Perhaps one of the most popular ads from the Superbowl this
year, Fiat’s commercial for its Fiat 500 Abarth does an excellent job at
quickly capturing a male viewer’s attention and holding it for the duration of
the one-minute clip. The company
has extended these methods to other commercials too, indicating they believe it
works and is the best advertising method. Fiat’s advertising strategy is
reliant on assumed ideas from our patriarchal society to succeed.
The commercial opens on an urban
street, showing an average working male walking down the street normally before
he notices an extremely attractive woman in a provocative black and red dress and
high heels bending over in a parking spot along the street. He stops and stares, then immediately
looks to the ground when she notices him looking. Upon noticing, she straightens up and walks over quickly,
speaking demandingly in Italian.
He slumps, clearly embarrassed and stupefied as she slaps him and stands
over him, continuing to speak down to him. However, after a few sentences, her tone changes entirely from
aggressive and demanding to flirty and sexy. She grabs his tie, touches his face, and continues the
interaction as though they have been flirting heavily for some time. He looks up at her, as though the
current interaction is something that never would have happened ever, even in
his wildest dreams. His mouth is
slightly open and he seems in awe, as he starts to nod slowly, even though it
is clear he doesn’t understand a word she is saying to him. The tone and flirtatious actions are
extraordinarily clear, and would be to any viewer. She whispers in his ear, then reaches into his coffee with
one finger and stirs the whipped cream on top, accumulating some on her finger. As she moves her finger to her mouth in
an extremely sexual way, some of the whipped cream falls off of her finger,
landing deep on her chest, right above the fabric of her low cut dress. The man watches the whipped cream fall,
staring at her chest, although it is clear he is looking at more than then
whipped cream. He looks up guiltily,
right as the camera shows her touching the whipped cream to his lips and then
pulling him forward by the top of his tie, going in for the kiss. As he closes his eyes and purses his
lips, she looks down on him sexually and slowly pulls back. As he moves forwards to complete the
kiss, the camera cuts back, showing him in fact standing in front of a small
black and red car, just like the colors of the woman’s dress. He catches himself, opens his eyes, and
sees the car for the first time, clearly surprised to not see the gorgeous
woman standing in front of him anymore.
The camera shows several views of the car, as the man looks in disbelief
at the car in front of him. The
scene goes black, showing the Fiat symbol with the voiceover from the woman saying,
“You’ll never forget the first time you see one,” this time in English. The final few seconds of the commercial
are devoted to several clips of the car accelerating down empty streets and
up-shifting as the driver executes several sporty maneuvers.
The
commercial uses many techniques and assumptions to lure in the viewer, and many
of these are particularly interesting from a feminist perspective. The most noticeable things I noticed
revolve around the ways the two characters are portrayed throughout the
ad. The man is shown as an average
worker in an urban setting, wearing a blue button down shirt and a tie: the epitome
of a middle manager. He is neither
particularly attractive nor unattractive, which is important later in the
commercial. His role is very
accessible to many viewers, which is key to the commercial’s success. From a patriarchal perspective, the
man’s attire suggests that he has a steady job and could likely provide for a
woman, and although his left hand is never shown, his actions lead the viewer
to assume he is single.
The woman in the commercial is a
Romanian supermodel, which is obvious from the very beginning. She is bending over in a provocative
way, with her revealing dress blowing slightly in the wind as she adjusts her
heels. The more the camera shows
of her throughout the commercial, the more appealing she seems. As discussed in the Friedman lecture,
women tend to have the ability to play one of two roles: the virginal, pure
girl, or the bad, sexual deviant.
The woman in this commercial takes more of the bad girl image, from the
see through back on her dress to the tattoo on the back of her neck. Looking closely, the tattoo is the
symbol for the Fiat 500 Abarth, but it serves as an indicator of her choices to
experiment and break out of the norm.
Her actions also add much to this bad girl image, from her pose in the
beginning of the commercial to when she slaps the man in response to catching
him staring at her in a compromising position. However, the split second change in her attitude from
aggressive to sexual reveals the most about her character. She appears to be instantly turned on
by catching someone checking her out, which is simply not how most women would
conduct themselves in the situation.
