As always, the ads change, but the message remains the same: If you're a woman, you're never safe: You're a potential victim; you shouldn't trust anyone, and if you act now, a prince will save you from your tower hunky security guys - or policemen - will rescue you from any scary situation.

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Broadview Security [Current]
Target Women: Broadview Security [HuffPo]

Earlier: We Hate It When That Happens
Security Systems And The Culture Of Fear
Brinks: Home Security For Modern Day Damsels In Distress

Well, luckily for us, Broadview Security (formerly Brinks) knows the risks that come with being a successful young woman who owns her own home. They've already made it pretty clear that every dame's a potential damsel in distress - especially young, hip ones! - and that the world's full of lurking psychopaths who are invariably instantly deterred from malevolent intent by a beeping security system. Now, they're driving home that you can't trust anyone. Oh, except, of course, the cute cop who answers the alarm.

Because being a candle-loving, yogurt-lapping lady, you'll want to be able to adopt the inappropriately flirty body-language we all favor mere minutes after a violent scare! And Broadview (emphasis on 'broad') gives you that freedom!

Related: Security Systems And The Culture Of Fear

When I was a kid, there was a famous ADT commercial that involved sketchy looking criminal types describing how they broke into homes at night to steal jewelry boxes and such. I can actually remember most of it word for word: "I can pick most locks with a credit card! I know when you're home, and when you're not! If I had a family, I'd protect them...from guys like me." This is mostly because my sister and I, for some reason, thought this commercial was funny, and we used to recite it as a joke. Maybe we were trying to allay our own fears of a break-in, or maybe we just thought the fake criminals weren't too scary at all.

But now the trend doesn't seem to be aimed at protecting "your family" as much as it seems to be aimed at protecting women. The major ads for Broadview Security Systems (formerly Brinks) all feature a white, middle class woman or young girl at home alone, going about her business as she's unknowingly being stalked by a creepy, creepy guy who watches her from behind a window or a fence. In each case, the man busts down the door or the window, and is immediately scared off by an alarm system and a quick call from a male security agent. Here, a woman is nearly attacked by an ex-boyfriend:

And here, a mother and daughter are threatened by a sketchy man with clearly bad intentions:

When I brought these commercials up to my boyfriend, he shrugged, as I suppose many people will do, and said, "They're just trying to sell security systems." But when I watch these commercials, I'm taken aback by the overly simplistic resolutions: these door-busting men aren't your garden variety jewelry thief—they want to hurt these women, and to me, at least, it seems doubtful that an alarm would stop them after they've just broken the damn door down.

Maybe (probably?) I'm overreacting here, but it seems to me that these commercials are not selling security systems as much as they are selling a culture of fear: you need to protect your house because these bad men are out to get you—when your husband is gone, you are weak and alone and nobody will stop the bad men from hurting you or your daughter unless you wire your home. Your ex-boyfriend is out to get you, the man jogging down the street is out to get you, and as a woman the only thing you can do is make sure that you set that alarm and hope it scares him away. They certainly achieve their goal of unsettling the viewer about the safety of their own home, but more than that, what they speak to an even scarier idea: the notion that a woman is never safe, as long as she is alone.

Update: Sorry, guys, the weather is apparently melting my brain: Margaret covered this way back in December. Different commercials, but same overall message. Sorry about that! If nothing else, we've learned that even though the company has changed its name and put out a brand new set of ads, their underlying message remains the same.

Earlier: Brinks: Home Security For Modern Day Damsels In Distress

Brinks commercials all follow the same basic plot: A defenseless woman is home alone (or with her young children). A male intruder sees that she is in the house and breaks in anyway, the alarm sounds, and he runs off. Then Brinks saves the day when the phone rings and a white male employee says he's "sending help."

To wit, Brinks demonstrates the dangers of exercising alone in your home (courtesy of last night's CNN programming):













And: Joggers in your neighborhood are probably just burglars waiting for your husband to leave for work!









Obviously all home security companies use affluent suburban homeowners' fear of burglars to sell security systems. But what's so infuriating about Brinks ads is that they aren't actually about securing the objects in your home. They all focus on protecting the one most important object in a man's castle: his woman.

Logically, if someone was just after your big screen TV, it would be easiest to break in when no one was home. But in Brinks commercials, the burglar often sees that there's a woman inside the home before he chooses to break in. Since there's no other reason for the burglar to break in while he knows someone's home, Brinks must be implying that the man intends to assault the woman. But we never find out exactly what he's planning to do, since the hardened criminal is easily scared off once he hears the alarm.

Then, the woman receives a phone call from one of the dashing he-men over at Brinks. Because when you're face to face with an attacker, you always want a strong, authoritative man on the other end of the line, sitting in an office hundreds of miles away.

If you stop to think about it, the entire point of the phone call is unclear. In every commercial the woman sees the burglar run away immediately with out coming near her, yet when the Brinks man asks if she's ok, she says no. In real life, "are you ok?" means, "do I need to call an ambulance?" to which the answer is no, unless she needs to be treated for hysteria. Though she does need to report the crime, since no one is hurt the only point of the police rushing over anyway seems to be so a strong protective force can comfort her until her husband comes home (unless the cops are going to repair her door). If the intruder was actually attacking her, she wouldn't be answering the phone, or she'd be telling Brinks it was a false alarm because the guy had her at gunpoint.

So, while we thank Brinks for the daily dose of irrational fear and for reminding us that as women we are vulnerable even when we're locked securely in our own homes, we must agree with the reader who tipped us off about these ads, that mostly they just bug the crap out of us. If you're really concerned about home security, rather than giving Brinks a couple hundred dollars to provide protection and "a quick link to the authorities 24 hours a day" why not take a few self-defense courses and figure out how to dial three numbers to call the police yourself?