I've mentioned this before. When I was at university the fashion industry reintroduced the miniskirt. It caused a political reaction in some people. That is to say, some people didn't just ask themselves whether they did or didn't like these things, they asked what it said about society at large that such a choice was being offered to women. They actively hated the miniskirt and hoped it would fail because they didn't want to live in a society where women dressed this way.
Feminists at the time claimed victory quickly. A pollster asked women and found that 95 percent of women didn't like miniskirts. That claim was premature for the shorter skirts quickly won out especially among young, hot girls. At my university a big look for a lot of preppy girls was to wear a grey or white miniskirt with a navy blue blazer only the skirt was so short that from behind it could look like the blazer was all they were wearing. It was a look designed to make guys do double takes and it worked.
The thing is that I bet the poll numbers didn't change much over time. I'm sure that had a second poll been conducted after the miniskirt had triumphed in the mid 1980s that the numbers would have moved but they wouldn't have moved much. Less than 95 percent would have voiced objection but I bet the majority of women still would have said they didn't like them. The thing is, Who cares what the majority of women think? At the time, I cared about what women who wore miniskirts thought.
(One of my favourite memories from the early 1990s is of waiting to meet a woman at a restaurant that no longer exists in the market area. I still remember sitting on the terrace and looking up and seeing her come along the street in her khaki miniskirt and all the guys looking at her and her long legs. You can think less of me for this if you want, I won't care, but it felt very good to be that guy that evening. The two of us were just walking by the place where it happened the other day.)
If you were a politician, you'd have to care because if the majority of women vote against you, you have a problem. But if you're selling miniskirts and only five percent of women buy your product you'll be fabulously wealthy. And if the five percent who buy your product are hot young women, you will also be fabulously famous.
So, as I say, who cares what the majority of women think?
But that is what identity politics is supposed to be about isn't it? About not having to care what other people think? I mean, how dare I laugh at the guy in make up and frilly, effeminate clothes waiting at the bus stop? That 95 percent of people are heterosexual, look heterosexual and act heterosexual doesn't matter so why should it be any different when it comes to any commercial choice I might make?
Which all got me thinking of these ads from a couple of years ago and how brilliant they are.
There was a whole series of them and I remember seeing them stuck to the boards outside a construction site. That itself was brilliant. They put the ads right where the people most likely to hate them typically put their posters for political causes or "alternative" music. They knew the ads would bother exactly the people whom they wanted to reach wanted to see bothered and they put them right where they were most likely to offend.
You can test this for yourself by Googling "Canadian Club Ads" and seeing just how upset people got. They proved themselves to be just the grim, humourless people you'd hope they'd be.
But what upset them? Well, the giveaway is how many produced "parody" ads in which the woman with Dad is replaced with another guy in the picture. Or they turned it around and made it "Your dad wasn't your mom's first." As the Serpentine One often points out, 99 percent of criticism comes across as defensive and this is a case in point.
And they are threatened because the subtext of the ad is about normalcy. I use "normalcy" advisedly because "normality" is something to settle for and "normalcy" is something desirable. That was what the ads sold: they told people that what they are is just fine. Nothing wrong with being a guy just like dad who likes fishing, doesn't obsess about body hair, ran around a bit as a young man and then got married and had you. And there is nothing wrong with it.
That is where the people who hated the ads so much gave themselves away. They don't like normalcy at all. They aren't really fighting for the right to be what they want to be, they are fighting to stop you from being what you want to be.
Feminists at the time claimed victory quickly. A pollster asked women and found that 95 percent of women didn't like miniskirts. That claim was premature for the shorter skirts quickly won out especially among young, hot girls. At my university a big look for a lot of preppy girls was to wear a grey or white miniskirt with a navy blue blazer only the skirt was so short that from behind it could look like the blazer was all they were wearing. It was a look designed to make guys do double takes and it worked.
The thing is that I bet the poll numbers didn't change much over time. I'm sure that had a second poll been conducted after the miniskirt had triumphed in the mid 1980s that the numbers would have moved but they wouldn't have moved much. Less than 95 percent would have voiced objection but I bet the majority of women still would have said they didn't like them. The thing is, Who cares what the majority of women think? At the time, I cared about what women who wore miniskirts thought.
(One of my favourite memories from the early 1990s is of waiting to meet a woman at a restaurant that no longer exists in the market area. I still remember sitting on the terrace and looking up and seeing her come along the street in her khaki miniskirt and all the guys looking at her and her long legs. You can think less of me for this if you want, I won't care, but it felt very good to be that guy that evening. The two of us were just walking by the place where it happened the other day.)
If you were a politician, you'd have to care because if the majority of women vote against you, you have a problem. But if you're selling miniskirts and only five percent of women buy your product you'll be fabulously wealthy. And if the five percent who buy your product are hot young women, you will also be fabulously famous.
So, as I say, who cares what the majority of women think?
But that is what identity politics is supposed to be about isn't it? About not having to care what other people think? I mean, how dare I laugh at the guy in make up and frilly, effeminate clothes waiting at the bus stop? That 95 percent of people are heterosexual, look heterosexual and act heterosexual doesn't matter so why should it be any different when it comes to any commercial choice I might make?
Which all got me thinking of these ads from a couple of years ago and how brilliant they are.
You can test this for yourself by Googling "Canadian Club Ads" and seeing just how upset people got. They proved themselves to be just the grim, humourless people you'd hope they'd be.
But what upset them? Well, the giveaway is how many produced "parody" ads in which the woman with Dad is replaced with another guy in the picture. Or they turned it around and made it "Your dad wasn't your mom's first." As the Serpentine One often points out, 99 percent of criticism comes across as defensive and this is a case in point.
And they are threatened because the subtext of the ad is about normalcy. I use "normalcy" advisedly because "normality" is something to settle for and "normalcy" is something desirable. That was what the ads sold: they told people that what they are is just fine. Nothing wrong with being a guy just like dad who likes fishing, doesn't obsess about body hair, ran around a bit as a young man and then got married and had you. And there is nothing wrong with it.
That is where the people who hated the ads so much gave themselves away. They don't like normalcy at all. They aren't really fighting for the right to be what they want to be, they are fighting to stop you from being what you want to be.
Have you enjoyed the STRUT line of wines at the Wine Rack? The labels each feature a pair of very nice legs, a different pair for each wine. I am partial to "Savy Blanc". I encourage you to check it out. The wine is lovely too.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to find that in the press release that the product was "crafted with an appeal to the fun, youthful, and fashionable female wine drinker". I could have sworn it was made for me.