Don't Worry Darling, You Didn't Burn the Beer!

January 27, 2018 3:32 AM

“In a parallel universe” is a series of fictional images, recreated from real ads in the mad men era, that question modern day sexism: showing it through a humorous light to spark a conversation through role play. By photographer Eli Rezkallah

Instagram [Mildly NSFW]
Insider: This artist recreated sexist ads from the 1950s with the gender roles reversed — and the results were shocking

posted by chavenet (40 comments total)

All else aside, that Van Heusen ad is weird - who gets their breakfast in bed in a white shirt and tie?
posted by Dr Dracator at 4:08 AM on January 27, 2018 [15 favorites]

Even needing to add the word "humorous" is illustrative of how bad the problem is – why disclaim it as "humorous"? The recreated ads are indeed pitch perfect recreations. Why do we laugh? Because it's still ridiculous to think men would be seen that way? Says a lot about the whingeing of MRAs if so. There isn't actually a risk of men having to deal with millennia of oppression if we're able to laugh at these. I, as a woman, certainly don't laugh at the originals. They reflect a reality of gendered assumptions that still permeate my daily life.

What really struck me about the recreations was their attention to detail – seeing the same attention to appearances paid to imagined men-as-objects. The same flawless faces, the same tight clothes, the same uncomfortable-sexy postures. You get a much better sense of just how deep it goes; how much extra work women are expected to do to look good. And on the flip side, seeing women inhabit assumed and unquestioned power is striking.
posted by fraula at 4:20 AM on January 27, 2018 [30 favorites]

I guess I'm missing the point. I've seen the originals pointed out as ridiculous for decades now. I don't need to picture a man in the woman's position to see what's wrong, I was perfectly capable of empathizing with the woman all by myself.

Is there a deeper point at play here?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:00 AM on January 27, 2018 [13 favorites]

I guess just that not all art is created for you specifically?
posted by Panthalassa at 5:20 AM on January 27, 2018 [19 favorites]

I love every version of this that has been done. When am I going to be able to order e-books with a gender-flipping AI function built in? I'd love to be able to dig into some of the books from the past without having to hold my nose ...Has someone already made this?
posted by SinAesthetic at 5:35 AM on January 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

At least one of these looks like it was already a some sort of parody. Would Hardee's really describe its food as "sloppy and hastily prepared"? Or am I missing some piece of cultural context that makes that make sense?
posted by howfar at 5:49 AM on January 27, 2018 [16 favorites]

This is considered art, then? OK, from that perspective it is very well executed. Great attention to detail in the work, as others have also mentioned.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 5:55 AM on January 27, 2018

All else aside, that Van Heusen ad is weird - who gets their breakfast in bed in a white shirt and tie?

I think the (sub?)text is that the man is about to receive oral sex in the original image. Ties are phallic symbols in the first place, and note the placement of the enlarged detail of the tie in the parody suggests that it’s an extension of the crotch. The ad promises a different kind of breakfast in bed. The fact that the woman in the image is literally on her knees in a subservient pose completes the narrative suggestion.

And, believe it or not, that didn’t even occur to me until I saw the original image juxtaposed with the parody.

This is great art. Thanks for sharing!
posted by Barack Spinoza at 6:00 AM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Hardee's didn't even open until 1960 and their logo looked like this. The one in the ad is from 2006, so yeah, it's a modern parody.

Not that this makes the other pictured ads any less gross.
posted by wanderingmind at 6:21 AM on January 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

oh my god, that 2 second auto-scroll is maddening. Why would anyone do that? I just want to look at the picture!
posted by I-Write-Essays at 6:36 AM on January 27, 2018 [39 favorites]

I have to agree that I'm a bit surprised that it took seeing roles reversed in these images for some people to grasp the full awfulness of the original adds (I mean, dear god, a man is literally stepping on a woman's head!). I also agree that these are great art, and I guess if thats what it takes to get people to see how damaging the patriarchy can be, well, I'm glad this helped.
posted by WalkerWestridge at 6:41 AM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

Why would anyone do that?

