Hi All!
I am almost 100% positive that everyone has seen the popular tampon commercials by Kotex involving a woman mocking other industry's tampon commercials in popular culture media. If you youtube tampon commercials, most likely you will find that women who are restricted by their periods can all of a sudden perform their normative feminine roles in society, like cleaning the house, taking care of their children, and cleaning! Most often these commercials are selling the idea not only to women but to men that women are incapable of performing not only feminine roles, but any roles at all while they are on their menstruation cycles.
These very commercials are constructing and enforcing feminine gender roles. However, I think we can all agree that the new Kotex commercials that have recently been aired provide a refreshing new take on women's behaviour during her menstruation cycle. The new Kotex commercials features a woman who satirizes other tampon commercials and provides a humorous approach in revealing how typically tampon advertisements can be absolutely ludicrous and falsely.
I am not sure if this is a form of culture jamming. I believe in some ways we can regard it as culture jamming. For example, the commercial is taking ideas of feminine behaviours during a menstrual cycle and kind of twists these behaviours altogether. Basically, in colloquial terms, this commercial is saying "Hey, I have my period! Why does the advertising industry treat this as almost an illness? If you buy these tampons then you will not be negatively emotional and want to be more feminine!" :) Culture jamming or not, I still think that this Kotex commercial is great!
Additionally, another commercial that reinforces the feminine constructed roles is that of Vagisil. I find it quite hilarious that in one particular commercial where a woman has a yeast infection, she is hiding in a hoodie, but as soon as she uses vagisil she can "be the woman she wants to be" and goes shopping! Woohoo!
I would like to know your thoughts on this! Do you think that this Kotex commercial can be considered as a form of culture jamming?
Seraph of the Rose
Hey Seraph of the Rose,
ReplyDeleteI'm super happy you posted this video by Kotex! When it first aired on T.V. I would hope to see it during commercial breaks because I found it to be so hilarious! I also really enjoyed the other commercial, that featured a woman outside of a drug store asking a long line of men to go in and buy her a box of tampons. However all of the men were too embarrassed or seemed almost disgusted to do such a thing, as one man even asks "can I just buy you toilet paper?". HAHAHA!
The advertisement ends by asking why tampons are such a big deal.. I too would like to know this along with why the hell are periods such a big deal!? You asked if people believe this is a form of culture jamming, and I would have to say that I think it is, just perhaps not a deliberate form like many of the organizations already blogged about. In other words U by Kotex did not make these commercials in hopes of exposing how female bodies are gendered, but in hopes of convincing girls to buy their tampons versus tampons by tampax or other companies.
Regardless if these commercials are official "culture jams" or not, I believe they still expose important underlining ideas and themes.
You are completely correct when you say that advertising companies treat a woman's menstrual cycle like an illness - and the same goes for birth control ads. The "master idea" behind these ads appears to want to convince women that they need to control or completely rid themselves of getting their period - there is no accepting place in society for these bloody things! Birth control ads like Seasonique make women look so much happier and fulfilled because they only have to suffer with 4 periods a year (hooray!!). Tampax ads have glowing cheerful girls who are still able to swim in white bikinis and jump on top of mosh pits at concerts, only because they are wearing 'Tampax tampons'.
I agree with you that this U by Kotex commercial is awesome. It seems that the commercials by this company are the only ones out there right now that in a way liberate women from being associated to their 'big ugly period', suggesting it is a natural and understood part of female life.
Cheers
The Veiled Interpreter