Hey, it's not our fault that we are angels before men decide to marry us and become naggers the second we get married. Girls will be girls? Oh wait, women don't get a pass for how they just are, only boys and men get that. Plus she was simply expressing her opinion, the bastard was IGNORING HER. The only reason women 'nag' is because men think what we have to say isn't important, not cause we were just born to be gabby bitches.

Seriously, I don't even get that commercial. Was bridgestone promising to be able to make your wife's lips fly off if she got too annoying?

I can't wait to see the post about the Danica Patrick commercials. Those were the most offensive in my opinion.

Yeah, I don't really understand this commercial either. It seems entirely pointless. Other than to reinforce ridiculously tired gender stereotypes, of course. I really hate how everyone seems to think that 'sexism sells'.

Ugh, that makes me see red. Bridgstone Tires: Because we all know women are obnoxious. There no real advertising there beyond, 'we stop fast', now let's mock women who speak.

The whole nagging wife / pussy whipped meme makes my blood pressure shoot up.

Step 1: If a woman says anything to a man; advice, criticism, reminders, anything not submissive, she's a nag, a bitch, a harpy, or all of the above.

Step 2: Thus a man is justified to mock and/or ignore her.

It's a blatant attempt to control women with shame, yet a shocking number of self-identifying progressives perpetuate it.

I saw the sexist ads last night, and thank God, for once I was not the only one who recognized the sexism. They got a little better after the half-time (I heart the Coca-Cola/Peter and the Wolf commercial), but honestly, a majority of the beer commercials were just offensive. Oh! And so was the "diet Pepsi for men" commercial. Because, you know, only women drink diet soda since we need to keep our bodies trim and proper until we can be objectified again.

Grr.

I clicked on the video and it said it was removed :(

Yeah, it kind of occurred to me that there was something off about the ad.

Though in fairness we do get at the end the "eye change" which at least shows Mrs. Potatohead's rage at being silenced.

Not enough to make up for it.

Re-imagine the ad this way --

Mrs. Potatohead is driving.

Mr. Potatohead is babbling on about something that Mrs. Potatohead can't stand to hear about (since this was the Super Bowl - and I'm probably going to get slammed for this since women like football too - but how bout him rattling off a bunch of very obscure, asinine sports statistics?).

But she loves him anyway, so she's pretending to pay attention. Maybe with some eye-rolling or other body-language.

All of this inane babbling distracts her from a squirrel in the road, and she almost swerves off the cliff.

Luckily the Potatomobile has Bridgestone tires.

But Mr. Potatohead's mouth flies off, and he's rendered mute.

There's an awkward pause.

And then Mrs. Potatohead leans over, gives Mr. Potatohead a kiss, and they go off looking for Mr. Potatohead's missing part together.

(which leads into the next commercial when they're driving the Potatomobile to a Potato-hospital to have mouth re-attachment surgery (performed skillfully by a pair of six year old kids)).

See, if Bridgestone had done it this way they could use the Potatoheads for a whole series of ads showing how Bridgestone tires "save the day" and can help deepen relationships. Of Potato people.

At any rate, since this is an ad that focuses so heavily on gimmick and "humor" and so little on the product itself (imagine 15 seconds of Ross Perot style charts about how awesome Bridgestone tires are), one must assume that the type of humor being used was selected so as to maximally associate the product with the value-content of the "joke."

So as is clearly expressed above, "Bridgestone tires - they'll make your hussy wife shut the hell up."

Or more simply, "Bridgestone - now that's a manly f*ing tire."

(Seriously, anyone who would buy a tire for that reason is an idiot, but then again there are a lot of idiots out there - when I buy tires I have a long discussion about how much tread it has, it's susceptability to being punctured by nails and debris, and how many miles it is supposed to last).

I think my commercial would appeal to more people than that.

Anyone remember the Michelin Man tire commercials? I always thought they did a good job of associating the product with practical things - like, "this tire will drive well in a rain storm."

And I dare say that a rain storm is more likely driving scenaro than having a seven-foot tall potato woman sitting in your passenger seat.

I saw this commercial and just sat there thinking, "No, no they did NOT just do what I think they did." I'm not really in the market for tires at the moment, but I sure as hell won't be buying Bridgestone ones the next time I need them. Advertising. Ur doin it rong.

I have the offensive Danica ads up on my blog right now:

http://aikenareaprogressive.blogspot.com/2009/02/cheers-for-bruce-springsteen-e-street.html

For the sake of those of us not in the US, please avoid hulu when possible (it says we can't watch it unless we're in the US).