They know what's best for you - don't worry your pretty little head about that!
posted by thelonius at 6:50 AM on January 27, 2018 [10 favorites]

All else aside, that Van Heusen ad is weird - who gets their breakfast in bed in a white shirt and tie?

Ronald Reagan?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:11 AM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

who gets their breakfast in bed in a white shirt and tie?

I mean ... is there supposed to be another way to eat breakfast?
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:47 AM on January 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I guarantee there is a not-insignificant percentage of men who find these images very....interesting. ;)
posted by AFABulous at 7:48 AM on January 27, 2018 [5 favorites]

Truth: I am happier with a Hoover. My WindTunnel is coming up on 19 years old and works like a charm.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:59 AM on January 27, 2018

who gets their breakfast in bed in a white shirt and tie?

I mean ... is there supposed to be another way to eat breakfast?

What am I, a farmer?
posted by paper chromatographologist at 9:16 AM on January 27, 2018 [20 favorites]

Holy hell.

I'd be interested to read an account from the male models of how they had to get into the headspace for these shoots.

Also - the guy in the van heusen ad just doesn't look joyous enough in his subservience (compared to the original ad) to do the comparison justice.
posted by vignettist at 9:19 AM on January 27, 2018 [4 favorites]

I guess I'm missing the point. I've seen the originals pointed out as ridiculous for decades now.

I guess just that not all art is created for you specifically?

Or, as I've learned to think of it when I encounter stuff the irony of which feels rather overloaded, I guess I'm just not the target market for this.
posted by philip-random at 9:49 AM on January 27, 2018

who gets their breakfast in bed in a white shirt and tie?

Someone who crashed into bed without undressing after a royal bender the night before?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:15 AM on January 27, 2018 [2 favorites]

As a raving feminist cis woman who is attracted to men, I found the surprising thing was how much the swapped ads actually put me in the headspace of the original male viewers of these ads. "Ooh, he's cute... adorable pout... that silk robe is hot..." and then he's focused specifically on soft-BDSM ads in a handful of those cases. I finally got, in a visceral way, that the appeal of those old ads was sexual. Like, I was suddenly experiencing being on the other side of the storied Male Gaze. Growing up I'd always been like "those are gross and old and why would anyone make ads like that?" I get it, now.

And that totally makes it worse.
posted by gusandrews at 10:19 AM on January 27, 2018 [34 favorites]

...vintage ads from the mid-20th century were often riddled with sexism, forcing women into deeming gender roles.

Deeming?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:19 AM on January 27, 2018

also: holy crap, Mr. Leggs slacks were a thing
posted by gusandrews at 10:21 AM on January 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

I enjoy the look and craft of these, but... like most “gender swapped” projects, I find it obscures the point. Looking at the originals, I feel anger and revulsion at the misogyny, and I feel challenged to look at current ads and think about how things have (and haven’t) improved. The gender swapped images, on the other hand, confuse me, because there’s this current of “oh how funny,” and fetishism in them, and I’m like “should I laugh? Should I be angry?” What reaction is the artist looking for? People blind to the problems of the original are unlikely to be moved, and people who are alert can already see it, so I’m not sure there’s any commentary here.

I rarely find gender- or race-swapping a useful technique because I don’t think it convinces anyone and it encourages use of the approach which is often deployed for ugly ends. A real exception is Jim Hines’ live reenactments of F/SF covers, which make their point by showing how anatomically implausible the images are, and the examination of misogyny builds on that.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:40 AM on January 27, 2018 [9 favorites]

who gets their breakfast in bed in a white shirt and tie?

What do you mean? That looked like the proper bedroom tie to me.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:57 AM on January 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I totally agree with gusandrews about the sexual aspect of these. With the original ads I'm not the target audience. With the new series I am, and in a way that I'm not accustomed to. Also, there's a level of confusion about agency. In the originals the woman was a brainless doll, not capable of agency. The gender swapped pictures put a person, who is assumed to have agency, in humiliating positions. This changes my emotional reaction to them.

