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Denise Martins
Joined: Oct 26, 2007
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Oppressive Child-targeted Marketing: Let young women dream!
October 27, 2007 - 10:32 PM
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I was watching my ‘toons the other day and the commercials came on. Suddenly the screen sprung alive with a group of bright colors that would’ve attracted anybody under the age of five. It was a Fisher’s Price commercial. Now, I’m not much of a Fisher Price fan and I sensed something especially wrong about this one commercial. It showed a girl, no older than four, putting toy laundry into a toy laundry machine while holding her toy baby and waiting for dinner to cook. The narrator’s excuse? “Encourage your child’s creativity!” Something tells me that there’s more to a young girl’s creativity than doing laundry and feeding her baby. What disturbed me the most was that in those thirty seconds of commercials there were times when some of it was just going into my head without question or protest. We are constantly giving in to the media that’s thrown at us everyday and it’s frightening! How can we expect to advance as a society if our children are being targeted with marketing schemes to control them and turn them into sheep?! I think it’s time to fight back and give our young girls the toy airplanes, trips to space camps, hell even a microphone with which they can express themselves. Suppression now comes in a dashing new suit.
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Jack
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Re: Oppressive Child-targeted Marketing: Let young women dream!
October 29, 2007 - 12:04 AM
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I noticed that commercial and thought the same exact thing. Glad to see that someone else is questioning the marketing as well.
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Melanie LeBlanc
Joined: Sep 25, 2007
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Re: Oppressive Child-targeted Marketing: Let young women dream!
October 29, 2007 - 10:22 AM
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By being a media studies student, I've learned how to analyze different codes and conventions from tv commercials. It seems that eventhough the world is changing and woman aren't looked down upon, as we were in the 1940s, it's still difficult for some people to see woman as successful, powerful, independent woman and not stay-at-home, doing laundry, preparing dinner and cleaning women. For me, I find that hard to see myself doing since my generation grew up differently, already having that mind set of being independent, confident and successful. Therefor, I think that fisherprice saw an opportunity to try and influence young children, especially the young girls and to influence a certain "role".
But as a kid, I never liked playing in a fake kitchen...hmm I wonder why?
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Ashley
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Re: Oppressive Child-targeted Marketing: Let young women dream!
October 29, 2007 - 11:16 AM
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What an interesting topic. Sad really that after all these years advertisers are still prepetuating the stereotypes of male and female roles. I wonder though... who is more to blame - the parents who buy them or the toy manufactures and their advertising dollars that make it look so appealing?
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LauraK
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Re: Oppressive Child-targeted Marketing: Let young women dream!
October 29, 2007 - 04:40 PM
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I think this discussion thread really illustrates how controversial marketing aimed at children can be - since children of certain ages do not have the experience to really understand what is being 'sold' to them. Commercials, ads, and marketing in general is so much a part of our lives that its hard to critically think about each thing that is thrown at you. So I feel like the best way to fight it is just not to buy those toys that you feel are inappropriate or are marketed inappropriately. (Also I think cutting down on the amount of time kids watch TV is helpful in many ways!) I know that Quebec, Norway and Sweden ban junk food ads aimed at kids under certain circumstances. Maybe we need to do the same for toys that perpetuate stereotypes - like the Fisher Price laundry machine.
What a boring toy - by the way! I would never have played with that, what kid likes doing laundry??
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Denise Martins
Joined: Oct 26, 2007
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Re: Oppressive Child-targeted Marketing: Let young women dream!
October 30, 2007 - 12:28 AM
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laurakenyon wrote:
I think this discussion thread really illustrates how controversial marketing aimed at children can be - since children of certain ages do not have the experience to really understand what is being 'sold' to them. Commercials, ads, and marketing in general is so much a part of our lives that its hard to critically think about each thing that is thrown at you. So I feel like the best way to fight it is just not to buy those toys that you feel are inappropriate or are marketed inappropriately. (Also I think cutting down on the amount of time kids watch TV is helpful in many ways!) I know that Quebec, Norway and Sweden ban junk food ads aimed at kids under certain circumstances. Maybe we need to do the same for toys that perpetuate stereotypes - like the Fisher Price laundry machine.
What a boring toy - by the way! I would never have played with that, what kid likes doing laundry??
Oh no...I'm new to this..I meant to reply to the post you just made and I reported it instead...hopefully they will see it was an accident...Grr...I lost what I wrote...
I think kids mimic the grown ups around them. I know I did. What we need to do is teach them to go further than our own accomplishments. That commercial made me realize that I wasted all my childhood dreaming of being a mother and caretaker when I could've spent it dreaming of trips to unknown lands or travelling to the moon.
SIDE NOTE: BTW! I love mothers, I think they're a great asset to society. I didn't mean that being a mother is anything minimal, I just meant that there should be more in a little girl's imagination than her future as a mother.
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