Contest Entry: Camel cigarettes ad, 1942

[pythiaprophet.livejournal.com]

Comments

Ugh

[seamonkey-mags.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[elementalv.livejournal.com]

Incredibly condescending, yes, but at the same time, it's acknowledging and kind of celebrating women in non-traditional roles. I'm on the fence with this one.

[pythiaprophet.livejournal.com]

But if you think of it in terms of what happened after to war and the fact that she is smoking a "mild" cigarette because she obviously couldn't smoke the same things as the boys its clearly sexist.

[elementalv.livejournal.com]

Actually, the mild cigarette taste has validity in terms of selling point, since women tend to have more taste buds than men (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gGENH/is_20050229/ai_2699003771/). The people at R.J. Reynolds may not have had scientific research to back them up, but I'm willing to bet the marketers had a wealth of empirical evidence to suggest that women disliked stronger flavors in general.

[pythiaprophet.livejournal.com]

Yet she is still considered a girl to them in the advertisement and is doing "a man's sized job" not to mention her perfect hair and nails... when in real life she would be equally as sweaty as the men she was training.

No

[amiga500.livejournal.com]

It's outdated, but it looks like it was trying to challenge sexist attitudes more than reinforce them.

Re: No

[pythiaprophet.livejournal.com]

But if you think of it in terms of what happened after to war and the fact that she is smoking a "mild" cigarette because she obviously couldn't smoke the same things as the boys its clearly sexist.

[carriepika.livejournal.com]

I dunno... somehow I think this is far more an indication of -challenging- stereotypes and sexist thoughts. Promoting a popular brand of cigarettes with a woman doing 'non-traditional' things and being good at it? And going on about just how good she actually -is- at doing them?

Sounds more like it was encouraging girls to take a look at the things they could be doing, rather than trying to keep them in the kitchen and well douched.

[pythiaprophet.livejournal.com]

But if you think of it in terms of what happened after to war and the fact that she is smoking a "mild" cigarette because she obviously couldn't smoke the same things as the boys its clearly sexist.


I've always been intrigued by the war era advertisements and even wrote an award winning paper on them so I just wanted to contribute.

[tvini.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of the history of the WASP program during WWII (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123773525). Those women finally got their due - 65 years later.

[pythiaprophet.livejournal.com]

Exactly what I was going for. I'm glad someone could see it.

YES

[crabofdoom.livejournal.com]

Because that's a woman and a professional in her field, not a "girl" to be patted on the head and pinched on the cheek. They're not praising her for her nerves or skill or experience - they're praising her for smoking their cigarettes.

And "doing a man-sized job"? How is that not sexist?