This ad for Mrs Macs Pies was recently released with the tagline “lean meat, crusty on top”- and has polarized those on different sides of the gender divide.
The video has been viewed over one million times on youtube, and those responding the most favourably toward it seem to be young, blokey males- such as readers of zoo magazine, who picked up and promoted the ad.
Women on the other hand, are not quite as amused. Its not that we don’t get the joke, we just don’t find it funny.
Fist of all, women are indignant that yet another ad has used overtly sexual and objectified images of women to sell a completely unrelated product, even if it is done in a “humorous” or “ironic” fashion. The ad purports that women can only be “lean meat” or “crusty”- and they have offended all types of women by suggesting that women are nothing more than meat to be observed and drooled over, until they become too “crusty” to be paid attention to.
But aside from this, does anyone else find the ad just downright revolting?
I do not want to be thinking about a strange, unnatural, half old, half young woman while eating a meat pie- in fact the thought makes me not want to eat anything at all!
Many say that the controversy and debate has gained the ad exactly the type of publicity it was looking for, but it seems those who have reacted positively have only been men. For women, the ad is offensive, and just plain weird.
Oh please – the diet coke ads have had chicks leering after men for ages and you don’t hear men complaining