Sexist Ad Lands EB Games Australia In Trouble

[Caffiene]

The most offensive part of the ad is the terrible voice acting... I dont know why it happens, but there is a very distinct "amateur voice actor" accent that aussies get. This ad has it. No professional ad youd see on TV talks like this. The only place on TV that Ive heard with this sort of accent is dodgy low-budget saturday morning cartoons.

That said... the content is stupid too. It does nothing but reinforce stupid stereotypes (as evidenced by posts like devilkingx's above).

As a male aussie gamer, I know plenty of women gamers... as many of them trade games as male gamers I know. And of the ones who dont trade games, its generally because they have shelves full of classic games and they actually keep their games and pay full price for new games.

 

[PunkRex]

I see how you could get to the idea that this is sexist as its stereotypical but... I think its mor lazy then sexist.

Dur wifes nag husbands, husbands play games, wife nags husband about playing game, dur hur hur. Its just kind of lame.

 

[Thyunda]

The most offensive part of the ad is the terrible voice acting... I dont know why it happens, but there is a very distinct "amateur voice actor" accent that aussies get. This ad has it. No professional ad youd see on TV talks like this. The only place on TV that Ive heard with this sort of accent is dodgy low-budget saturday morning cartoons.

That said... the content is stupid too. It does nothing but reinforce stupid stereotypes (as evidenced by posts like devilkingx's above).

As a male aussie gamer, I know plenty of women gamers... as many of them trade games as male gamers I know. And of the ones who dont trade games, its generally because they have shelves full of classic games and they actually keep their games and pay full price for new games.

Evidently you've found one of those female gaming enclaves then, because as I've said in previous posts, women playing games as intensely as men is NOT common. Y'know why a female gamer is immediately more attractive to us? It's because they're RARE. People are still genuinely surprised when a girl admits to sitting down to a game of Modern Warfare every now and then.

The issue with this statistic of '47% of gamers are women' is that this includes everybody from your standard basement-dwelling WoW addict, to your screaming twelve year olds, and the lass that spends a Saturday night playing party games on the Wii. I know girls that call themselves nerds and gamers because they like the Wii or Kinect. I'm not trying to say that because we play 'proper' games, we're better than them, I'm saying the concept is totally different.

Let's put this into some real perspective.
From the discussions in the advert above, we can guess that the guy spends a lot of his time playing videogames, whereas his partner does not. In real life, I just spent twelve hours on Skyrim. At most, my girlfriend will play an hour of Arkham Asylum...I won't let her play Arkham City till she's done with Asylum. Does she play this because it's a great game? Partly. But mostly because she likes Batman.
My mother will sometimes play Halo with me and my brother. She owns a Nintendo Wii that she has exclusive use of. If asked 'are you a gamer', she would reply 'no'. If asked if she's played a videogame in the past week, she would say yes. That's what a statistic is. A vague representation of an even less clear question.

Devilkingx's post was more accurate than you think, though a little poorly worded. How exactly WOULD you market videogames to women? Our genders already have traits assigned to them by millennia of our respective cultures. People are so determined to change them, but they have no idea what they want to replace them with. The average girl would NOT be attracted to the "We're SOLDIERS! MANLY MEN!" vibe that most shooters put out. However, a minority of girls that DO like that sort of thing, WILL be interested.

So yes. Enjoy your videogaming harem, and just pray that the rest of us can happen upon such a rare occurrence, but for God's sake, if you're going to insult another poster, at least get your damn facts straight.

 

[Braedan]

Turn it around with the woman buying the game, and the man at the end fixing the sink and it wouldn't look sexist at all. Just a bad commercial.

Whining for the hell of whining.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Anybody mad about this is so easily angered that they shouldn't be made to go to work in the morning. The rough car seat will surely cause them hurt in their asses.

 

[lettucethesallad]

It's totally sexist, and here's why.
- The way the man perceives the voice of the woman when he zones out. Yeah, I get it, sometimes you just don't want to listen. But when it's in a relationship like that it just goes to show a lack of respect for your partner. Judging by how he ignored it, the topic's been up for debate before. Thus they probably haven't talked about it in a rational adult way, which leads me to believe that the guy's going "Fuck it, she can whine all she wants, I'm going to do it anyway", which is clearly disrespectful. It's, in different terms, pretty much saying "I'm the man in this relationship, I make the decisions, so I'll blatantly disregard your feelings and keep doing what I find fun." Not cool.
- Also, the woman shopping and cleaning. Really Australia? It's not 1955 anymore. Also portraying the man sitting around when his wife's cleaning, along with the 'Do you need any help honey?'. If your wife is cleaning and you're sitting on the couch with a beer and a video game - you're a douche. The home isn't one person's responsibility, you both live there.

And agreed, there are lots of adds that are sexist towards men too, but that doesn't make this ok. Not cool, EB.

