Posted on 11/28/2007 12:37:27 PM PST by LibWhacker
Comments (27) In a politically correct age, they seem like outrageous anachronisms.
And there is no doubt these adverts - many taken from the first half of the last century - reveal just how much women used to be caricatured as downtrodden housewives or hair-brained office girls.
Now, a new book - You Mean A Woman Can Open It?: The Woman's Place In The Classic Age Of Advertising - brings together images which would surely cause a howl of protest if they were released today.
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1961: When you can't wait for your dinner, give her a Kenwood Chef food mixer and let her have some fun preparing your favourite dish
1970: Your wife won't be able to stall the car or grind the gears - and there's even one pedal fewer to confuse her with the Mini Automatic
1952: Is your coffee pressure packed for extra freshness? If hubby can tell you're not making Chase & Sanborn coffee for him, well, you've been warned...
1946: Women are seen as indecisive, trying to squeeze into something too small, worried someone else is wearing the same dress and then taking it back to the shop. Men need only one look at the Pacific label to know it suits you, sir
1953: You don't need a knife, a bottle opener or even your husband to unscrew the cap of this bottle - just a little twist of the Alcoa HyTop Closure, made of pure aluminium, and that ketchup is ready to pour
1930s: You do all the houshold chores - and still look fresher every day, darling. What's your secret? A bowl of Kellogg's PEP vitamin cereal for breakfast, naturally
1921: If you can answer YES to the question, you are obviously using pure mild Palmolive soap that will leave your skin radiant
1953: Husband furious because you've missed the post? The Pitney-Bowes Postage Meter prints the stamp and seals the envelope all in one go.
True. When there are no white people in the ad (such as those ads they used to show on Soul Train), the man is the still the default idiot.
So that’s what’s going on in “Norwegian Wood.” Never could figure out the lyrics.
More like as the Rolling Stones put it, "Mother's Little Helper."
Yeah, come to think of it you’re right. But, if there is a white guy in the mix...he’s the one that gets hosed.
What about John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara in the classic The Quiet Man. One lady gives him a stick to beat his wife, then he drags her around pretty good.
Today’s woman is doing striptease-pole dances to sell bras on TV.
I’d rather have men think I’m cute than have them think I’m a ho!
BFLR
The IBM commercials are notorious for this.
Do you remember the Brylcream hair jel commercials with the blonde babe coming out of the tube? Its a classic.
Its not my job to be “sensitive” to her needs... if she wants that she should be at home with hubby, not here with me.
I've seen it with both.
BTW HATE that commercial.
Do you remember the “Cigars, Cigarettes, Tiparillos” commercials with the cigarette babe?
Meh...four out of five dentists, er, muggers will tell you to target the White Guy cuz he's the one carrying cash. Apparently nobody has talked to our criminal element about the "evils" and "ineffectiveness" of profiling.
Perhaps the director's cut of the commercial has Chez Whitey getting his wallet ganked outside the store.
The commercial I always hated was the one where a women is showing off her new watch her husband gave her, where she says, “it’s nice, but I was hoping for a Longines.”
What a bitch!
Probably not that different than the modern day commercials for the [16 bladed?!?] shavers...use our product and this hot chick will appear out of nowhere wanting to get it on wit ya.
Maybe it is because face shaving is - for the time being - exclusively a male activity. No need to appease the women watching.
It’s like the difference between the charm of the old “cheesecake” calender pin-ups and today’s Internet’s porn women. I miss the elegant charm we had forty years ago.
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