Yes, "husband doofiness" can put a real strain on a marriage. And, just like we discussed yesterday, can you imagine what would happen if you replaced the man in these ads with a woman? If the wife were portrayed as the bumbling idiot and the husband was constantly rolling his eyes? It would be so very 1950s, and so very offensive. Even stranger is how in beer and deodorant commercials, guys are fun and carefree — because they're single. In diamond commercials, men are romantic and loving. But in household product commercials? Men are ignoramuses who must be saved by savvy wives.

Anyway: Hey! Look who's one of 10 Screenwriters to Watch!

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Doofy Husbands [Current]
Emily Halpern & Sarah Haskins [Variety]
Earlier: All Sarah Haskins Posts
Condoms, Cleaning Supplies & Crap: A Q&A With Sarah Haskins
Related: Channeling Stereotypes Of Men & Women On TV

Hair care commercials are super serious! Or filled with questions we would ask, if we weren't so "hair-stupid." By the way, you spend your time flipping and swirling your tresses under a spotlight, don't you? Of course you do. Check out the hare-brained ads in the clip, below:





Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Hair [Current]
Earlier: Sarah Haskins posts
Condoms, Cleaning Supplies & Crap: A Q&A With Sarah Haskins

Haskins notes that the soap pushers make laundry seem like the most amazing thing you can do. And notice how there are never any men in the ads? Clip below.

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Laundry [Current]
Earlier: Sarah Haskins On Michelle Obama's Arms: Welcome To The Pun Show
Sarah Haskins Tackles Tough Love
Sarah Haskins Helps Women Name Their Lady Parts
Sarah Haskins Explains The Sheer Evil Of Carl's Jr. Ads
Sarah Haskins Learns Valuable Lessons From Busty Blonde: Barbie
Sarah Haskins Overwhelmed By Oscars "Ex-Plosion"
Sarah Haskins Calls Out Jez Commenters
New Year, New You: Sarah Haskins Teaches You How To Diet
Sarah Haskins Wishes You Happy Period Control
Diamonds Are Not Sarah Haskins' Best Friend
Sarah Haskins Worries That Ann Curry's Life Is In Danger
Car Commercials Drive Sarah Haskins Crazy
Sarah Haskins Takes On The Disney Princesses
Sarah Haskins: Fiber Is Secret Code For Making You Poop
Condoms, Cleaning Supplies & Crap: A Q&A With Sarah Haskins

Find more videos like this on AdGabber

Visit the home of Madison Products and you'll see what this is really all about.

On the one hand: Almost everything AA touches has a hint of sleaze. The sexy/sexist ads, the clothes designed to make you look like a fat hooker, the "tribal" patterns, the company's creepy creator & CEO.

But on the other hand, motherhood is a weird subject. We live in a culture in which giving birth means a woman turns into a "mom" and wears "mom jeans" and is always a perfect bastion of morality. She's not supposed to wear short skirts or go clubbing (coughDinaLohancough) or rock a spandex jumpsuit or purple knee-high socks. Right?



So is it kind of cool to see "trendy" images of motherhood, or do these AA ads reek of the stench of exploitation we come to expect from American Apparel and its spokesbottoms?

American Apparel: Expecting Looks [Official Site]

Earlier: American Apparel Ads: Sexy Or Sexist?
American Apparel Will Make You Look Like A Fat Hooker
What's The Difference Between Inspiration & Insult?
Dov Charney May Be More Of A Scumbag Than Anyone Realized
A Letter To American Apparel's Latest Spokesbottom, "Kristen"

A reader sent us an email, complaining about this ad, noting that the USDA stamp on the model's ass is "as though she were a piece of fruit on sale." Correction! A piece of fruit with great skin.

This Escada ad is educational. It teaches you that Escada makes the stunningly beautiful Christy Turlington look like crap.

At Jil Sander, you can never be too thin. Camera and lighting tricks are used to whittle the body down to a single leg! Even the designer refuses to have her name weighed down by an extra L.

Sorry, but Gisele's crotch is not selling me these short-shorts. Also, in case you hadn't noticed, the crotch is the new hot spot.

Gold spangled drop-crotch, for the elite.

Remember when Sheena on America's Next Top Model tried to "sell" a handbag at a photo shoot by posing with it in front of her crotch? And the judges were like, "No." And then Madonna posed almost the same way? Kate Moss is the late to the game.

People! Stop trying to make jumpsuits happen! I know Sadie likes them, I know some of you own them, but it looks like Beyoncé is wearing a full diaper. House Of Diarrhea.

Ouch.

I've been watching too much RuPaul's Drag Race, because I can't even say what I thought when I saw this. Hint: Not "sexy."

Zombies: So hot right now.

Forget the misleading language when it comes to the "microscopic" calories and "tiny" grams of fat. That freakin' cow is using a measuring tape.

So imagine the Oscar Mayer people sitting around a table, saying: Hmm, how can we make our ad more "now"? We need some "hip" lingo to throw in there. How about "blog"? That's what the young people are doing now, right? Blog? Maybe our sandwiches are bloggable? Or, uh, bloggish? Or blogworthy? Yeah, blogworthy! They're saying this, knowing full well that the sandwiches are not, in fact, blogworthy, and yet, here is the ad, ON A BLOG. What have I done?

Earlier: Androgynous Robots, Root Beer Vodka & A Fellow In A Frock: Fall's Worst Ads

According to Frito-Lay research, women snack only 14% of the time on salty foods. 25% of the time, women choose sweet foods; the other 61% of snacking includes drinks, fruits and vegetables. Sounds fine…unless you're trying to sell salty chips.

Writes Stephanie Clifford:

Though Frito-Lay had often tried advertising snacks as guilt-free, this led to the conclusion that "we're not going to alleviate her guilt," Ms. Nykoliation [of the ad agency] said. "This is something in her life. So the question for us was, how do we not trip her guilt?"

Part of the strategy was to follow the success of SunChips by toning down the packaging and showing off healthy ingredients in the snacks.

"She wants a reminder that she's eating something better for her," Mr. Jones said.

The company will ditch the bright packaging of Baked Lay's and make it beige and more "healthy" looking. Plus, Frito-Lay has launched a new website, "A Woman's World." Here's where four "fab, funny, fearlessly female" cartoon women talk about exercising, eating and men. They'll star in ads, commercials and webisodes. (In one clip, one cartoon woman is going to Mexico and the other says to her, "So you're ready? All over? For a romantic getaway?" And the vacation-bound cartoon chick realizes she needs to go "tanning, waxing, buffing, lifting, plucking, polishing.") The site also has games, like "Anna's Yoga Boot Camp," in which, as a tipster notes, you have to run around catering to other people's needs. Just like a woman should! Meanwhile, at the grocery store, Frito-Lay will "pull all of its women-friendly snacks together at the end of the aisle where possible." Gannon Jones, the vice president for portfolio marketing at the company told the Times: "Often the chip aisle is disorganized and unappealing to women." Hear that ladies? You're having trouble navigating the chip aisle. They're gonna fix it for you.

Here's the thing about this lavish attention and expensive marketing: They want you to buy something you don't really need, and they're using your gender to shill it to you, even though statistics prove you'd rather have "drinks, fruits or vegetables." Even more interesting: Frito-Lay also owns Doritos, and a South American ad campaign references women in a very different way:
The copy reads, "Summer has arrived. More heat, less clothes." It may not make you want to eat chips, but neither do these cartoon ladies talking about push-up bras.

Frito-Lay Tries to Enter the Minds (and Lunch Bags) of Women [NY Times]
The Dorito Ain't Gonna Eat Itself. [Copyranter]
Related: A Woman's World