Is the New Droid Ad Anti-Women and Anti-Gay or Just Plain Idiotic? Actually, All Three!

With regards to this targeting the iPhone…

I’m pretty technically savvy and have seen and played with many different smart phones. 99% of them look like the one portrayed in the ad. They’re all small-ish rectangles with rounded corners.

I won’t deny that there’s an awful lot of sexual subtext to the commercial, however.

Beauty pageant stars have had it rough recently, including Miss Teen USA South Carolina, Carrie Prejean, the Argentinian woman who died from plastic surgery on her posterior… But you know what? The beauty pageant girl or woman is practically the hallmark of the vapid female stereotype. Not all of them are such girls, but they use a stereotype that has long since objectified women for the purpose of putting on a show and drawing in ad revenue.

In addition to that, the representation of the “beauty pageant queen” is in a plastic doll. So she’s fake, too.

Then there’s the racehorse-taped-to-a-SCUD-missile-fast line. First of all, you have the race horse. A symbol of virility, to be sure. Tape it to a large, fast-moving phallus and you’re getting to the entire other end of the gender spectrum.

You missed any comment on the transition from the SCUD missile flying in the backgroud to the tearing-open of some kind of material, which could represent some other part of the female anatomy.

Bananas and buzz saws… Yeah. Banana thing is a bit obvious. The buzz saw is just a symbol of power.

Did you happen to notice that the transition from the buzz saw bit to the three mannequins occurred over the word “banana,” clearly imprinting them with a “fruity” context?

The voiceover is incidental at that point, setting up the crushing of the lamb figurines.

Then the last image of the vain woman. Sexist? Maybe, remotely. But there are tons of vain women.

There’s maybe one more sexual subtext in the last few seconds of the commercial, with the bursting through the brick wall… But that’s it. The tag line, “The phone that trades hair-do, for can-do,” is ultimately gender-neutral also. After all, men can have hair-dos, too. And they can still be straight and have one!

I see the commercial as more breaking through the artificial rather than breaking down gender roles, though. Going for the practical rather than the superficial.

Honestly, Kara, this whole column of yours reads like you’re just mad that there’s a viable iPhone competitor, and you’re grasping for ideas on how to discredit the competition. It’s opinion, of course, but it’s disappointing.

You should abandon your new criticism and take a look at semiotics, by the way. Far more rewarding critical analysis.

Oh, I do know how to man up, my friend.

Well, it does play to narrow stereotypes, which I don't like either. But they exist and this is trying to gain advantage by pushing buttons.

Oh, i noticed the whole castration part.

They don't have to say the word. It is dead obvious what phone they are attacking.

It is an iPhone they explode too.

Now you are just being as stubborn as my kid.

Exactly.

Funny!

well said.

I love it!

Whenever I see an ad analysis like this, I always think about what my conservative roommate would say.

“You’re just upset they made your precious iPhone look like a pretty, pretty princess.”

And that’s inherently the problem; his is not an entirely unfair assessment. He’s no dumb hick, he knows his stuff (I call it quietly smart).

We’re all smart enough that we can look past the questionable anti-homosexuality and see that they repeatedly attack porcelain figurines meant to represent the white iPhone and not actual people. Of course, you’re supposed to draw the distinction that iPhone users hate racehorses and tools, are generally prissy and like art, not necessarily that they’re gay.

While the iPhone crowd’s stereotype is overtly intellectual, the Droid crowd is aiming for that Nascar feel… overtly manly. But not dumb, like we usually equate when we see something like this, Nascar, or musclemen pulling Semi Trucks with their nipples.

You really can’t take too much offense to this if you understand their point of view; they’re joshing. You might love your mechanically-challenged nerd brother, but you’re still gonna rub it in his face that he called AAA instead of changing his own tire. And then you’re going to call him to fix your computer.

Verizon missed the target here (the playful side is hidden in violent imagery) but I don’t see malice.

I’ll confess to liking the production values of the ad, but I’m shocked that they’d equate the product’s speed to Scuds! Clearly the copywriters were babies or not yet born during 1990′s Persian Gulf War where Scuds were Saddam Hussein’s missile of choice for bombing Israel. So, maybe we should add anti-semitic to the list of offenses? (I was seriously considering buying a Droid, but I’m an intelligent, successful and reasonably attractive woman who now sees the Droid as the telecom equivalent of a blow-up doll.)

All politics aside for a moment, do you own an iphone? I believe it would be hard to write an unbiased review of anything anti iphone if you any vested interest in its success. For the record I don’t own either phone however I do think the debate is pretty funny.

