last week i posted a tiny little bit about sexbots in my semi-feminist rage about the surgical bra. and that very same week i was confronted by this super stupid Heineken commerical in which a sexbot (okay, technically we can only be sure she’s a fembot, but she sure as hell looks and acts like a sexbot to me) which actually becomes a mini-keg of Heineken.
here is the problem in a nutshell. i have a sense of humor. a good one even. and Heineken has some really great, really funny, sometimes a bit insulting commercials out there, but COME ON! are you kidding me? really?! we’ve come so far that we don’t need women to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, hell, we don’t even need women, we just need a sexbot that can turn into a keg! or maybe the idea is that the woman is barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen making your dinner (sight unseen – as she should be), while the sexbot comes out to do a little dance and turn into a keg to satisfy your urges, and then, get this, then she turns into THREE sexbots, to satisfy your other urges. what a fucking piece of shit commericial.
i know i’m taking this too seriously, but some days (like days that you spend reading about a surgical bra that can be painfully implanted in women’s chests so that we will look more like men fantasize we should look, instead of the way the universe intended) i just can’t take one more ridiculous misogynistic piece of bullshit. an extra benefit to this stupid commericial? i like to drink Heineken and i’m going to have to not do that for a bit 
here’s the link to the commerical:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=y_ro3-V_HdM
and to offset that commercial i’m going to send you to a good site, called Feministe, which has been inspring of late and which generally deals with much more important and interesting feminist issues that what i’ve been grumbling about over here. check it out:
http://feministe.powweb.com/blog/
this post below in particular is great – for any blogger (okay a leaning to the left blogger) to read, but if you’re not leaning to the left a bit then i’m not really sure what you’re doing here anyway…
http://feministe.powweb.com/blog/archives/2007/08/19/dear-michael-skube/
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relax and breathe in the capitalism – it won’t hurt a bit…
seriously, as a 40 something left leaning male who never drinks Heineken, and isn’t gonna start, I don’t see much harm in that commercial. It’s artistic and sexy, and I actually stumbled on this blog when I googled to see how they did it (model? pure CGI?). The objectification of females angle you are worrying about never even occurred to me until I came here – men don’t think that deeply. “ooo, pretty” and “cool commercial” is about as far as most of us will get with something like this. I don’t expect women to turn into kegs for me either consciously or unconsciously as a result of this commercial. Now, where’s my supper, woman?
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hey jim.
thanks for weighing in. i think you’re mostly right. i think my reaction is definitely an over-reaction, largely brought on by reading about (and posting about) the surgical bra and then going home and seeing the commericial (which has great music by the way). however, i do have to stand strong that i do believe it is little things (like this silly commercial) that slowly eat away at what we think about things until we don’t even know what we think anymore because we just take bad tv and commercials and stupid politicians at face value and shrug our shoulders and say “oh well”.
again, thanks for commenting – a smart, well thought out, and funny comment is always appreciated. i hope you’ll come back again sometime, i’m sure to have another over-reacting mini-femi-rant.
ps – your supper is in the dogbowl and you’re sleeping on the couch.
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The couch again. sigh.
Curse you for leading me to the surgical bra article. I just about passed out – gross – what do they have the dang thing attached to in that diagram – ribs? Yikes. The next time my wife lobbies for a breast lift (40’s a couple of kids, stuff does start to droop a bit) I’ll point her at that icky article. Really, on this topic I can completely agree with a purely feminist viewpoint – an every-day external push-up bra is the way to go ;->.
cheers,
j
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yeah, it is pretty insane. i’m glad you can see why i was perhaps not at my most rational while watching the commercial.
even at 31 and no kids, things start to sag, it’s inevitable. and i can’t say that i’ll never consider surgery (i suppose an open mind on this issue is what is keeping me from being overly judgmental) but it sure seems like we’d all be happier if we all could accept what happens to our bodies, rather than building ourselves into fake previous versions of ourselves.
as a sidenote, i’m not exactly sure where other feminists stand on push-up bras, but this one is all for it, if only to prevent surgery etc.
welcome back from the couch – you’ve redeemed yourself
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