I Left You Alone For A While, Lynx
Posted 1 October 2008 in Television by Catriona
But you just haven’t learnt anything from your past mistakes, have you, Lynx?
No, that was a rhetorical question.
Because, you see, I’ve just seen the advertisement for your new “Dark Temptation” deodorant.
You know the one: the one where the man uses Lynx Dark Temptation and then turns into a man-sized block of chocolate.
You know, I wasn’t even aware that it was a Lynx ad., at first. I wasn’t watching to begin with, and I didn’t realise what was going on.
But I saw the giant man-shaped chocolate monstrosity walking down the street.
I saw him rip his own nose off and sprinkle it across the ice-cream cones of two complete strangers.
I saw him stick his fingers through the bottom of a beribboned box and offer it to a hospital-bound woman as a treat.
I saw a woman bite a chunk out of his backside on a bus.
I saw two women licking his face in a cinema.
I saw him walk past a gym, only to have every woman in there abandon their exercise routines to press themselves longingly against the window.
I saw a woman driving past rip his arm off at the shoulder, and then presumably eat it.
And then I saw the Lynx slogan flash up on the bottom of the screen.
And I thought, “Of course. Chocolate as a vehicle for misogyny disguised as the accurate revelation of every single woman’s core desires? Of course it’s a Lynx ad.”
Share your thoughts [10]
1
Wendy wrote at Oct 2, 09:27 am
watching tv in the “regions” we miss out on a lot of fine big brand advertising…replaced by home made, hokey ads for local businesses. they have their own special charm I guess….but not nearly so sophisticated as the lynx ad you describe!
2
Catriona wrote at Oct 2, 09:51 am
I remember regional ads vaguely from my childhood: we were partway between Sydney and Wollongong, so it was hit and miss whether we’d be watching Channel 7 or WIN.
Frankly, I’d rather any other advertisement on earth than a Lynx ad. I know I’ve ranted about them too many times before, but it never ceases to amaze me that their rabid misogyny is legitimate without any kind of justifying context.
(Not that there is a contemporary justification for misogyny. I’m thinking, partly, of shows or ads set in the past: Mad Men, for example, I understand is rather difficult to watch because it’s entirely brazen about the appalling gender relations of the 1960s.)
3
Wendy wrote at Oct 2, 10:49 am
My favourite here is for Salty’s fishing shop
“Come on use your noodle, we’ve got the whole kit and kaboodle”…sung to an annoyingly catchy tune
And then there’s the highly inventive “You’re a modern millie, yes you are, yes you are”…for a dress shop called “Modern Millies”
sorry…probably should have written something intelligent about misogyny.
I used to really dislike those ads for Breaka flavoured milk, where the guy would imagine dolphins turning into bikini clad girls while he drank his chocolate milk. that was always a bad television moment (if I’m remembering it correctly)
I haven’t seen Mad Men…only read about it recently…but it doesn’t sound very appealing…unless it has a sense of irony perhaps? Will be very interested to see.
4
Catriona wrote at Oct 2, 12:06 pm
I rather like the term “modern millie”—I have no idea what it means, but it sounds terribly 1950s.
There’s something blokey about flavoured milk ads, isn’t there? Ice Break ones aren’t misogynistic, but they are really blokey. I seem to remember discussing that somewhere on the blog in the early stages, but a commenter pointed out that they’d always been like that. I still don’t understand why flavoured milk is aimed, successfully, at a male demographic. Beer, yes, inaccurate though that might be. But milk makes no sense to me.
I’ve not seen Mad Men either, and I can’t say that I’m inclined to. I believe the general vibe is critical of the gender imbalance in the workplace, but I’m always suspicious of that sort of thing. It makes me think of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, which was ostensibly critical of the difficulties women faced developing careers in the 1970s, but simultaneously took advantage of the 1970s’ mise en scene to drape every scene in bikini- and lingerie-clad women. The overall effect was less “look how forward-thinking we are about gender” and more “look, breasts!”
5
Wendy wrote at Oct 3, 04:57 am
“look breasts”…all starts to sound a little benny hill!
milk does make no sense…unless the only milk aimed at women is the lite/trim/skim/watery I’m on a diet variety of milk
6
Catriona wrote at Oct 3, 05:28 am
Aha! I’ve found the original thread on coffee-flavoured milk, where Tim makes a lovely succinct point about the popularity of flavoured milk with male, blue-collar workers (which is certainly how the ads are positioned: they’re always labourers of some sort).
It still seems odd to me, but his point is a good one.
And, actually, I can’t remember a single ad. for women-centric milk—although there was that range a while ago that was aimed at women over 40. Is that right? It was some sort of boosted milk designed to reduce the likelihood of osteoporosis, I think.
7
Wendy wrote at Oct 3, 05:41 am
geez I’ve just written a long comment and stupid work computer rejects it….trying again…
that original post and comments spot on!
anyway…“physi-cal” – the strong bone milk aimed at women
other strange one is the smart milk…aimed at men…where the guy goes into the corner store wanting “milk that tastes like real milk”…little old lady offers him smart milk…which tastes like real milk with only half the fat (or something)…and then looks at his stomach implying he is slightly overweight…
so the only way men can drink low fat milk is if it 1. tastes like full cream milk 2. is clever!
(i think i’m thinking far too much about milk ads now!)
8
Catriona wrote at Oct 3, 05:48 am
That smart milk ad. was also a spoof of an ad., was it a McDonald’s ad.?, where someone became frustrated and rude when they were offered too many different kinds of coffee, if I remember correctly.
Clearly, I spend too much time watching ads.
And, equally clearly, I must spend more time watching milk ads. They’re more complicated than I’d thought.
9
heretic wrote at Oct 3, 02:02 pm
the lynx chocolate ad is just so wrong on every level. but then, it’s just ripping off the cadbury ads which are also completely wrong…
the smart milk ad is yet another perfect example where it’s fine to ridicule men in advertising. the body image pressure is there for women too of course, but not in such a blunt way.
but ultimately the thing i remember most about the smart milk ad is the way the old lady pops up from under the counter. what the hell was she doing…just lurking down there waiting to pounce on customers? weird :)
10
Catriona wrote at Oct 3, 10:30 pm
The Cadbury ads are completely wrong—or they were, until they produced the one with the drumming gorilla. That one’s brilliant. But the “what if the world was made of Cadbury” ones were dreadful, especially the one with the boy surfing and the shark.
That used to drive me mad. Inviting the shark to bite you, just because you’re made of chocolate? Firstly, it’s a damn shark! And secondly, you’re still sentient even if you are chocolate. Wouldn’t getting a great chuck bitten out of your haunches still hurt? It certainly did when Homer bit that chocolate dog on The Simpsons.
Oh, those were all kinds of wrong.