Viral Video: Snickers and their sexist balls-up

So admittedly, this video isn’t the 25 million views that we saw last week, but I was so bowled over by the flurry of mixed emotions I felt upon watching it that I decided it just had to

So admittedly, this video isn’t the 25 million views that we saw last week, but I was so bowled over by the flurry of mixed emotions I felt upon watching it that I decided it just had to go in there.

 

Besides, if it was only ever the top video in this column, I’d have at one stage had to have included some crap about what some fox said, which I don’t think anyone would thank me for.

 

 

First things first, watch this video, but pause it at 1:05. Feeling pretty happy and empowered right? Nice to see feminism doing its job and stereotypes being challenged.

 

 

Got a nice warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach? Well play the video from where you left off and watch Snickers destroy it all…

 

 

Boom. That’s right, utter disappointment. Thanks Snickers, I now hate today, as if all the boxes of Quality Street you’ve ruined isn’t enough. What am I supposed to take from this? That all builders are sexists? Or that we are all, at the root of it, terrible people.

 

Snickers makes sure that your horrible, offensive and vile personality is allowed to run free with all the other well-fed bastards on the planet.

 

Seems a little harsh. I was under the impression that people weren’t all that bad, and that generally speaking I could have a fairly positive outlook on the goodness of humanity. Apparently not.

 

And what about the builders!? I’m sure not all of them are aiming at a full day’s female objectification when they get dressed in the morning; I’m sure that occasionally, just occasionally, they are hoping to build things?! Also, apparently not. 

 

Ultimately, this video was just hugely disappointing. I suppose they think they’re doing us a favour by giving us any other than the Joan Collins ad, YET AGAIN. But they’re really not. This advert feels like such a positive thing, until the heart breaking comments at the appear at the end and then it just feels like several colossal steps back.

 

 

The comments are interesting food for thought. They range from people with the same feeling as my own to people who think that the video is great because ultimately “feminism dehumanises men.” Hmm. I do think this person has slightly missed the point of feminism, and its aim to bring about equality for all… just slightly.

 

Then there are those people who recognise the essential ploy; that Snickers have created a controversial and essentially, offensive advert because it is certain to get people talking. After all, any publicity is good publicity. Whilst I do understand this, and I do agree that in marketing terms, this advert is great, the problem is how its blasé attitude to objectification and cat-calling will affect society in the long term.

 

Essentially what this advert does is it makes cat-calling funny; it condones it by putting it in the category of things that we’re supposed to acknowledge as being offensive, but “in a funny way.” This is just as bad as when we were supposed to find it “complimentary,” it just isn’t.

 

For girls who have been being yelled at on the street by men since they were 13 (that, by the way, is every girl), this advert takes something that is actually difficult to live with, and makes it a joke.