So the ad is sexist towards women because it portrays men as sexist pigs who don't listen to their wives? The woman is clearly disregarding her husband's feelings as well - she doesn't want him wasting money on games, but she has no problem wasting the money on a fancy dinner out. In other words, she only wants the money spent on things she wants. It works both ways.

As for the cleaning... people causing a stink over it simply reminds me of feminists bitching about how women who like to be homemakers are holding women back. I mean we don't know much about this woman. Who's to say she doesn't enjoy cooking and cleaning? Isn't saying that all women can't like cleaning irregardless of their own opinion far more sexist than portraying a woman as someone who cleans?

My point is that it's representing the sexes in a clearly sexist way - the male as someone stuck in adolescence who won't pick up the slack, and the woman as a nagging *****. This is sexist. I see no other way around it.

Hey, some women may like cleaning and stuff, I'm just saying that this isn't the norm. Some men may be neat freaks as well. Some women may be pigs. Portraying the woman as being someone who carries a heavier load of household work is playing on the inequalities that still prevail in society. There are studies that show that even if a woman works as much as a man whom which she's in a relationship with, she'll still bear the heavier load of household responsibilities. And I doubt this is just because she 'wants to do it'. From childhood people treat male and female children in different ways. Girls are encouraged to be calm and good at keeping order, while boys are treated with a kind of 'boys will be boys' mentality which allows for rowdier behaviour. I'm not saying that there are no women who like cleaning, that's just stupid. I'm saying that portraying a woman as some kind of 'second mom', who cleans and looks after the household (as in the woman in the clip worrying about finances) as something that should have stayed back in the Mad Men world.

 

[Xanadu84]

While certainly not malicious or unforgivable, it does seem tinged with sexism that will haunt it until there is that female equivalent ad. Sadly, once that happens, they will merely have a mediocre, fairly dull ad.

 

[Saulkar]

Pfffft. Some people forgot to take their daily chill-pill. Whether an advertisement has something that can subjectively be interpreted as sexist, racist, or generally intolerant is not particularly harmful. It is not going to suddenly turn everyone who watches it once into a bigot. However if this is the only thing that commercials show or they are created with the distinct purpose of misleading and misinforming based upon a bigotted agenda then by all means, have at the commercial.

 

[Lilani]

for the "offensive"/"sexist" argument:
i know exactly 1 girl who plays video games, and too many guys to count who play video games....

people cant call something offense, sexist, or a stereotype if its TRUE

and 47% of gamers are girls in australia nowhere does that say "regularly", "frequently", "hardcore", nor does it mention whether it counts 15 minutes of bejeweled or 1 hour of angry birds as the same as 1000 total hours in COD or 400 hours in oblivion, or a 100% completion in dark souls or not

its neither a myth nor a stereotype. you should cater to your target audience and not worry about unimportant minorities(because every woman is gonna pick up MW3 and play it for 350 hours until black ops 2 right?) else you'll have a wii, where the target audience hates it, but minorities love it(in the wiis case, gamers hated it for sucking, and casuals loved it, but that caused bad sales on games and crappy games)


as for the ad itself:
the ad is just a light hearted joke that feminazis are taking too seriously, while everyone else(like me) is taking it as it is, a joke ad

Maybe that's you, but I'm afraid your personal experience does not accurately represent the entirety of the gaming community. I myself am a female gamer, and I know at least 15 other female gamers who play games as much if not more than me. And countless others who play in various casual ways.

My problem with this ad is that not only is EB games advertising solely to men, but is also putting down any females who might be interested in their products. It's one thing to target men or women, but when you begin to patronize or even mock the other gender in spite of how interested even a minute percentage could be, that's when it becomes a reckless and poor ad which deserves a negative reaction.

And it's not even that "sexist" ads are inherently bad--just look at the Old Spice ads. Those are universally accepted as amazing advertisements, and were extremely effective. But that's because they were entertaining--it made fun of both males and females, in a sense, but kept it fun for both. The guy was an alpha-male, doing manly things to impress the ladies--but it was so ridiculous and well-thought-out that it was comfortably in the parody zone. This keeps him from being a mirror for other guys in which they might see their less desirable parts. And the "ladies," or the audience, were treated not as some ambiguous prize for the guy to win, but rather a prize to be sought after and earned. Note that in the ads, it's never a guarantee that the "ladies" the old spice guy is wooing will ever accept, and neither are there any females in there portrayed as just fawning over him as though loving him is inevitable He is asking ladies to love him and Old Spice body wash, not demanding it. There's still a choice, and that is why women can be fine with the ad as well.

This ad, however, does all of that wrong. If there is parody, it's not clear enough for the audience to completely buy or be convinced by it. Both sides of the situation are completely portrayed, and are meant to be given at face value. It's cartoony enough to where it can be argued that it's not meant to be taken seriously, but at the same time, it can be argued that because EB games is presenting a completely feasible situation they are asking their audience to use their services specifically in that way and in that sort of situation. Which would not make it a parody.