The youtube version (which we can see) is here: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=IV--ISqrMLs

My husband and I gave this commercial two thumbs down. I wrote Bridgestone, and told them that stale stereotypes represent neither good judgment nor innovation--one presumably wants the assurance of both when buying tires.

You would think that after the Lilly Ledbetter/Goodyear issue, Bridgestone would want to stand out as the tire company that WASN'T sexist. But no, they suck too. What tire companies are left?

The Super Bowl commercials were just lame this year, period. The only good ones were the Budwieser horse ones.

What really kills me is that on other sites people are saying that this was the best ad last night with comments like "if only it was so easy." Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall.

Along with the sexism I thought this commercial failed because it didn't leave me with a positive association of the product. The "quick to stop" selling point was completely overwhelmed by the overall feeling of anxiety associated with being the passenger in a car with a bad driver. All I could see thoughtout the commercial was rough handling (rough enough to knock off body parts, ferchristsake!), NOT what I want in my tires!

But whatever, admakers. Ignore that aspect entirely while persuing your "If only you could handle those annoying women as easily as you can handle driving on our tires!" joke. Have fun alienating a good portion of your marketing base, who of course NEVER drive sports cars and NEVER care about little things like stopping power.

I thought this was the most offensive one of the bunch, though the Danica ads come close.

Thinking about which ads weren't offensive, I could only come up with the animal spots (as Toni mentioned), and maybe some of the slapstick ones.

Even Monsters v. Aliens gave me pause...giant blond girl and amorphous blob excuse themselves left and right while battling the immigran---er, aliens? It may be a fine film, but the trailer doesn't look promising.

I'm glad Feministing's planning to offer more analysis on the ads!

The Danica one was pretty bad I'll admit, but it was so clunky and long that by the end of it I forgot about the shower scene and started to wonder what the ad was actually for. Lame-o.

I always wonder if companies that make sexist ads like this ever stop to consider that they might actually have, you know, FEMALE CUSTOMERS. Apparently sexism is so ingrained in our culture that male ad execs forget women even exist.

In addition to producing sexist commercials, Bridgestone Firestone tires are made using rubber produced by exploited workers in Liberia. For over 80 years, the tire company has operated the world's largest rubber plantation in Liberia where labor and environmental abuses are widespread.

One of the many problems is that workers are compelled to meet an unreasonably high daily production quota in order to receive their pay. The rubber tappers (as they are called), the majority of whom are men, have to bring their children and/or wives with them to work in order to complete their tasks, so a whole family is working while only one person is an actual formal employee. This system clearly exploits women on the plantation -- and that's just one of the many problems. Bridgestone was also the sponsor of the halftime show.

For more information and to send an e-mail to the NFL and Bridgestone, please click here: http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/NFL09

You know what's sad. My friends don't see the sexism. It makes me angry actually. They justify it as a stereotype and think that's fine and dandy. Don't they see how stereotypes just perpetuate negative attitudes?

I guess not. How depressing.

I saw this on MSN
"You have to admit, Bridgestone definitely knew they were playing to a male-dominated audience with their Potato Head ad. Admit it, men. You all wish that would happen while driving with your wives and girlfriends. Don't hide it, we know."

Being a Pittsburgher, I was watching for the game and only saw the Troy Polumalu commercial (in my mind, anything where an ad exec gets tackled, it's a good thing). The other ones I've seen tho don't really seem to be about anything, let alone their products. With ads like this and the Danica Patrick one and superbowl ads in general, it really *doesn't* have anything to do with the product. The goal is always just to make people talk about the ads and wonder about their meaning. And really, the more fucking mysterious and grand (and offensive) an ad is, the more we talk about it. That's really all they want: us talking about their shit.

Toy Story did the "Potato Head falls apart" joke a lot better.

Wow.I watched the last part of the commercial on mute (I try to avoid watching commercials) last night.

At first I laughed because I love Potato Head, but then I got the imagery of the stereotypical nagging wife silenced. AND THE HUSBAND'S SMILE was the clincher that really angered me.

Anyway, I know this is a Bridgestone ad, but I bet they had to get permission from Hasbro to do this (Potato Head is made by Hasbro).
It doesn't surprise me that a Hasbro toy is used to sends this message.
Hasbro sells Tonka trucks with the ads that go "Boys are different" and their female marketing director (a self-proclamied mother of a girl) defends their attitude to market the trucks ONLY to boys even when told girls love Tonka trucks & they would make more money marketing to ALL kids. (They also only use Caucasian boys in their ads, but that's a whole OTHER story).

Last year's massively sexist ad is no longer on YouTube so I can't link to it.
But you can stil see their "TONKA trucks built for BOYHOOD" page: http://www.hasbro.com/tonka/default.cfm?page=segment&segment=bigboy

"After all, boys are built different. "