moral absolutism with nearly all the characteristics of a cult.”
And so on and so on.
On Twitter there were similar cries of anguish and anger.
“Congrats on your misandry, Nissan! Great marketing!” complained one Tweeter sarcastically.
“Dammit I just bought a Maxima and now it’s tainted with Brie Larson’s narcissism,” whined another. “Why, Nissan? WHY!?”
“Customers ain’t playing with Nissan acting like a simp for flatbooty clout,” added another.
No, I’m not quite sure what that last one means either, unless “flatbooty” is a synonym for feminist or something.
And if course there were the YouTube videos from the professional outrage-sellers.
It’s all a bit pathetic, really.
Yes, I rather doubt any of these outrage merchants care what I think. But this particular outrage campaign doesn’t seem to be catching on in some places where you’d think it would be an easy sell. Take the Men’s Rights subreddit, where the commercial has elicited some of the requisite outrage but also some yawns.
“Ehhhhhhhhhh… No,” wrote one commenter of the outrage campaign.
[The ad is] saying nothing different than what Jordan Peterson says when it comes to assertiveness and the wage gap. ..
Good for girls isn’t necessarily bad for boys.
“I see no issue with this,” added another commenter. “It’s just ‘don’t let women compromise.’ It doesn’t hurt men AT ALL.”
If this is the reaction from people in the Men’s Rights subreddit, maybe this manufactured outrage is getting a little stale, huh?
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The only laughable thing about the ad (besides being, you know, funny on purpose) is how it relates cars to COMPLETELY UNRELATED THINGS.
But that’s how car commercials roll.
“This car means family memories!”
“This car is like music because it’s called Sonata!”
“This car is literally freedom!”
Besides, what about the Manly Manliness of “Guts. Glory. RAM”??? Surely the feminists can’t take that away from you!
Omg. This is just like that time the right DESTROYED Target in, like, a week or something. Remember that? When Target went out of business because of the republican boycott? No? That’s not what happened? What do you mean Target is still in business? Oh. I bet they had to compromise their “firmly held beliefs” and donate to different charities to drum up sales though. Oh, what’s that you say? That was Chick-fil-A? Ah. Gotcha.
Those illiterate tools. What silly little snowflakes they are!
All entertainment media (and I put most product ads in that category) involves taking a risk of some kind. Sometimes it fails to land. “Get woke”, as these types define it, has worked spectacularly well in most cases for various Proctor and Gamble product ads, so it’s not surprising that other companies are trying to imitate.
In movies, even superficial or cynical attempts at “girl power” in big-budget films increases profits slightly right now. It’s more like “get woke, go slightly less broke in the event you fail”. Though eventually, audiences are going to want only the real thing, and then the real thing not even being needed anymore. But, you know, baby steps.
I can’t believe that “go woke, go broke” is still a thing that people say when Parasite was in many ways, the biggest movie of 2019.
If Hbomberguy is to be believed, brands now deliberately court this kind of mantrum, because it’s good for sales. I wouldn’t expect this to directly sell many extra cars – nobody is going to say “I must buy this car to annoy some subreddits” – but if you’re already planning a car purchase, and this publicity brings a new model to your attention, you’re going to check it out, and maybe you’ll like what you find.
“[…] unless “flatbooty” is a synonym for feminist or something”
Meh, when the menzers were himsterical over this Brie Larson person taking over some role they thought could only go to a dude*, they showed closeup pics of her butt and screamed how plump it definitely wasn’t. That’s the “flatbooty” bit.
*I don’t keep up on movies, but I recall enough that she had been cast as some superhero that heretofore had always been a dude. Captain America, maybe?
@CarrieV: Captain Marvel. The original Captain Marvel was a male alien, who died permanently. The current one has been a human woman for decades now.
In a morbid way, the funniest thing about these people is their refusal to acknowledge the fact that their precious “free” markets are working against them. Of course, it’s also pretty fucking scary, cause all you need is a little genuine economic insecurity on top of that social chauvinism and they start to get it, but not in a good way. Fascism is capitalism in decay after all.
So…
Did they not even pay attention to the fact that Nissan never said, “Women shouldn’t compromise”? They said “you” shouldn’t compromise.
So, unless their constant harping about how it’s not sexist if all the roles are for men so long as the message isn’t explicitly sexist, then complaining about misandry when the message is inclusive but a couple actors are women would seem, and check me if I’m just being CRAAY-ZEE right now, but maybe a touch ignorant, solipsistic, and hypocritical?
probably couldn’t be that, though.
I just checked Urban Dictionary and they don’t have an entry for that particular spelling of “flatbooty,” but “flat booty” has the official definition of “no booty, a person with a less prominent booty, a white girl”. Based off this, I guess @gravekeepersven means Nissan’s looking for white girl cred?
