Today in horrible advertising ideas, Ford India plugs the cavernous trunk space of its Figo hatchback by depicting captive women stuffed inside. That’s Silvio Berlusconi in the first image, leering at a troika of half-dressed model types. As Autoblog points out, the campaign—which also features racecar driver Michael Schumacher with bound-and-gagged competitors—is being unveiled just a few days after the Indian parliament passed a major anti-rape law.
In other news, rape is now against the law in India. Waaay overdue methinks.
I guess no one will even care that the trunks aren’t that big unless the women are midgets? Perhaps all begging the question… who pays attention to advertising copy anyway?
I don’t think this ad is smart. Something cheap and abusing.
Worth being reminded why I don’t read Slate.
Ford India never saw the advert – a self-serving project of a couple of ad agency artists trying to win a sleazy contest. Ad execs and Ford ad folks never saw or heard of the advert till it hit the press as a result of the contest. Never even intended to be submitted to Ford.
None of which apparently means anything to Slate. More and more, just a venue for ego-starved nerds.
Gee, thats more disgusting than the ads themselves.
I got banned from Slate.
Ha, ha.
This is only an issue because in spite of all this talk that women are equal to men, the sad reality is women are physically weaker.
If women were physically equal, this would be worth the trouble.
WOULD NOT BE
Quite a mishmash you got going there McGuyver. NO ONE ever talks or thinks about the objective reality that women are not as physically strong as men (certain endurance qualities being a small exception). What is it about “rights” being those legal ones, or inherent ones, or humanity related, has missed the center of your attention?
BUT–I have often wondered myself what would happen if males got pregnant instead of females. Nothing else (sic!) changes. Yes, a bit of incongruent magic there but …. imagine…. what differences would there be.
I’ve never thought before about your hypothetical–everything as it really is THEN make women as strong as, Hypo #2 even stronger, then men? THEN what would happen?
Yep, things to think about when you’re out of beer.
PS–I saw your houseboat for sale on “Worlds Most Luxurious Houseboats” just the other day. Weathered cedare doesn’t look all that good to me, but the required maintenance is about right.
Perhaps from your observations. My personal observations in the military and corporate world are entirely different.
At the end of the day, there are double standards. Equal pay does not mean equal work.
Regardless, anytime we objectify women in a submissive / weak position, society finds that offensive because we are somehow exploiting women (implying their physical weaknesses).
Does public perception change when a male is battered by a woman? People may be inclined to laugh or snicker about the weakness of a male getting battered, but a battered woman is no laughing matter. We are all conditioned to think differently based on the victim’s gender.
Amazon p0rn will no longer be a fetish.
Laughing at that or treating it innocently is one of the worst things culturally. Sure the male might not be hurt that badly, but the woman carries the risk that the man hits back.
The corpus collosum in women’s brains (the “connector” between the two halves) is bigger than men’s & so their consciousness may be more integrated. Whatever that means.
If they didn’t have to bleed every month, they’d be superior.
We’re 2 sides of the same coin anyway so it’s moot.
2 cents from an amateur neurologist.
I read this once and it makes sense. “on average:” women can multi-task better than men.
EG–have women arrange blocks to spell a sentence while listening to a speech. Better than men: they can do both tasks together. BUT–separate the tasks so full attention is given to one or the other and men score better than women.
A beautiful equality there I thought—men and women being the same and different at the same time? Doesn’t even matter if its true or not.
Oooh–just remembered another one. The ability for math is indeed bi-polar in men while for women it is more standard bell shaped. That means proportionately, more men score below women in match skills BUT more men score higher as well accounting for their predominance in math and the sciences. Again, as stated above.
The first example seems to be testable and isolatable and matches the brains structure. The second example may just demonstrate social pressures.
Who knows? Just science and statistics doncha know.
A bimodal distribution not a “bi-polar” distribution.
Thank you. It sounded a bit off but nothing better came to mind. Some people lie with statistics…. innocents like myself just don’t know what we are talking about.
🙂
Actually, I think what Bobbo refers to is better referred to as bipolar, which is quite appropriate coming from him. However, it is not bipolar, but a bell curve, just a little flatter.
I don’t think that these ads were supposed to be used because the people whose likeness was drawn would need to have given their permission.
The blonde woman in the lower picture is Paris Hilton, and the women in the trunk are the Kardashians.
Corpus callosum. Duh. Thank you.
coliseum
Colosseum
I’ll get it right someday.
[tongue-face]
Way overdue? They only felt the need to get around to it now, because rape is so rare. Saw an article decades ago that said prostitution should be credited for the low rate of rape.
So after a series of rapes they decided it was problematic enough to ban. Of course it was always illegal, and you have misread the story. More often than not, a beating from family is the proper punishment.
Liberal Democrats and Bloomberg object to such an ad because a car with that much trunk space will not get the prescribed amount of mileage.
But, I’ve never heard of either of your examples.
The corpus callosum in left-handed people is larger than in right-handed people. It supposedly allows better recovery from strokes.
Sorry MikeN, I was replying to bobbo.
Well Cranky–my report is “true.” The validity of the source or my memory provides a decent bit of hesitancy. Don’t take it for gospel, as I dont, but rather just an example of how people can differ?
The bi-model model of math proficiency came up during that Harvard Presidents denouement. Might have been a Time or Newsweek article in the Dentists office. The multi-tasking example was from pop literature 10 years ago.
I enjoy reading about how men and women ARE different===and then usually the same at the same time. Different, without any hidden message that one is overall better than the other. However, being single minded on where the spear is going to land and ignoring all other inputs makes sense to me Darwinianly. Another favorite topic of mine. Why are we the way we are??? I think Darwin explains more than we realize. Its why cantaloupes don’t hunt.
You’re first mistake. You are new here, eventually you will realize it.
I find both those images to be disturbing.
From Wikipedia, Rape in India.
“Rape in India has been described by Radha Kumar as one of India’s most common crimes against women[1] and by the UN’s human-rights chief as a “national problem”.[2] In the 1980s, women’s rights groups lobbied for marital rape to be declared unlawful, as until 1983, the criminal law (amendment) act stated that “sexual intercourse by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age is not rape”. Marital rape is now illegal in India but is still widespread.”
I think “Marital Rape” should be a legal impossibility. Sexual assault and battery with the same legal punishment?==yes. But the status of marriage should negate rape. I assume most gays don’t know that Marital Rape is on the books? But I joke…….
What does marital rape have to do with the pictures? Polygamy has been banned for some time, perhaps always outside of mythology.
I was generalizing about the mens club in India. Women are treated like property there and here in the U.S. by Indian men. The images depict the stereotype of men or women in power who brutalize others for their own personal pleasure.
Rape is rape. In or out of marriage. The act is an act of violence, not sex.
In other news, rape is now against the law in India. Waaay overdue methinks.
Really???
Do you think someone should tell CONGRESS?!
Or maybe you like getting “screwed” by their Department of “Internal” Revenue and a good hard “ream” of paper.
Funny how money is usually not that far from most of our sex organs. Sort of sheds new light on that “legitimate rape” thing, now, don’t it?.
Legitimate rape is when it’s done by Democratic politicians and others favored by liberals. Bill Clinton, Roman Polanski, etc.