The spot is very cleverly done, but there are all kinds of messages here, both implicit and explicit, both conforming to gender stereotypes and not, and I am wondering what other people see and how they feel about it.
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Perhaps the way to look at this is that it’s targeted to a specific group – heterosexual males – and is not intended to be all things to all people.
It’s nicely animated, but I was bugged by the script, which — until the very end — seemed to be going by a rape script; the problem wasn’t presented as “vagina isn’t willing to have sex with penis,” but “vagina runs away from penis, which can’t catch her.”
Which is annoying because it would have been very easy to do this same basic, cute idea — animating obscene graffiti — with a “penis gets turned down by vagina” script.
I was also bothered by the *pursuit* of the vagina. Like Ampersand, I thought they could have kept the basic idea without the pursuit trope.
Thirded.
I watched it without sound and I agree: it would have been a better ad, and a better message, if the dick* got rejected instead of “escaped from.”
I was, however, happy that the final artist was a girl, and that the vaginas were enthusiastic “let’s have sex!” participants instead of being “caught” by the dick.
* C’mon folks. This is a school bathroom wall. There are no penises on a school bathroom wall; there are only dicks and, er, other things. ;) That said, out of respect for the feminist nature of the board I’ll keep on using “vagina.”
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I, too, was bothered by the rape narrative, but I thought the ending was interesting:
1. It could be read as a response to the rape narrative (though I think this might be a bit of a stretch, and I am not entirely sure I think it is a valid response) , i.e., that when men take responsibility for their own sexuality, the rape narrative becomes unnecessary and obsolete.
2. On the other hand, it can also be read as yet one more instance of men needing women to teach us how to be responsible because we are not really capable of taking responsibility for ourselves, which ends up feeding back into the rape narrative.
3. Like Sailorman, I thought the enthusiastic “let’s have sex” on the part of the vaginas at the end was a smart touch, but I wondered about the fact that all it took was for the penis to suddenly be “condomed up” for all the vaginas, equally suddenly, to want to fuck it.
4. It’s also interesting that the graffiti is in a women’s bathroom. In my head, partially validated by a study I read a long time ago about the differences in the graffiti found in men’s and women’s bathrooms, the kinds of images you find drawn in this piece would, stereotypically, at least be more likely to show up in a men’s room than a women’s room.
You might think I am being too much the college professor here, but I find it fascinating the way there is here a kind of struggle between–if struggle is not too strong a word–traditional and progressive ideas about heterosexuality.
Notice also that the vaginas are just sitting around waiting for/hiding from the penis – they are certainly not getting it on with each other.
And yes, definitely there was a very strong implicit rape narrative going on for a while there.
Do we know it’s not a unisex bathroom?
Mandolin:
No, that is my assumption. The piece is French, I think; do they have unisex bathrooms in France? Which of course doesn’t mean can’t be a unisex bathroom if the answer is no.
Here’s an idea for a better narrative:
– The vaginas are having sex with one another (removing heteronormativity) and reject the un-condomed dick
– The dick puts on a condom
– The vaginas still reject it
After all, the idea that ‘once you have a condom on, all girls will want to have sex with you’ is dangerous, as dangerous as the idea ‘it’s OK not to wear a condom’.
I worry that this PSA encourages rape, not just by showing vaginas fleeing from dicks, but by leading men to feel that they are entitled to access to women by showing the enthusiastic embrace of penetration after something as simple as donning a condom.
Those were the cutest genitals I’ve ever seen. (Please don’t quote that out of context later.)
I thought the idea was a clever one, but I’m gonna have to agree with the commenters who’ve mentioned that a rejection would be better than pursuit. The end was weird, too… all of them wanted to do him? It was like one of those Axe commercials, but with animated genitals instead of people.
Better idea: penis wants to have sex with vagina, vagina says “not without a condom, buddy” (or a more polite/romantic version thereof), penis gets condom drawn on, penis and vagina get it on. Bonus points for other versions with two penises or two vaginas.
I have to admit, I thought this vid was just the cutest thing ever! I think some of the criticisms here are fair, though. But some look like knee-jerk political correctness; obviously this ad isn’t trying to represent all sexuality ever. It’s aimed at men who have sex with women, telling them to use condoms to prevent the transmission of AIDS and other STDs. It doesn’t need to represent all other possible configurations of sex; showing vaginas (metonymy for lesbians?) having sex with eachother would be irrelevant, and showing penises having sex with eachother would simply reinforce the dangerous and wrong message that AIDS is a “gay problem”.
I can understand that some people are triggered by anything with any hint of men pursuing women, but I do think the enthusiastic participation of the feminine graffiti at the end helps to counterbalance that. If a video were about, say, celebrating sexuality and only included male / female couples having PIV sex, that would be discriminating. But this particular video is about using condoms precisely for intercourse between a penis and a vagina, so that’s what it shows.
FWIW, my take was the same as individ-ewe-al’s (although I don’t think concerns about heterocentrism are ‘knee-jerk political correctness’. Bleah.).
I’d be interested to see what happens to the visuals with a rejection instead of a pursuit.
I also think this ad works with cartoon logic, and some of that isn’t real world logic. (e.g. the disembodied penis doesn’t necessarily have to represent a man so much as a sex-drive)
I think the critiques are valid and good to have as part of the conversation surrounding the ad. But I don’t wish the ad didn’t exist. If it were a little different, that would be fine; I also think it’s fine as is, particularly with attendant conversation.
And I really love the way that scurrying vaginas look like amoebas.