Good art makes you think.
posted by irisclara at 11:05 AM on January 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think some of the reversals are spoiled by the fact that they hit popular kinks.

And for the Lux and Hardees ads my first thought was "food service professional" and not "dad" until I read the copy.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 12:19 PM on January 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

I assume "deeming" was intended to be "demeaning?"
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 12:56 PM on January 27, 2018

I think another reason these specific images work well for me--and many similar ones do not--is because they are so carefully crafted with attention to the attractiveness of the man in question and to modern gender expectations. Often these kinds of thought experiments try to swap men and women.... but the man is so effectively feminized that it can cross the line into transmisogyny or simply become so surreal that the ad doesn't make sense on its own. Or else the male "equivalents" fail to be as carefully, perfectly attractive and subservient as the female originals.

I don't think I've ever seen an example of this technique crafted with this much attention to making the ad something that simultaneously hits "extremely attractive man" and "the sort of effortlessly perfect look that takes a full-time job full of effort." Literally the only example that falls down for me is the Schlitz ad, and there it's simply that the apron doesn't manage to look enough like something an attractive man would ordinarily wear; the outfit looks funny.

It's a fascinating deconstruction of the way masculinities are often portrayed in advertising and media--note that every single one of these men are wearing perfectly tailored outfits designed to show off their bodies to their best effect, while the clothing worn by the women is not nearly as carefully tailored--for example, note the too-large cut of the shirt worn by the woman in the Van Heusen ad, or the loose shirt on the woman in the Chase and Sanborn ad--loose enough to be able to move her arms easily and effectively.

Contrast this to the fit of the clothing on the men. Even the set of pajamas worn by the gentleman in the Hoover ad is perfectly fitted, tailored, clean and pressed--not a hair out of place. Even if we can only see the gentleman's head, as with the ketchup ad, his lips are carefully glossed and his face is made up impeccably, such that no minor imperfection remains. Hilariously, the ads are not even perfect on this: for example, the Hardee's ad actually shows much more of the woman's body and figure in the gender-swapped version than the original does of the man's torso, sexualizing her more than the original man is framed. The same is true for the Lux ad. But they work very hard at transposing even the very small details and carefully changing them only when they break suspension of disbelief--which is why I'm really impressed at their effect, and I suspect why they're having such a profound effect on straight women in the thread.
posted by sciatrix at 1:59 PM on January 27, 2018 [8 favorites]

Haha, yeah, THAT'll be the day...

Seriously, I feel like these pictures would have been funny in the 50s as well, just hopefully for different reasons? Or would we all ideally look at these and think 'yeah OK, what?'

I guess the style being so thoroughly dated is what does it; this way the joke can be on the 50s. Even though it probably shouldn't be (because everything's fine NOW, right?).

It's also interesting to me that, say, Mad Men with bosses and secretaries reversed would not at all work the same way. Even though it probably should.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 2:07 PM on January 27, 2018

In the Schlitz ad, the new version lacks that condescending smile that says "I'm laughing at your expense and you should laugh too".
posted by idiopath at 7:02 PM on January 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

The big bit of internalised nonsense the series cleared for for me was wondering why the men in the new images didn’t always neatly match the female poses in the original. Then realising that was because the illustrated women in the originals were contorted in ways that were just not physically possible.
posted by arha at 10:24 PM on January 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

The "original" Hardee's ad is indeed already a parody, so Poe's law claims another victim. It's actually an ad for Kohler plumbing fixtures with a much more banal text. There are many in the same style, obviously heavily gendered ("Where our work is, let our joy be").
posted by elgilito at 4:13 AM on January 28, 2018

...yeah, I don't think people need much help noticing how sexist vintage ads were. That said, this is really well-done! The translation of the "oppressed woman" style to "oppressed man" is subtler than it is in a lot of these projects where there would be a straight-up switch, e.g., watch this dude vacuum in high heels and pearls. I'd be curious to see a take on sexist ads from the last decade, which are (sometimes) more subtle. I think it might turn out less funny/more enraging...for both feminists and MRA creeps.
posted by grandiloquiet at 12:50 PM on January 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