The translation (posted at the bottom) indicates that she expected
nothing less from him, and even pities his situation. From this point on, she takes a very dominant role in the
interaction, which aligns with her bad girl image and adds to her appeal.
From a feminist perspective, the
power dynamic throughout the interaction is something worth noting. Up until the point where the woman sees
the man checking her out, the man appears to be in power. However, as soon as he faces the street
in embarrassment, the power dynamic completely changes. As she strides over to confront him, he
knows that he is in the wrong and that he should not have been caught stopped
on the sidewalk staring at a woman, regardless of her appearance and appeal. At some basic biological level, it is
assumed that men are always on the lookout for partners they find
attractive. However, our society
has placed constraints on this, so that he knows to feel embarrassment when
caught staring. Regardless of the
reasoning, the woman takes complete control of the interaction after
confronting him, even though it is assumed that she is speaking a language
foreign to him. It seems clear
that her power is derived from her appearance. The lesson that the commercial sends to viewers is that
sexual prowess and beauty give women power over men. In this case, the woman’s extreme beauty and bad girl image
render the man nearly helpless – the picture of domination. For women watching the commercial, they
are left leaving that they must look like the woman in the commercial and maybe
even act like her in order to have power over men, which mirrors many of the
ideas of Brumberg. Women tend to
react to what they see around them, whether it is the actions of their friends
or the images they see in advertisements or movies. Advertisements like this one only work to reinforce the
ideas that are already in the media.
Although most people will not take the time to think about the power
dynamic between men and women within a one minute commercial, the messages
still affect the subconscious and are ingrained in women’s minds, like many other
things within our patriarchal society.
Our society has trained women to continually accept these ideas, even
though many of them are detrimental to their image as a woman and can have both
physical and emotional effects.
After recently reading Steinem’s
account of attempting to get typically male companies to advertise in Ms. magazine, I found her commentary
about car commercials to be particularly relevant to this commercial. She noted that the general idea from
U.S. carmakers is that “women choose the upholstery, not the car,” and that
many dealers did not believe it was worth catering advertising for cars
directly to women [3]. Although
Fiat is technically Italian, it now owns a majority stake in Chrysler, which is
very representative of the Detroit car market. I have included another advertisement at the bottom for the
same car, which uses very similar methods to entice the viewers. Charlie Sheen plays the main role, with
the same gorgeous model and numerous other attractive women filling in all of
the traditional stereotypes.
Clearly, Fiat feels as though it is fine to aim the vast majority of the
advertisements for this car at the male population, and disregard the idea that
these commercials will not be appealing to women. Instead of trying to sell the car simply based on its own
merits and achievements, Fiat has decided to market the car with the aid of
very attractive women in hopes of making the commercials more memorable. The Charlie Sheen commercial takes a
slightly different approach than the original, but many of the premises and
assumptions are the same. The need
to look like a supermodel permeates through each one of Fiat’s commercials for
the Abarth, and the additional thrill of power over men is teased as going hand
in hand with beauty.
Elements of our patriarchal society
enable commercials like these to become popular, even though it is clear to
everyone who watches them that the main advertising mechanism is the inclusion
of a model. Neither commercial has
any appeal to the female market, but this is accepted as normal because women
have limited involvement when it comes to buying cars, according to the belief
system of our patriarchy. Without
many of the base assumptions throughout the commercial that go hand in hand
with the assumptions of our society’s patriarchy, advertisements like these
would never be successful.
Translation
What are you looking at huh?
What are you looking at?
"SLAP!"
You are undressing me with your
eyes!
You could do no less, poor thing.
Your heart is beating.
Is your head spinning?
You’ll be lost thinking
of that sensation forever.
Sources
[1] “FIAT 500 Abarth - 2012 Super Bowl Commercial –
Seduction.” Video clip. YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpi2IAec9Ho.
[2] “FIAT 500 Abarth Commercial - Charlie Sheen "House
Arrest." Video clip. YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjYxE2VD7VE.
[3] Johnson, Allan G., The
Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 2005.
[4] Steinem, Gloria. “Sex, Lies & Advertising.” MS Magazine, July/August 1990.
[5] Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls. New York: Random
House, 1997.
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