Again, it's patronizing, stereotypical, and just unnecessary. There are so many other ways they could have done that ad to get across the same information without completely isolating the female audience. And even if there is just one female gamer in all of Australia, that's one female gamer who will likely no longer be buying her games from EB Games. I know I wouldn't if I were her. I was pretty neutral about EB games, but that ad just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And if an ad leaves ANY sort of negativity with ANYONE who could potentially be a customer--whether or not that customer is the majority of their sales base--that ad has failed. Because not only has it lost them money on immediate sales, but it's also tarnished their image, which is even more money lost in the long-term. EB games in that ad set themselves up as "the video game store for guys," which as the gaming culture grows and expands will simply not fly anymore. They turned their exchange program--something which is not a gender-specific product or problem--into a gender-specific product. The ads have got to stop, or EB games will be left in the dust of the retailers who cater to 100% of the audience, and not just a portion.

So I guess to answer the question: Is it sexist? Not really, but it is ignorant, off-putting, patronizing, stereotypical, and ineffective. Which goes against pretty much everything you want an ad to say about your company. So not sexist, but definitely stupid. I'd be getting a new ad team if I were EB games.

 

[Lilani]

It's totally sexist, and here's why.
- The way the man perceives the voice of the woman when he zones out. Yeah, I get it, sometimes you just don't want to listen. But when it's in a relationship like that it just goes to show a lack of respect for your partner. Judging by how he ignored it, the topic's been up for debate before. Thus they probably haven't talked about it in a rational adult way, which leads me to believe that the guy's going "Fuck it, she can whine all she wants, I'm going to do it anyway", which is clearly disrespectful. It's, in different terms, pretty much saying "I'm the man in this relationship, I make the decisions, so I'll blatantly disregard your feelings and keep doing what I find fun." Not cool.
- Also, the woman shopping and cleaning. Really Australia? It's not 1955 anymore. Also portraying the man sitting around when his wife's cleaning, along with the 'Do you need any help honey?'. If your wife is cleaning and you're sitting on the couch with a beer and a video game - you're a douche. The home isn't one person's responsibility, you both live there.

And agreed, there are lots of adds that are sexist towards men too, but that doesn't make this ok. Not cool, EB.

So the ad is sexist towards women because it portrays men as sexist pigs who don't listen to their wives? The woman is clearly disregarding her husband's feelings as well - she doesn't want him wasting money on games, but she has no problem wasting the money on a fancy dinner out. In other words, she only wants the money spent on things she wants. It works both ways.

As for the cleaning... people causing a stink over it simply reminds me of feminists bitching about how women who like to be homemakers are holding women back. I mean we don't know much about this woman. Who's to say she doesn't enjoy cooking and cleaning? Isn't saying that all women can't like cleaning irregardless of their own opinion far more sexist than portraying a woman as someone who cleans?

My point is that it's representing the sexes in a clearly sexist way - the male as someone stuck in adolescence who won't pick up the slack, and the woman as a nagging *****. This is sexist. I see no other way around it.

Hey, some women may like cleaning and stuff, I'm just saying that this isn't the norm. Some men may be neat freaks as well. Some women may be pigs. Portraying the woman as being someone who carries a heavier load of household work is playing on the inequalities that still prevail in society. There are studies that show that even if a woman works as much as a man whom which she's in a relationship with, she'll still bear the heavier load of household responsibilities. And I doubt this is just because she 'wants to do it'. From childhood people treat male and female children in different ways. Girls are encouraged to be calm and good at keeping order, while boys are treated with a kind of 'boys will be boys' mentality which allows for rowdier behaviour. I'm not saying that there are no women who like cleaning, that's just stupid. I'm saying that portraying a woman as some kind of 'second mom', who cleans and looks after the household (as in the woman in the clip worrying about finances) as something that should have stayed back in the Mad Men world.

I think you're going about this the wrong way. I agree that the ad is ineffective (as I spell out in my pot just above), but it's not so much that I have a problem with how the genders were portrayed. Sure it's stereotypical and that is irritating, but as a female, that's not the first thing that bothered me.

What bothered me was that gender-roles were even brought up at all. The goal of the ad was to showcase EB Game's exchange program. That is not a gender-specific service, like tampons or underwear. It's a service that is available to both genders. But the ad took the extra step and not only made it a gender issue, but also told the genders which side they should be on. THAT is what I found the most insulting. That not only would EB Games draw a totally unnecessary line, but that they would also have the nerve to tell me which side of the line I'm on. THAT is where the ad falls short. It brings up problems that have nothing to do with their point and do not help their case.