It’s a phone ad -that’s it!!! I was the prom queen, own a DROID and think advertising is advertising. I choose to pick my causes a little more carefully. For example, maybe you should spend time saving pets, helping the homeless, etc. etc. Nobody is calling anyone stupid (digitally clueless) does not mean a person is “dumb”. And to distort the ad as “anti-gay” OMG. I don’t think Verizon is targeting the Gay community. GET REAL and worry about things that are truly important. This debate is a total joke and waste of time. Can’t believe I read this pointless article. Gotta go and work on something I believe in.

Let’s be clear: you have a first amendment right to free speech. There’s no government agency that’s going go censor the Droid ads, nor should there be. But the underlying question is, is this a good way to sell phones? The potential buyers are only enthusiastic, speed-freak young males with testosterone poisoning?

Excellent point!

I do see your point, but the issues around gays and continued bashing of the group by society at large makes this a problem. Insert throwing a ball at the head of an obvious black person here and imagine the uproar.

I think it is fine to satirize any group, but there is a line that I think this crosses clearly.

I meant that imagine if they were throwing stuff at a black person.

we will have to disagree on this ad. I would not say there was malice, i would say they thought it was edgy and it was just ham-handed.

…Of course, an earlier Droid commercial had stealth-type fighters bombing the US, causing damage and injuring civilians, so that may be the message Verizon is trying to get across. **…

Lt Col Slusher

Sir,
I don't understand your comment I listed above. I saw the ad several times. I don't remember any civilian casualties portrayed by the (fake) stealth fighters. I'm confused by the comment. I'm an active duty AF pilot. I saw nothing wrong with that initial “Stealth Fighter” Verizon ad for Droid. Or the “pretty” ad Kara dislikes for that matter. But that's for another post in this thread. Just curious what your intent was, not trying to start a flame war at all.

I can understand the dislike of the SCUD in the “pretty” ad mentioned. It didn't really bother me, but then again I wasn't in Desert Storm and didn't lose friends to them. I guess I give Verizon the benefit of the doubt that they meant no disrespect for military members who suffered or died due to the SCUD, but rather used it as a reference to a missile known throughout the common culture. Verizon could have chosen a much better reference if they were looking for powerful and accurate missiles (as many have pointed out). Although I doubt many viewers are versed in the variants of ground to ground attack missiles. Just my 2 cents. Thanks for your service to the country.

The ad is homophobic in that it’s trying to capitalize on anxieties of males as to whether they are being perceived as heterosexual. Motorola might as well be saying, “If you carry an iPhone or a Pre, you’ll look sissy.” This is a tried and true advertising tactic that goes back to the days of Listerine’s “Even your best friends won’t tell you.” The Droid is implied to symbolize machismo. Other phones are effete in the Droid universe, by virtue of their attractive design and good ergonomics which the Droid purposely lacks. The writers of this ad are promoting the logical fallacy that if something is attractive, it is by definition weaker and less effective. (Yes, that does have misogynistic implications.)

This is not a revolutionary ad. Motorola and Verizon are experimenting with a variety of approaches. At the end of the day, the Droid is going to have to be a good device, and it’s going to have to appeal to people who either don’t have a penis or don’t consider theirs in their electronics buying decisions.

This might be a personal usage issue. I personally don't care enough about phone calls because all of my contacts and I use chat etc. which use data services. I would disagree with you that this is the one way it counts, even while I concede the CDMA comment (I researched it, and I was incorrect). I recently got rid of my iPhone because the fact that I can't surf and run a chat client simultaneously is ludicrous (as are Apple's app store policies). I also wasn't willing to jail-break it and have Apple refer to me as a “scofflaw.” Were I to get a Droid, it would provide significantly greater multitasking than my iPhone did for this precise reason. Their multitasking claim is not, therefore a joke as far as I'm concerned.

CDMA, however, is a joke, a really, really bad one at that.

Oh my gosh–grow a pair!

It’s a commercial, and if I pointed-out every single male-bashing advertisement / sitcom / show / book / etc. I’ve seen in the last 30 years I’d have you trumped in spades. Stop this “PC” and overly-sensitive B.S. mentality and see it for what it is–a commercial which pokes fun at the iPhone without mentioning it by name. It’s called creative marketing and if you could see through this dark cloak you’re wearing you might actually get a chuckle out of it too. Sheesh…

Yet the iphone runs on a proprietary system that has no custom-ability where the android platform is linux based and can be anything the user wants it to be?

And the iphone is only faster if it gets service.

reply win on soooooo many levels.

Kara: Who cares? You actually wasted 300 words on this idiocy?!