The Grand Narrative

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s rather a lonely place being a man studying sexism and gender roles in advertising sometimes. Not least, because one soon notices that those individual women and women’s groups motivated to write about such issues (naturally) tend to be those individuals and groups most offended by and/or have corporate interests in drawing public attention to, say, what they regard – and want others to regard – as sexist advertisements. But that is not to say that there is anything at all wrong with either per se: for instance, a quick browse of this blog reveals that Korean society, for one, could do with many more people of any ideological stripe writing (in English or Korean) about gender issues on the internet than, well, what appears to be just myself and a handful of academics these days, and while I do write here for pleasure I must confess that I am just as equally motivated by wanting to make a name for myself and thereby ultimately get paid to write (sorry).

Hence, while the raison d’etre of the aforementioned (and, admittedly, conveniently ill-defined) “seekers of outrage” arguably leads to a certain dogmatism and repetitiveness on their part then, perhaps my own leads me to just as regularly and repetitively counter that the use of women’s body parts in an advertisement isn’t necessarily sexist, and indeed I think that this commercial for the airbag system in the Renault/Samsung SM5 is a good case in point(!). Kudos to Brian in Jeollanamdo for finding it:

And the voiceover explains:

어떠한 상황에서도 안전한 엄마의 품처럼

충격이 작을땐 약하게 클땐 강하게

또 하나의 가치를 더해갑니다.  SM5

Or roughly:

“Whatever situation you come across, you are as safe [in this car] as in you are in your mother’s bosom. The airbag responds softly when there is a small collision, and strongly when there is a large collision. Always adding value. SM5″

Hardly Shakespearean prose, but then the original Korean isn’t either.

Now, while I really hate to disagree so completely with a self-confessed fan of my blog (sorry, and congratulations on the engagement!), and would echo her points about this commercial merely being the latest in a long line of Korean ones that  “would be right at home in a nostalgic ad collection, showing women in pearls and belted dressed hugging their (kimchi) fridges or seeming astounded by the technology behind washers while hubby is off at work,” (and you can read more about why that is and see examples in the second half of this post),  I beg to differ when Ms. Parker says:

This ad leaves a bad taste in my mouth for a) the disembodied breasts (Mom doesn’t have a face?) b) the BOUNCY disembodied breasts (that are somehow protecting the child from the menacing tidal wave?) ~ what an insult to mothers!!!!!!!!!! and c) comparing a part of a woman’s body to a safety feature of a car.

Certainly the breasts are disembodied in this case, and although I personally see no difference between them and comparing, say the power of the car’s motor to a man’s disembodied pair of muscled legs, I do grant that: in general women’s bodies are objectified on a much much greater scale than men’s; that that objectification of men doesn’t somehow render that of women okay; and also that it is not up to women and/or feminists to act upon the objectification of men in advertisements either. But I still fail to see the problem with bouncing breasts when breasts do indeed bounce upon the impact of a child’s head, nor do I find any analogies with the warmth and safety of a mother’s bosom off-limits in advertising when the entire human race fully understands and appreciates the sentiment being referred to.

But most of all, I find it difficult to feel any sense of outrage because actually the very first thing the commercial reminded me of was this Mercedes Benz advertisement on the right from early last year (source):

And which raises some interesting questions, for while I can’t put my finger on it (no crass pun intended), I was initially at quite a loss as to why I (and I think most readers) would find this and not the commercial simply, well, disturbing: after all, both use precisely the same disembodied female body part(s) to advertise almost exactly the same products.

I am open to any alternative explanations for my conflicting reactions to them, but I title the post the way I do because I think that the solution lies in the fact that, while I find it very easy to visualize the undoubtedly female-devoid decision-making process in smoke-filled German boardrooms that lay behind the Mercedes Benz advertisement, I can’t imagine that anything like the same occurred for the *cough* simply nice Samsung commercial that emphasizes how the SM5 is a safe car for one’s family: it’s a wholly different vibe. Or in other words, and to reiterate my central point, disembodied female body parts are not a automatic feminist negative in advertisements, but the rational and motivations behind and contexts in which they’re used are equally if not more important criteria for judging them, yes?