I finally got, in a visceral way, that the appeal of those old ads was sexual.

this is why I hate so much when men at large (not the subjects of the post, who made an effort) do "hilarious" amateur photoshoots purporting to explain once and for all, in a man's voice, why pinups are stupid/comic heroines have bad posture/such-and-such an artist doesn't understand anatomy/such-and-such a photographer hates women/the male gaze is terrible.

not because they aren't correct; they usually are and what they're saying was true the first hundred times women said so, too. but because the tool of their rhetoric is the presumed inherent hilarity of the male body presented as a sexual object; specifically a passive one, a receptive one, an enticing one, a compliant one, or an uncomfortable one. but like you say, it is exactly as hilarious as a female body presenting itself in the identical way, and no more.

and the pressure on even women is to laugh at it because isn't it silly to pretend that straight women desire anything, ever. why, look how silly sexiness is when men try it. but it looks exactly the same. it's not a joke unless the idea of female heterosexuality is a joke. it "works" as an effective shocker and consciousness-raising tool to exactly the degree that taking women seriously as sexual subjects and men as sexual objects is shocking to a given viewer.

I do appreciate the effort and style put into some of these recreations.
posted by queenofbithynia at 4:26 PM on January 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

I read it like ten times and I still don't get the spanking one. The original or the parody.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:54 PM on January 28, 2018

the Leggs slacks one doesn't work the same way as the rest of them because the original one was already supposed to be a gender reversal -- men, if you wear these slacks, women won't be able to keep their hands off your ass! you'll have to physically immobilize her to keep her from groping you! the imagery has a viscerally hateful look to it, but the text is all about holding off women who are overwhelmed by lust. it's already supposed to be knowingly switched around for a heavy handed joke.

so the reversal is a different kind of reversal. sort of satisfying, but not the same kind of thing as the others.

(also Leggs/L'eggs for men was not what you'd hope it would have been.)
posted by queenofbithynia at 11:25 PM on January 28, 2018

I read it like ten times and I still don't get the spanking one. The original or the parody.

The man is beating his wife because she made bad coffee.

The whole paternalistic, "What you need is a good spanking, and I'm just the man to give it to you" was a pretty popular trope. You see it a lot in older movies and TV shows; Ricky was always turning Lucy over his knee when she did something he didn't like.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:04 AM on January 29, 2018

The whole paternalistic, "What you need is a good spanking, and I'm just the man to give it to you" was a pretty popular trope. You see it a lot in older movies and TV shows; Ricky was always turning Lucy over his knee when she did something he didn't like.

You, ah, should also probably note that spanking is a very, very common kink, and that spanking in this context plays into a long line of spanking adults in a sexualized context while sliding things under the radar.

It's basically reducing beating his wife to "oooh~ someone's been a bad girl~!" It's meant to be sexy-funny-flirty, as ads go, because the ad assumes that you share that particular kink--that that kink is universal!--and that a bit of wife beating now and again probably falls into that general mileau. It papers over actual wife beating and muddies the waters in part because two adults having consensually negotiated a spanking scene or whatever aren't remotely the same thing as wife beating because of a genuine error, and yet the advert is framed in such a way that people thinking of kink spanking can automatically project their expectations of a negotiated consensual framework onto it while.... so can wife-beaters reading it, or for that matter domestic violence survivors.

Literally the only reason not to understand it is that activists have done a lot of work shoving at the general culture to stop conflating these two things in the years since, but I can just as easily envision... well, to be honest, any number of ads that allow both the ostensible good-faith "acceptable" reading and also the quieter, unspoken reinforcement of poisonous misogyny. If you think you haven't seen ads that muddy those waters in exactly this same way in recent years, I have some bad news for you.
posted by sciatrix at 9:21 AM on January 29, 2018

I'm very aware that spanking can be a kink, but I disagree that that's what's going in in the coffee ad.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:04 PM on January 29, 2018