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Originally Posted by Bedraggled Cat
The main problem with that commercial is that it was obviously against the character's will and she seemed embarressed distressed by it - it made me feel very uncomfortable. The degredation is that control over her clothing and basically her body was taken away from her and in no way is that an acceptable portrayal of anyone, man or woman. I had a similar problem with the beer advert that had a woman controlling what her boyfriend did with by dripping beer everywhere.
It becomes a lot more disturbing when you consider that there are men that think they do have a right to invade a woman's personal space whenever they choose. This sort of advert is prompted by the exact same mentality that allows certain men to think they have to right to make sexual comments to a woman that they don't know.
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Short answer: Yay! Boobies!!!
Long answer:
It's "against the will" of a fictional character, a non-existent person. The actress herself is not being taken advantage of, it's acting.
If you're trying to say that the fictional degradation of fictional characters somehow mirrors or enhances issues of actual, real people, I would argue that connection as extremely specious. That is the same type of argument that drives conversations like "guns kill people". Rather than put the blame on the individuals of diminished moral or legal character as it should be, the "fault" is ascribed to an outside, intangible source and touted as "cause and effect"- have a gun and you will shoot people, or play this videogame and become violent (GTA), or listen to this music and kill yourself (ozzy).
While I can see the point you think you're making, I'd also remind you that there is curently a large staple of advertising that actively degrades and humiliates males to curry favor with women, through the use of harsh stereotypes and ridicule. Men are constantly the butt of jokes now, because women used to be viewed as second-class citizens, and now women are taking some revenge. Now that we (thankfully) have equality, women see this as payback time, and know they can say or do whatever they want to make fun of men, because they figure finalyl getting equality means being able to make fun of your former dominators (if you would call it that). You can't make jokes about women without getting ripped to shreds by women's (or is it womyn's?
) groups, and you can't make jokes about anyone in any minority (and I mean this all in America) because of our past issues with race relations.
So, now, we have this entire media advertising culture where the only person we can make fun of are white males. Does the past justify current trends like that? Can you say, in a time of better equality, that the healthiest viewpoint is one of "we are going to hold this over your heads and use it as a scapegoat to make fun of you whenever we want"? It's several new generations of men past those times- so where's the cutoff? That'd be like making fun of EVERY subsequent generation of Germans for the holocaust, or EVERY subsequent generation of Catholics for the Crusades.
At what point do we admit that healthy growth and mutual respect are better served by not using the past to make excuses for poor behavior in the present?