It's Satire, Duh!
Is Gisele Bundchen A Self-Made Multimillionaire Sexist? Brazil's President Apparently Thinks So
by Andersen Antunes
Despite having a World Cup crisis to solve, Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff, the third most powerful woman in the world, is apparently also worried about the harm that supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who’s 60 on Forbes’ Power Women list, can cause to Brazilian women’s self-esteem.
Rousseff demanded through her subordinates at Brazil’s Secretariat for Women’s Politics that a series of TV ads for lingerie company Hopefeaturing Bundchen advising women how to divert awkward situations while stripping down to their undergarments, be pulled-off the air.
The Guardian‘s Tom Phillipsreports from Rio de Janeiro:
The campaign includes several TV spots, one of which features a scantily-clad Bundchen, trying to appease her husband after committing a series of marital blunders: crashing his car, maxing his credit card and, worst of all, inviting his mother-in-law to stay.
Bundchen’s solution? To seduce her furious husband, using the company’s new underwear line. The advert’s voiceover tells viewers: “You’re a Brazilian woman - use your charm.”
Government officials from the women’s secretariat in Brasilia failed to see the funny side, demanding it be pulled from television schedules.
“The campaign promotes the misguided stereotype of a woman as a sexual object of her husband and ignores the major advances we have achieved in deconstructing sexist practices and thinking,” the secretariat said this week in a statement.
Officials said they had received at least six complaints from outraged viewers since the campaign went to air on September 20.
“The model, Gisele Bundchen, encourages Brazilian women to use their ‘charm’ (…) to lessen possible reactions from their partners,” the statement added, claiming that the advert contained “discriminatory content against women” - an infringement of two articles of the Brazilian constitution.
The Hope advertising campaign was created by the Giovanni+Draft CB agency, the same agency behind Bundchen’s commercials for SKY HDTV, in which the supermodel plays an abandoned housewife who spends her time scrubbing the floors and competing with SKY’s exclusive high definition television services for her husband’s attention.
Hope’s director Sandra Chayo said in a statement its advert had a “clear and well-defined goal to show, with good humour, that the natural sensuality of Brazilian women, which is known worldwide, can be an effective weapon when giving bad news.” Chayo also countered that Bundchen’s image as an international fashion icon and a savvy businesswoman is the real reason why they hired her in the first place. “We chose Gisele [Bundchen,] one of Brazil’s most internationally successful personalities, to represent our brand precisely to avoid being disqualified under the bias of financially dependent or subservient women.”
Gisele’s twin sister and her representative in Brazil, Patricia Bundchen, also issued a statement on the matter. “At any moment we thought people could get offended by the ads. The advertising campaign’s proposal was presented to us and we considered it as a satire, a joke. We regret that something that was supposed to be fun ended up having another interpretation,” she said.
Read more at the SOURCE
Long time no see ONTD_F, what do you all think?
by Andersen Antunes
Despite having a World Cup crisis to solve, Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff, the third most powerful woman in the world, is apparently also worried about the harm that supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who’s 60 on Forbes’ Power Women list, can cause to Brazilian women’s self-esteem.
Rousseff demanded through her subordinates at Brazil’s Secretariat for Women’s Politics that a series of TV ads for lingerie company Hopefeaturing Bundchen advising women how to divert awkward situations while stripping down to their undergarments, be pulled-off the air.
The Guardian‘s Tom Phillipsreports from Rio de Janeiro:
The campaign includes several TV spots, one of which features a scantily-clad Bundchen, trying to appease her husband after committing a series of marital blunders: crashing his car, maxing his credit card and, worst of all, inviting his mother-in-law to stay.
Bundchen’s solution? To seduce her furious husband, using the company’s new underwear line. The advert’s voiceover tells viewers: “You’re a Brazilian woman - use your charm.”
Government officials from the women’s secretariat in Brasilia failed to see the funny side, demanding it be pulled from television schedules.
“The campaign promotes the misguided stereotype of a woman as a sexual object of her husband and ignores the major advances we have achieved in deconstructing sexist practices and thinking,” the secretariat said this week in a statement.
Officials said they had received at least six complaints from outraged viewers since the campaign went to air on September 20.
“The model, Gisele Bundchen, encourages Brazilian women to use their ‘charm’ (…) to lessen possible reactions from their partners,” the statement added, claiming that the advert contained “discriminatory content against women” - an infringement of two articles of the Brazilian constitution.
The Hope advertising campaign was created by the Giovanni+Draft CB agency, the same agency behind Bundchen’s commercials for SKY HDTV, in which the supermodel plays an abandoned housewife who spends her time scrubbing the floors and competing with SKY’s exclusive high definition television services for her husband’s attention.
Click to viewHope’s director Sandra Chayo said in a statement its advert had a “clear and well-defined goal to show, with good humour, that the natural sensuality of Brazilian women, which is known worldwide, can be an effective weapon when giving bad news.” Chayo also countered that Bundchen’s image as an international fashion icon and a savvy businesswoman is the real reason why they hired her in the first place. “We chose Gisele [Bundchen,] one of Brazil’s most internationally successful personalities, to represent our brand precisely to avoid being disqualified under the bias of financially dependent or subservient women.”
Gisele’s twin sister and her representative in Brazil, Patricia Bundchen, also issued a statement on the matter. “At any moment we thought people could get offended by the ads. The advertising campaign’s proposal was presented to us and we considered it as a satire, a joke. We regret that something that was supposed to be fun ended up having another interpretation,” she said.
Read more at the SOURCE
Long time no see ONTD_F, what do you all think?