A feminist critique on Boddingtons television advert

In this essay I will be examining a Boddington’s bitter television advert from the early 90’s from a feminist perspective. Boddingtons is a bitter, a type of beer mainly associated with hard working older northern men, drinking in their local village pub. At this time Boddingtons were trying to change their image to appeal to a younger (though still early 20’s) drinking market and had started a poster campaign trying to create a sense of “glamour around bitter”.

Feminists are a group that aims to create equal rights, opportunities and social standing for women. Feminist believe that the male dominated world is bias towards men in both work and at home and in society and that women are treated as second hand citizens compared to men. Though Feminism is made up from lots of different groups, with varying views of the reasons for why these inequalities exist and which way is best to act against and change, over time many changes have been introduced into our modern western society. By the 90’s Feminism was very different from its earlier starting point. A lot of changes had been made in our laws and to an extent women had been some what liberated in western society. Equal rights in the work place, property ownership, voting etc had all been passed a long time ago, Britain had even seen its first female prime minister and ‘girl power’ was on the rise. Britain in the early 90’s could’ve been a strange place for a young feminist. Social attitudes had been changed radically since the 1970’s, the hippy movement and the burning of bras. Women were now more empowered and expected to be strong and independent, country leaders even. But sexism was still pretty for front in comparison to today. Though having a female was obviously a big thing for the UK the overall attitude towards females didn’t improve as much as you may think. Maggie Thatcher was definitely a women and a country leader but instead of it being a women’s revolt it was more like a strong women playing a posh boys game by their rules not any new ones, and she was willing to do that. Most feminists at the time and before had wanted to change the rules and remove the sexist male domination of politics and industry not buddy up to them and be part of the same discriminative system. Though Maggie did a lot for women by just being the first female prime minister the general social perception of the empowered female probably went down a little. In Britain at this time, and still now to some extent, the majority of society looked down at politician with disgust and contempt as a group of over educated toffs too detached from the general public and isolated amongst themselves to understand the needs and wants of the every day men and women. Shows like ‘spitting image’ openly mocked current world and country leaders on prime time British television for all to see, using grotesque puppets of politicians being made to say what every one really thought they really meant. Maggie being a complete part of this group meant even though her achievements were so large she was viewed by many as a bossy nanny/ mother figure in this strange political puppetry, rather than an empowered women forging new ground for women in the UK.

This rise and fall of such a prominent women, then followed by such a wet feeble prime minister in John Major, had left the country in a strange gender role limbo. Women were becoming more and more empowered, but still very much portrayed in media mainly as sex symbols or commodities to be used and enjoyed by males. In media men were generally seen as important, well educated business men out to get as much money and fast cars as possible or the more common beer swilling, football hooligan lout of the times. Though Maggie hadn’t really helped to change the view of the everyday women she hadn’t damaged that view either. ‘Girl power ‘was definitely still on the menu and gaining considerable backing. Increasingly the male gender role was coming under attack from the same media sources that had been so damaging to women’s roles. The late 80’s and early 90’s saw males in crisis, women were out there grabbing the bull by the horns and men were having to adjust to strong women in the work place and every where they went. Lad culture was becoming more and more popular as English males struggled to cope with the changes around them. Media at this time saw a lot of what were called ‘lad mags a glossy fashion mag style publication full of fast cars, gadgets and skinny big breasted young women in skimpy out fits. Women were definitely sexual objects for men to look at and at the time in England this was mainly accepted, though obviously not by all. The lad culture though really a pretty disgusting and very sexist one was almost encouraged by the media at the time. A popular television show of the times was ‘men behaving badly’ and perfectly highlights the general perceptions of gender roles at the time. Two mid twenties loutish, untidy, rude, unclean, poorly educated, boarder line alcoholic males living in their horribly kept flat covered in empty bitter cans, pizza boxes and soft porn and two preppy, vegetarian, caring, feminist, clean living women who lived in the flat opposite. Obviously being brilliantly written British comedy hilarity ensues, or may be just a really sexist crude show that did nothing to help empower either men or women. But the 90’s were a simpler time and media got away with a lot more than it can these days.