It’s kind of odd they would bring up the Gillette ad. That’s the poster child for an ad being massively successful specifically because the advertisers manipulated the manosphere hate machine into spreading it.
I’m honestly not sure if that means they’re so clueless they don’t know that or if it’s a subtle nod that they’re playing along on purpose. I have zero faith in their intelligence or their integrity, so both seem reasonable.
I remember the debacle Nike went through when it used Kaepernick in its ads- oh, wait….
22 minutes complaining about a fairly generic ad? I almost wish I had so little going on in my life that I had the time to spend 20 minutes talking about an ad, let alone film, edit and publish it.
And the ad is very standard car ad stuff. The only real difference is that it’s all said by the person in the ad rather than a voiceover. Other than that, the framing of promoting the car and drivers is completely normal.
So you’re happy, right? Not at all angry? (Psst — you shouldn’t give away the secret of how conservatives rule. Do you really want lefties to know how to destroy conservative rule? You’re not thinking this through.)
I’d guess that’s supposed to be suggesting she isn’t attractive or isn’t womanly enough because her bottom is supposedly not shapely enough for these men’s liking. I haven’t seen Brie Larson’s butt, so I can’t really comment, but then again I don’t really care too much about the shape of other people’s behinds.
@WWTH
Yes, but acknowledging that would be to realize they’re wrong about one thing, and that’s a slippery slope to realizing they’re wrong about all the things. Better to just keep pretending about all these things.
@Perry
Libertarians: the free market is making me tons of money. Get rekt!
Also libertarians: This product I don’t like is selling. This needs to be shut down!
@impudentinfidel
It’s the first one. They lack any sort of self-awareness, so they don’t realize they’re actually helping these products by generating outrage.
RE: “flatbooty”
Just a thought, but maybe it’s a reference to people who have, like, no ass.
I’ve seen some rant for almost 10, about a 2 sentence announcement and 2 promo pictures. (Marvel’s kitty variant cover month in 2019 was apparently the end of the comic book industry.)
Said covers for the curious.
I’m shook that someone in the Men’s Rights subreddit knows that “good for girls isn’t necessarily bad for boys” (although like Crip Dyke pointed out, the message isn’t gendered in the ad).
Then again, maybe there’s always someone in the Men’s Rights subreddit pointing out the obvious and they just drown in all the general hate? Someone just shouting into the void, “Maybe the systemic issues are more complicated than this??” I’d say props to them, but if I could speak to them I’d probably just ask what they’re doing in the Men’s Rights subreddit.
@Malitia
Those covers are probably worth ending the industry. I love the cat that’s irked Ms Marel just barged in like that.
I love those covers.
@ malitia
Will you be blogging about those? I’d be interested in learning more about the context.
I rather doubt that Nissan cares what any of these outrage merchants think!
@Masse_Mysteria
I’m surprised as well, but it seems this is a bit of an outlier. Occam’s Razor suggests we shouldn’t assume that all the MRAs have suddenly become self-aware.
1. “Drop the taco and get in the car” sounds like not-very-coded language for “lean in” — a proposition not everybody bought when it was explicated in book form. I don’t know how well it can be conveyed through an automobile.
2. Who knew so many insecure men were uneasily poised on the verge of buying a Nissan, which isn’t an SUV and which lacks the reputation of being a muscle monster? Not me.
3. I don’t know that “flatbooty” is a synonym for anything except the spareness of outline which is found in skinny white actresses and which supposedly aspirational for women but not for men. I think that’s what he meant: he’s cheesed off because the pitch wasn’t aimed at him.
Whut?
Seriously, what the heck does this mean? Someone please help
Quite frankly there was not much context to them.
Marvel comics noticed that the Captain Marvel movie marketing made the cat… I mean, flerken very popular, so they commissioned these kitty strips from an artist* to put on some comics as variants**. There was some half-assed*** early marketing for them as customary. –> Which prompted the video and some other whining by the usual suspects. I yet to figure out how “cat cover” -> “SJW!!!” -> “end of the industry” thinking went****.
* Nao Fuji – If I’m interpreting her twitter right (I don’t speak Japanese) she made a whole book worth that came out in Japan a some weeks ago. And is probably Japan only for now. (Given the strips are silent I’m tempted to try to figure out how to order this.)
** So these are NOT the regular covers. No, I don’t know what the chance was for shops to get these.
*** It was Marvel comics. ALL of their marketing is half-assed.
**** Especially that Valiant had a cat cosplay variant month a year or so earlier and that didn’t cause the end of the world either.