Emily
MikeI’ll admit it– I love the holiday season. Perhaps it’s simply good childhood memories warming my heart, but this feminist is no Scrooge. One thing about the holidays that I can’t stand, however, is being bombarded by ridiculous, cheesy, materialistic jewelry commercials.
Every year, we have to suffer through “Every kiss begins with Kay,” or “He went to Jared’s” one-liners, accompanied with trite images of happy, white, heteronormative couples sharing their love through expensive, mass manufactured jewelry.
This commercial was particularly insufferable for me this year:
Ladies are like kittens or little children, terrified of thunder and lightning! But luckily, you can fall into your man’s arms! He will protect you with the strength of his love! And his wallet!
And then, there’s this one:
This commercial says, “I love you enough to buy you a watch…but definitely not enough to learn sign language properly.”
This is not to mention the fact that all of these commercials try to make you buy into a notion of ‘love’ that is extremely frustrating to me. Heteronormativity, mass production, materialism, and a ‘damsel in distress.’ What’s more, they make love into something that should be demonstrated by purchasing an expensive diamond, from an industry that truly has no regard for the havoc it has and continues to wreak on so much of Africa.
I’ll continue to roll my eyes every time I see any of these commercials– but I’ll leave you with a little feminist humor on jewelry commercials, courtesy of Sarah Haskins:
Filed under: Advertising, Marriage, Pop Culture, Stereotyping Tagged: | Advertising, commercials, Feminism, jewelry
