I am genuinely looking forward to the semester if for no other reason to discuss the polarization of the American commercial. I say polarization because what I perceive to be as a greater divide between the way commercials are scripted these days. On one end of the spectrum we’ve gone off the deep end with the oversexualization and even the dumbing down of women. It didn’t start with Axe commercials, but they remain the greatest example (save for a handful of beer commercials that are simply nuts).
Axe actually plays both sides here. They recently released a new ad, which doesn’t show skinny ultra-attractive women. Instead in focuses on a man who turned a girl he liked into a pedestal piece. He talks about how putting her upon high made him feel powerless and how he changed his behaviors, so he would never feel like that again. This is the other side of the media message. This idea of change comes from within is echoed by the Nike commercial that shows a fat kid striving to be healthy. These commercials are a small yet powerful counterweight to what we normally see, and what we normally see is getting more drastic.