[BRAH]

Volkswagen pulls ad with pregnant woman after complaints
The Canadian Press
Date: Wednesday Dec. 21, 2011 6:57 AM ET
TORONTO — Volkswagen Canada has pulled a television ad featuring two men so distracted by a car that they ignore a woman in labour after complaints it was insensitive.

The ad shows a man driving his pregnant wife to the hospital then leaving her sitting in the car while he and a paramedic admire the features of his Volkswagen Passat.

Volkswagen Canada spokesman Thomas Tetzlaff said Tuesday the company decided to pull the ad earlier this month after a small number of complaints from customers who felt the spot portrayed pregnant women in a bad light.

"I don't know if they used the word sexist but the gist of the complaint was that we weren't very fair to the pain and suffering that goes along with childbirth," Tetzlaff said.

"Upon second thought we thought, holy cow, that certainly wasn't the intent, but if anybody construes that way, we should pull it."


http://autos.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Autos/20111221/volkswagen-ad-pregnant-woman-complaints-111221/?s_name=Autos
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The people who actually complained about this need to STFU, Das Auto.

[andyt]

Agreed, but you going to tell a bunch of pregnant women that?

[PublicAnimalNo9]

I'm not surprised some people complained about this. Considering the intelligence level of the average TV viewer these days, the gag in this commercial flew right over their collective little heads.

[andyt]

It's men who should complain, since it makes us look like uncaring jerks. But then we have a sense of humor.

[Gunnair]

andyt wrote:

It's men who should complain, since it makes us look like uncaring jerks. But then we have a sense of humor.

It's an interesting paradigm - when was the last time you saw an add with a dumb woman and a smart husbdand?

Usually it's the other way around - the good looking smart wife and the lout of a husband, dumb and lazy or a big baby (think cold commercials)

Yeah, commercial media is unfare to women.

[Mr_Canada]

I'm just holding onto the thin layer of optimism that comes from realizing that some people are willing to complain about advertisements.

Let's me breathe easier.

[andyt]

Gunnair wrote:

andyt wrote:

It's men who should complain, since it makes us look like uncaring jerks. But then we have a sense of humor.

It's an interesting paradigm - when was the last time you saw an add with a dumb woman and a smart husbdand?

Usually it's the other way around - the good looking smart wife and the lout of a husband, dumb and lazy or a big baby (think cold commercials)

Yeah, commercial media is unfare to women.

OK, you've set me off. I wasn't going to post this, 'cause you'll call me a racist, but why do ads and media portrayals always show a blonde white woman with a swarthy or brown guy. Never the other way around? I know, I know, we're color blind, but obviously the media isn't.

[Mr_Canada]

I chalk it up to over-compensation for just how damn racist the media really still is. Not as if they have an overt agenda, they just have that general sense of "Shit, we have non-white audience members?" and feel that throwing some super sophisticated intellectual non-white person on the screen will make the company a beacon of multicultural integrity and virtue.

The simple answer is they want to look good. Like saying they're green.

Why?

Money.

[andyt]

Are there no super sophisticated women of color who might hang with white men.

I think it's that the media doesn't want to offend brown racists who object to their women being with white guys, but the reverse is OK for them. So the media is racist in all directions, not just white on black, just as society is.

[Mr_Canada]

I don't think anyone really puts the whole 'woman are looked down upon in such and such culture so let's marginalize them' idea in to play at all.

Our society is awfully critical of the women of other races. Horrible racist studies have come out 'proving' that women of other races are 'unattractive' to the 'majority' (White America).

So I'd view it more as the corporations seeing what appearances will make them the most mulla, and relationships involving non-white women do not compute.

[raydan]

andyt wrote:

Are there no super sophisticated women of color who might hang with white men.

I think it's that the media doesn't want to offend brown racists who object to their women being with white guys, but the reverse is OK for them. So the media is racist in all directions, not just white on black, just as society is.

On a dating site (yeah, sue me), I got a message from a black girl.

Haven't answered yet, not because she's black (I dated a black girl in high-school), but because she's only 31.



Do I still have it, or what???

[andyt]

It is corporations seeing what makes them most mulla - not offending brown men. It's not marginalizing the women, it's the idea, very common among for instance Punjabis, that it's OK for their boys to fuck white girls, but not their girls to fuck white guys. I think this is true for many cultures.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Of course, it could just be a reflection of NA society seeing as there are far more white female/dark male couples than the other way around.

Advertising is about appealing to your audience, although most TV ads come across as insulting more than anything else, to me anyway.
And of course it's about money MrC, that's the whole concept of business and enterprise.

[andyt]

PublicAnimalNo9 wrote:

Of course, it could just be a reflection of NA society seeing as there are far more white female/dark male couples than the other way around.

Why?

[Mr_Canada]

andyt wrote:

It is corporations seeing what makes them most mulla - not offending brown men. It's not marginalizing the women, it's the idea, very common among for instance Punjabis, that it's OK for their boys to fuck white girls, but not their girls to fuck white guys. I think this is true for many cultures.

Perhaps it's true some cultures have certain specific sexist issues, but it's not really something white advertisement producers are thinking about.

They are thinking about this: Who is our audience and what do they want?

Answer: White men, and they want white women.