Pseudonym said:
So I've tried to find anyone defending that this is a problem but in English language media, the only people writing about it seem rather defensive about the whole thing. Some people seem to have an issue with the way lipstick is applied and the way the lips are zoomed in on (focusing on the mouth is understandable though, in an ice cream commercial).
The only direct quote I found were some tweets:
Decorating a child like an adult woman makes real girls exposed to crime. This is obviously disgusting and you must take steps to delete this video.
Some scenes like this have more serious problems. Closing up makeup lips is typical sexual apeal in ads. She is 11-year-old!!! It is sooo wierd and disgusting. You must delete this video and @BaskinrobbinsKR has to explain about this video.
Look, I don't think this commercial is sexualizing this girl, and the upper tweet seems like a rather serious claim to me with not nearly enough to back it up, but the reaction to the reaction to the video has all the patterns of the outrage machine. Crucially, nobody in the English-language media seems to have done the legwork to get any of the commercials detractors to state why they think this video has a problem in any detail, beyond a tweet and an unsourced reference to a blogpost somewhere. Instead we have speculation as seen above about how they are probably prudish repressed pedophiles.
The only people who have put out any sort of serious statement about it are the girls mother, who is pissed of about the response to the commercial and the company who think they have done nothing wrong, but are playing it as safe as possible with their commercials, so they have taken it down anyway.
The issue of young girls wearing makeup is the same one many have taken issues with in with "Toddlers in tiaras" in that they see it as sexualizing young girls to have them wear women's makeup to make them appear " sexier", as per the history of women's makeup. In addition, strawberries and ice cream are also considered "romantic foods" often used to shift to romance on a date ( ever fed strawberries to a love interest), or have been popularly used sexually in actual porn (all you need do is search strawberries and porn if you are not aware already). Strawberries are a go to "seductive food" and if you just google "strawberries sexy", you see plenty of women's lipstick painted lips enticing the viewers with strawberries, which seems to be what they are discussing in terms of the girls lips and strawberries in the same manner. Who can forget the strawberries dipped into the whipped cream bikini? Creamed lips are not really helping the situation either.
https://timeline.com/makeup-sex-history-59758c23e50d
https://www.eatsomethingsexy.com/aphrodisiac-foods/strawberry/
https://grasmickproduce.com/2017/02/14/strawberries-the-food-of-love-and-romance/
https://okramagazine.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/how-sexy-are-strawberries-the-centerfold/
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4wqbz9/question-of-the-day-whats-the-sexiest-fruit
https://www.storenvy.com/products/19488517-eat-my-strawberry-g-string-custom-lingerie-sexy-underwear-underwear-ven
Baffle2 said:
Quick question: would a boy be used in the same way in this advert?
And that is exactly the point here. Would they put so much focus on boy's lips like that and making eyes at the camera as is common with women? With the romantic history of strawberries, sex and women's lips, it can be seen as sexualizing the girl, which sadly yes there is a pedo market for that that has shown to be an issue as they found out from toddlers in tiara pedo attraction issues, so while yes they are likely accurate that this makes her a pedo target, as also happened with Lazy Town, but I also do not think that this should be considered sexualized to the point that it should be considered kiddy porn. Though I do wish they would refrain from putting makeup on young girls in advertisements, not necessarily for the sexualized reason, but primarily due to how it impacts how impressionable young girls view themselves. Instead they should show that a girl is beautiful the way she is, and doe snot need to make herself appear more mature with cosmetics in order to be beautiful. I feel bad for the girl to have been put through this and to have had her advertisement, which I am sure she was very proud of taken down and hope it does not discourage her from doing more ads, hopefully with less focus on her lips and seductive fruits.
https://torontosun.com/2016/04/05/kids-beauty-pageant-show-eye-candy--perv/wcm/abd7c3ec-4cc1-4954-93f7-df3f72484aa3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ALazyTown%2FArchive_2
Young girls are impressionable. After watching a burlesque feather dance at the age of 4, I wanted to be a stripper when I grew up. You should have seen the look on my dad's face when I told him that... What they view at a young age shapes how they view beauty and themselves.
] so I guess my idea of what ads are like these days is not particularly up to speed.