I think by this point I have set the stage to introduce the advert in question. As I have previously mentioned Boddingtons bitter had, like most bitters, been associated with the hard working, flat cap wearing, white MEN of the north. But now Boddingtons were trying to expand there markets to the confused early twenties modern man of the south. The advert begins with a huge fireball explosion encompassing the whole screen and a fit black male in running gear burst out of the flames. A desert scene appears, it’s a vast expanse with dry red sand and gagged red boulders and mountains there is a feeling of intense heat. A close up shot of the man running in slow motion and the camera zooms into a close up of the runners eye, a flash of a van driving across the dusty desert reflects across the close up eye. Behind we can here hard industrial dance music building as it plays. The van speeds across a dust road with plumes of dust billowing behind it, camera goes to a shot of the runner sprinting towards the camera through dead trees that snap as he speeds past with such force. The shot pans out to the man running across gorges and jumping from mountain to mountain all the time with e music becoming more and more intense, the runner passes over drought cracked lands with sweat running down his body and face the feeling of heat and thirst is intense, it is apparent now that the runner is catching up to the van still blurred in the distance. We have a close up shot of the car side mirror as the runner comes into view, the shot switches to a woman’s right eye, its is dark brown and seductive a strand of dark brown hair is dangling across her eye and cheek, she has smooth unblemished skin and an attractive look from what can be seen. Her eye gazes towards to where to mirror would be as if she is just noticing the runner who has been following her through the desert. The shot switches to a close up of a pair of open toes white heels slamming the breaks of the van on and bringing it to a sudden holt in a cloud of dust. As the camera pans out the music switches to the type played by ice cream vans and it becomes apparent that the van is and old fashioned Mr. Whippy ice cream van.  The runner comes to a running stop in front of the hatch of the open hatch of the van gasping for air; sweat dripping off every inch of his body. In the hatch we can see the women dressed in a tight pink skimpy milk maid/ waitress outfit, it is very short and has bright white trim, she approaches the hatch opening from inside the van with a pint of Boddingtons bitter with a golden colour and rich thick white foamy head. She places it on the ice cream van counter and we have a full shot of the pint of bitter.  The traditional ice cream music is still playing the runner picks up the pint and we have a side shot of him taking a big refreshing gulp as beads of sweat drip from his chin and cheek. The women leans out of the hatch she is tall, slim with dark brown long hair up in a bun with strands running down across her face, the dress she is wearing is not over seductive but does show some flesh. I a broad Manchester accent she asks the runner “ Do you wanna flake in that love?”. The camera goes to the runner turning his head towards here away from the pint in his hand with a large white foamy mustache across his top lip from the head of the pint of bitter, he smiles broadly and in a clearly Manchester accent says “Ta”. The shot switched to a picture of a pint of Boddingtons bitter pint with a foamy Mr. whippy style head on it with a chocolate 99 flake poking out, underneath is written the tag line in black block text “Boddingtons the cream of Manchester” behind this image we can see the van speeding across the dessert once again. The whole advert is forty-one seconds long but manages to cram a lot of imagery in.

A lot of the imagery used is pretty obvious, the dry intense hot barren desert used to induce the feeling of thirst and intense heat in the viewer, the vast expanse making sure our focus still remains on both the runner and the van he is chasing, the choice of runner is interesting. As I’ve said before Boddingtons had generally been associated with white older males in their late 30’s and 40’s, but what we have is a fit young black male probably in his early twenties. He has the physic of an athlete runner not that of your everyday male, especially one who enjoys the odd pint every now and then. Who is this runner and who is he meant to represent, definitely not the type of person we would expect to be found drinking Boddingtons. He is dressed in full black running gear and is fairly good looking, is he there to represent the fit slick male hunter running after his prey in the African desert? The desert in the advert seems more like Australia or America, is he meant to represent the strong dominant athletic male that many males aspire to be? This probably makes the most sense and the fact that the runner is black may just be to help serve to shock factor of the broad northern Manchester accent we later find he has. The really interesting part of the advert from a feminist point of view, in my opinion isn’t until the female is introduced. Yes the obvious reaction would be that this tall, thin attractive female dressed in her some what skimpy outfit is degrading to women and portrays them as mere sex symbols for men to rule over. But we remember that at this time things were changing, roles were swapping in places and the vocabulary used in the advert is probably the most interesting part. The use of the tall elegant looking model and the fit young black male with strong northern accents is there to shock the viewer into being amused that the accent we hear when the actors open their mouths is not generally what we expect, but the wording I feel has a deeper meaning. With the female addressing the male as ‘love’ a fairly derogatory term used generally by males towards females with a lot of sexist undertones and yet instead of being offended by this as many women would’ve have and still would the male acts in a submissive and friendly manner, almost as if he should do as he is told by his master. Is this some kind of feminism we see, well not really I guess a real feminist would say that there should be no master and submissive the both genders should be equal. But in what has previously been the male dominated world this is a definite act of defiance. I suspect that the advert was not made by feminists trying to tap their way into mainstream advertising and topple the male pysque from inside. Instead what is probably more like that a mixed team of men and women created the advert in a way that played along with the shifting changes in gender roles and attitudes of the late 80’s and early 90’s. What is interesting to now see around twenty years later is that the model that was used to act the part of the ice cream lady has gone on to have a very successful career as television presenter and personality in the UK, a household name and much admired strong female role model Melanie Sykes.  Far from damaging the image that she had as an underwear model before the advert this Boddingtons advert has often accredited as the starting point of Melanie Sykes career in television and media. So does this advert portray women as sexual objects, yes somewhat but it also helps rebalance the playing fields between the sexes a little and reminds us to laugh at ourselves. It may be seen as sexist and a bit misogynistic but its is a good advert, I’ve remembered it from the day a first saw it when it came out and though not with absolute clarity I have always remembered the dialogue in the scene between the male and female and the product that is advertises. In that way alone the advert works and remains one of my favourites and one that I know many of my generation remember fondly too.

Advert found at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEEU1nQeGNA&noredirect=1

Reference list:

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Evlin S(2013) Sexism is the media industry really to blame? Online student journals.[Online] Available at http://www.studentsjournals.co.uk/comment/culture/2024-sexism-is-the-media-industry-really-to-blame (Accessed 28.04.2013)

Jacobsen M.F, Mazeer L.A, (2010) Sexism and Sexuality in Advertising [Oline] Available at http://www.edu/aubel2/eng104/paranioa/pdf/jacobsen.pdf (Accessed 28.04.2013)