I mean, it’s Ellen DeGeneres. She’s a comedian. Everyone knows she’s just being funny.
Besides, she’s totally gay. Gay ladies don’t really care about beauty, am I right or am I right?
What do you think?
I’ll tell you what I think. Satire or no, Cover Girl’s done a lot of market research and they think it’s going to make people buy make up just like any old advertisement. And I think they’re right.
In fact, I think satire is disarming. When we see this commercial, our “don’t fuck with us” response doesn’t kick in because it’s just funny ol’ Ellen bein’ wacky. Advertising counts on us thinking it doesn’t affect us. Otherwise we’d be pissed. I think satire is a useful tool with which advertisers trick us into letting down our guard.
We’ve been hitting satire hard lately. I think it’s because it’s really pretty tricky to figure out. See our previous posts on or featuring satire here, here, here, here, here, and here. Here’s one that actually refers to data (as opposed to just involves us mouthing off.)
(Via Moody Springs.)
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 14
jfruh — June 30, 2009
Humor and satire are bludgeons -- they can be used for a variety of different purposes. But I don't think satire should be just written off as a way to hand-wave away negative messages. Humor, satire, and parody can form the basis of devestating critiques of power. They can also serve power's purposes. It really is the message, not the medium, and I don't think we should live in a humorless world just because some humor reinforces current power structures.
Duran — June 30, 2009
Dude. Power structures are not all bad things.
jeffliveshere — June 30, 2009
Interestingly, from what little I've seen of Ellen's talk show (admittedly not very much), she tends to reinforce traditional gender roles in more ways that I might have expected. Recently I watched her interview Pink, and the conversation was about Pink's (then) husband, and whether they were going to have children, rather than about, say, Pink's new album or what it's like having such a quickly rising star, etc. Just as an example.
As far as the Covergirl stuff goes, it bums me out, not because makeup is evil or anything, but because it's more of the part of a trend to do "satire" that sells (another example is the product placement on 30 Rock, in which they are self-consciously shilling for Snapple, but, y'know, are still shilling for Snapple).
jeffliveshere — June 30, 2009
@Duran:
Many *current* power structures, which is what jfruh mentioned, are not the ones many of us would want, however...
Jennifer — June 30, 2009
@jeffliveshere
I think most talk show hosts discuss the personal lives of their guests primarily, with talk of the guests' current projects as a secondary topic. I've seen both male and female guests discuss their spouses, children, and personal lives for almost the entire interview.
That's typically why I don't watch these talk shows. There are very few celebrities about whose personal lives I am interested.
opminded — June 30, 2009
I'm missing the satire....
Ellen is a silly comedian (with wrinkles) and so they designed an ad about wrinkles with her being silly.
Sue — June 30, 2009
"Gay ladies don’t really care about beauty, am I right or am I right?"
Two words: Lipstick lesbian
adam — June 30, 2009
This reminds me of a clip from the PBS Frontline documentary "The Merchants of Cool"called "under-the-radar marketing by Sprite in which companies poke fun of themselves in their own advertisemnts as a way to sell their product to appeal to a pop culture that was critical of marketing--and it worked
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/video/flv/generic.html?s=frol02p70&continuous=1
Sue — June 30, 2009
I don't read this as satire. E.G. is in show biz and looks matter. She wouldn't have gotten where she is if she were indifferent to physical appearance and when she was young she was cute. She's still cute (imho) and apparently very comfortable with her body.
Just last night I was having a discussion about E.G. with a straight, former boyfriend of mine. He's repulsed by Ellen (among other things, he hates the way she dances.). He's troubled that she isn't completely focused on appealing to men.
In case you think this guy is a pig, this is a genuinely thoughtful older guy, who after years of my heated discussions about sexism, lookism and gender inequality is sloooooooooooowly getting it. This is what we're dealing with.
Sue — June 30, 2009
jeffliveshere:
Valid points. I guess I'd be more troubled if I thought women actually were buying Covergirl Cosmetics because they thought it was some kind of "feminist" counter-cultural gesture. It's just face paint, and not very good face paint at that.
I don't know about other viewers. But I hate Snapple and not even the funniest zinger on 30Rock -- "Be with me, C.C. We'll ignore our differences 'til the sex goes bad then... we'll walk away bitter and angry." -- will ever move me to drink it.
It's disingenuously "caring" ads I hate. E.g., the Dove "Real Women" ads. Translation: You're perfect, now rub in your cellulite cream, while our sister company sells lightening cream to Asians on the other side of the world.
rachel — June 30, 2009
"Gay ladies don’t really care about beauty, am I right or am I right?"
Wow, I didn't even pick up on this aspect of the message...but i'm sure a huge number of viewers did...
Angela — June 30, 2009
When I saw the one where she says something about whats on the outside being more important I thought she was totaly serious and I was quite suprised because I had thought of Ellen as one of those beleive in yerself celebrities
Thaddeus — June 30, 2009
How is her being gay at all relevant?
I took it as "I'm in show business so I'm going to advertise makeup. Since I'm a comedian and not a model I'll spoof how typical makeup commericals look ."
Using humour in a campaign | Media Sexism and Social Action — July 25, 2013
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