What are we talking about today?

I'll get back to theme days once I find a groove of posting regularly. In the meantime, most of my posts are about some variation of books, bikes, buses, or Broadway. Plus bits about writing, nonprofits, and grief from time to time.

This blog is mostly lighthearted and pretty silly. It's not about the terrible things happening in the world, but please know that I'm not ignoring those things. I just generally don't write about them here.

09 May 2012

Check the Score

I was perusing Twitter one evening, as is my wont, when a friend from UT said, "Seen the ads where Good credit Scores are supermodel-ish men & the bad Score's fat & ugly? I wonder what'd happen if they were girls." 


Well, to begin with, the ladies on The View would spit out their coffee in indignation. People would be (correctly) outraged. The company would have to apologize in a serious hurry. It would become one of those infamous moments that women could point to for years about how sexism is still rampant. (I agree that it is, but that's not the point of this post.)


This is the first ad in the series. The bad score
digs earwax out of his ear. Source.
In fact, the more I think about it, I can't really think of any other way that ad could be socially acceptable. Age? What, two young people and one old one? Or two adults and one child? Another firestorm. So why is it okay to have two tall and muscular men vs. one short, fat, and/or ugly one?


Now, don't get me wrong: I enjoy looking at good-looking people. I'm happily married and have no desire to ogle other men-- in fact, by today's standards, I'm almost disgustingly happily married-- yet I still watch with rapt attention during Rafa Nadal's changeovers, just in case. Why? Because he's nice to look at.


But does that make the credit score advert okay, or fun, or harmless? I'm not sure that it is. Sometimes Chad will complain about societal double standards that favour women, and I tease him that I know it's hard that women get the breaks sometimes. But should I be okay with that? No. I'm not. As long as we entertain double standards in our culture, we invite friction between people, and most of it could be avoided if we just embraced that our differences don't have to make us unequal.


Have you seen the ads? Do you agree or disagree with the concept?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Agree with you, I was turned down by the church for a post I wanted - told I was too old. No, political correctness doesn't apply to the church, even though it does in every other walk of life in the UK, maybe one day...

Anonymous said...

No I haven't seen the ads. I wander away from the TV when the ads come on. It's not right though...just because someone is gravitationally challenged doesn't mean they should be portrayed as a bad credit risk.

Grahame said...

I haven't seen this ad, but it reminds me of one I saw several years ago that really bugged me. It was for a truck, and the line was, "Gets more done than most husbands." If it had said "wives," there's no way it would have gotten past the drawing board.