The main source of sexism doesn't come from how the genders were portrayed. There are plenty of effective ads out there which employ stereotypical gender-roles and behaviors--mostly in the form of parody or satire. The "sexism" comes from their shoehorning those stereotypes in and asking their audience to use them as such.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

This is about as sexist as I am female.

[small][sup]You see, it's funny because the topic is about sexism. No? Anybody? Not even a giggle?[/sup][/small]

Anyway. Yeah, really not seeing the issue here. If it was the other way around, with a woman buying the game and the bloke moaning, would anyone care? Seems like whining for the sake of whining to me.

[small]I giggled...[/small]

I think it's more sexist to assume that such poor writing should garner enough attention by women to even be considered all that relevant in the first place regarding the issue of sexism. The structure of the ad s basically combining 1950's stereotypes that nobody that has accepted the modern era actually takes seriously, some King of Queens/sitcom husband, and with the added touch of the Charlie Brown wah-wah-wah voice. I can understand why women might find the portrayal of the wife offensive, definitely! But consider that only the children in Charlie Brown heard the wah-wah-wah-wah... From what we can assume about the husband, he could very well be a stereotypical, lazy man-child with a wife running the house and keeping him on a leash so he doesn't run after a van; he sets those gears in motion well enough on his own.

The writing and premise is just so damned lazy that I think everyone has a right to be offended. EB games paid someone to come up with this and expects people to to flock to their stores to trade games? It is an objectively bad advertisement: Poor voice work, lazy writing, even lazier design, no clever pitch for EB Games or game trading, and targeting an ad that has general appeal (what about even mothers who want to save a buck but still buy their kid a new game?) to one gender because being clever is far out of their reach, apparently. Whenever I see an ad - and oh boy do I hate ads, and you'll see why - I rarely get to the "would I buy/support this?" part and skip straight ahead to "what kind of an idiot though this shit was a good idea?!? I don't even want to support a business that sucks so badly at marketing!"

 

[Frost27]

So the next time a woman keens at me about playing video games, I can tell her she's being sexist?

Can't have their cake and eat it too in this case I'm afraid.

I dont follow, and perhaps you dont get what is sexist about the ad...

The part of the ad that was sexist was NOT the part where the man wanted to buy a video game and the woman didnt (well perhaps slightly sexist). It was the part where the man bought her dinner and thus instantly transformed her into domestic servant happy to allow the man to do whatever he wanted.

When a person complains about another person playing too much video games/spending too much on them. That isnt sexist. When you assume that only women have a problem with only men playing video games, that is sexist.

I don't find that to be sexist at all. It showed him using his money for other things like making her happy, thus resulting in being able to play his game in peace. While the ad itself was played out in a rather dumb fashion, the overall product was not at all sexist. I don't even see how it was. What? Was it sexist because she was dong housework? That is what people do at home and in fact, I would wager that when one half is cleanng while the other indulges in leasure activities that is the source for quite a few domestic quarrels. If she had been putting together a plastic model or painting a picture would it still be sexist?

 

[weirdee]

I kind of doubt that the marketing team actually thought this much about the ad as much as the discussion puts into it, and that even though it just makes another bar in the...cage of gender roles (am I using enough metaphor here?), they probably never really intended it to work that way.

While the juxtaposition is bad, I think "domestic servant" is assuming too much. I mean, hell, if she makes him do some chores anyway at the end, you'd all complain that the ad portrays her as more of a nagging housewife.

 

[Jewrean]

"EB defended it as a "light-hearted joke" that was actually written by a woman and said that a "female-oriented companion ad" is on the way."

I don't see a problem here. There are far worse 'jokes' and there are far worse acts of bigotry. Providing the companion ad has roles reversed basically then all is well.

 

[Strazdas]

47 percent of Australian gamers are female, she said, yet the perception that core games are for men while women are only interested in casual games persists.

The perception probably persistes becuase itrs true.
I know around 100+ men that play. all of them are what some define as "core" players.
i know around 20+ women that play. not a single one could be called "core" player.
given the 120+ sample, the perception is 100% spot on. i may not know every gamer out there, but the pattern is obviuos and it carries.

 

[Rijo]

Other then the AD being the next utube reject of the day, My question is why use a duster, girl get your Swiffer on

 

[Kiwilove]

Somehow, I don't think the "female equivalent" ad is going to improve matters.

 

[Something Amyss]

Somehow, I don't think the "female equivalent" ad is going to improve matters.

Could be funny as hell, though. I mean, if they run the ad the same way, what would the girl even play that Gamestop sells?

 

[evilneko]

Forget the allegations of sexism, the real crime here is that the ad is 65 seconds long!

 

[TheTurtleMan]

More of a parody of actual 50's commercials if you ask me. I don't really see how this ad is offensive because it never really insults women, it just plays to the age old relationship struggle between two people.

Not to say it was entertaining, I think it was cheesy and poorly made, just not sexist.