Before I can even begin… watch this video….
The young man you have just witnessed is a “Wolf Of Wallstreet” wannabe and misogynist. His marketing ploy just crashed and burned. His target audience can be assessed from the tags in his video (college, student, laundry, UCLA, USC). However I have been hearing nothing around USC campus than how disgusted people are by this advertisement and how much everyone wants to punch him in the face for his blatant objectification of women.
He has women barely clothed pouring detergent on themselves sexually, biting his ear, wearing laundry bags to symbolize loads of laundry (literal objects) all while talking to the camera like he is God’s gift to women. There is so much wrong with the video from a feminist stand point (or really just a human standpoint) that I did not even know where to begin with my disgusted review.
Whoever came up with this idea for the laundry application “SOAPP” is actually pretty smart. The idea and the benefits of the actual business service are genuis.
Whoever came up with the MARKETING scheme, script, and approved the shoot for this ad is a MORON. They have completely lost all credibility and alienated a giant portion of their potential customers. Any self respecting woman watching that advertisement would never in a million years choose to use that service for their laundry after watching how overly sexualized and objectified the women in that commercial were. And hopefully no man that respects women would watch that ad and think it was acceptable. I would hope that it is blatantly wrong to everyone that sees it.
Which brings me to this…. Why on earth would any woman with self respect be ok with being in that ad and being objectified in that way? It is a start up company and I actually know some of the girls in the advertisement. They did not receive payment and agreed to be in this video free of charge to my knowledge. SO there is literally zero monetary incentive to degrade themselves in this way. It baffles the mind why a woman would be okay with being in an advertisement for laundry solely for the purpose of being a sexual object and demeaned.
There are ZERO positives that I can even wrack my brain for about this advertisement. Even when trying to put aside the horrific amount of sexism the fact remains that even his acting was not good. His “Wolf of Wallstreet” persona was laughable. If they were going to spend that much money on a Scorsese-esque long shot advertisement, clearly shot on a high end camera, then why not hire a better actor to play the main man? I see no logic behind this decision.
These women, for putting themselves in this degrading situation, this man for agreeing to be the face of such misogyny, this brand, for choosing to represent themselves in this way all add up to taking one gigantic step back in the vain of equality.
I shall end my angry rant and terse review here. But let it be known that it is things like this that slowly chip away at my faith in humanity.
PS- As I feel this applies- a quick shout out to California Mutt with a response to your article “Stand Taller” – The women in this video seem plenty confident, and yet what are they doing for female equality by putting themselves in this position? Confidence is a start but that is not the whole picture. There is far more to it.
Katie's Take 