Project 5

Doritos Super Bowl 2012:

A Perfect Example of What to Avoid

Synopsis:

In 2012, Doritos had a Super Bowl advertisement contest. This advertisement submission we will look at didn't win the competition and didn’t air on game day, I believe for good reason. This advertisement depicts two people, a man and woman, watching the Super Bowl game. The woman, who is scantily dressed, is attempting to elicit a sexual action from the man, but he is too enthralled with the game and his Doritos to notice her advances. The woman gets up, takes the extra chip bags and goes to the bedroom. She then proceeds to lie on the bed undressed and covered in Doritos chips. The man comes to the bedroom, sees this scene and proceeds to jump onto the bed that she is laying on. Making a face that seems to portray a violent intent. While this is happening the game announcers are commenting on the game. The words that they are saying align perfectly with the scenario in the bedroom. Even in this short 30 second advertisement it still finds a way to objectify and dehumanize, while also playing to male domination and fetishization fantasies. This is a perfect example of what Jean Kilbourne is warning us about in her article “Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt: Advertising and Violence” Published in Rereading America in 2016.

Woman tries to make sexual advances but the man is too preoccupied

Objectification

Jean Kilbourne writes in her article that “Sex in advertising is pornographic because it dehumanizes and objectifies people, especially women, and because is fetishizes products”(Kilbourne, Pg 489 Para 2). Also saying in her movie “Killing us Softly 4” that, “Turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step toward justifying violence against that person”. This Doritos advertisement is following what not to-do perfectly. Not only is the whole advertisement about the woman trying to get the man to have sex, but the reasoning the man finally responds to her sexual advances is that she is turned into Doritos by being covered in the chips. This clearly objectifies the woman, and as Kilbourne said it would, leading to the man responding in a violent manner by jumping on the bed with violent intent in his eyes.

Dehumanization

Not only does Kilbourne state in a previous quote that dehumanization in advertising pornographic, but she later talks about the the harmful repercussions of relationships that are centered around sex. A sex centered relationship is inherently dehumanizing to both the woman and man. Kilbourne says “Advertising often encourages women to be attracted to hostile and indifferent men while encouraging boys to become these men” (Kilbourne, pg 491 Para 2). This push for men to become hostile and indifferent is exemplified in the advertisement in how the man was too preoccupied and didn't notice what the woman was trying to communicate. Instead he was eating Doritos and watching the game. As well, later in the advertisement he responded to her sexual advances in a violent way. This push for how men should act and how women should respond is harmful to relationships. The intimate and personal things in a relationship are being demonized in the relational model popular culture has created. This leads men in the direction that end ups hurting people and leaving them unable to build strong relations at the foundation. For women, the idea to seek after hostile and indifferent men leads to being the victim in domestic violence, feeling both used and useless at the same time, and finding it hard to trust other men. This idea from popular culture and advertising that we need to limit what makes us human and only focus on sex in relationships is the clearest definition of dehumanization.

Man responds to her sexual advances with a violent face and jumping on the bed

Women lying in bed in a very vulnerable position

Male Domination and Fetishizing

As previously mentioned, objectification and dehumanization is most often the first step towards violence. Women are more often filmed in more vulnerable positions than men in advertising. This is clearly played out as the woman is in an extremely vulnerable position, lying in bed, naked, and covered in Doritos. As Kilbourne says in her article “male violence against women is irrational and commonplace” (Kilbourne, pg 496 Para 2) and “If indifferent is sexy, then violence is downright erotic” (Kilbourne, pg 469 Para 3). This thinking is not physically harmful to women, but mentally harmful as well. As Kilbourne explains, some women use fantasies of domination and even rape in order to justify that the woman is in fact, in control. This cycle pushed by advertising that women should seek out violent men has led to battery being the single greatest cause of injury to women in the Americas. Because this idea in advertising is so widely used, some women justify what is happening to them as the right thing.

Conclusion

This Doritos advertisement, though short, is packed with what Jean Kilbourne warns us about the advertising industry. The clear objectification and dehumanization of the women in the advertisement. A sex centered relationship that begins a cycle of violence, encouraging men to act indifferent and violent towards their partner and for women to seek out just that. Violence that hurts the woman both physically and mentally, by seeking out a violent man and justifying his violence as the right thing because it is so widely portrayed in the media. All of these combined set out a harmful model for men and women, young and old, to attempt to emulate. I believe it was for the best that this didn’t air in the 2012 Super Bowl.

References:

Kilbourne, Jean. "Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt." Rereading America, edited by Colombo, Cullen, and Lisle, Macmillen, 2016, pp. 488-514.

"Killing Us Softly 4 Advertising's Image of Women." YouTube, uploaded by splinterbyrd, 3 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxYcaFzVX08

"Doritos Super Bowl XLVII commercial - 2012 Winner" YouTube, uploaded by DirectorOA, 7 February 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzYKsLch4GM.

Picture References:

Screenshots, "Doritos Super Bowl XLVII commercial - 2012 Winner", YouTube, 2011, Web, 7 February 2011

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