http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBQjz6OCa1Y
IKEA is a global ready-to-assembly, furniture store. It is headquartered in the Netherlands and it is known for its easy build and simple design. They put this commercial out on the market because they wanted to enhance their products and to make their products seem superior.
This commercial shows negative stereotypes on straight man and positive stereotypes on the gays. Netherlands, being the first country that legalized gay marriage, appears to be more alert and concern about gays community and gays right. As such, the IKEA commercial that projects a more positive stereotypes on gays, to some extent, discloses the image of Netherlands as being a more liberal and respectful country for the gay community and it uses this stereotypes to gain the gays' attention to its product.
Another stereotype that is portrayed is that straight men are usually dirty and unorganized. In this video, the stereotype is portrayed by the guy walking into his messy house with women he brought home. The scene of him walking into his house with a woman was repeated several times. The first two times, the girls left because his place was cluttered. This plays off the stereotype that a typical straight male does not pay attention to details or organization.
Soon, the guy realized that his messy house was the cause that annoyed the girls whom he brought home. In attempt from having the same problem again, he cleaned his place up and reorganized it using the products from IKEA. The third when he brought a girl home, the girl was shocked at how clean and tidy his house was. She was smiling in the beginning but later on changed to a rather suspicious expression. When the man went in the other room to show the girl how neat he was, she immediately ran out the door. She was later shown talking to one of her friends about how she thinks her date was a gay.
The last part of the video plays off the stereotype that all gay men are neat, clean, and tidy. While some gay men are extremely neat and meticulous, it’s unfair to judge all gay men this way. The same can be said about straight men and being messy.
Because IKEA is based in such a liberal country many people are very accepting of the use of homosexuality in commercials. Many people would see this commercial as humorous. Likewise, many conservatives would take offense to this.
Some men find this humorous because they can relate to the man in the commercial. Personally, we have messy rooms so we fit the stereotype well. We understand why straight men are portrayed in this light. It can be offensive to some straight men who have clean rooms, but humor is used to diffuse the tension.
With all said, this commercial is up for discussion because some people take offense to this while others don’t. What is your stance on this commercial?
before I read .....would you like to change the font color? White would be better.
ReplyDeleteI apologize about that and I have already contacted my group member to change it. Before he manages to edit it, maybe you can use your mouse to highlight the text while you are reading.It makes the words clearer.
ReplyDeleteAs a girl, I honestly try to keep things more organized, but my roommate is messy. I think that this can really be spread to anyone. Male, female, gay or straight. However, I don't think the video was extremely offensive to anyone. If a straight girl is going to hook up with a guy and ends up thinking he is gay she isn't going to hook up with him. They would probably just end up being friends. Also, it grosses me out when my brothers apartment or friends' dorm rooms are messy, but I am just a clean person.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned that IKEA's headquarter is in Netherland and it is possible that this commercial is trying to gain gays' attention. Even though it is not quite appropriate to judge a guy is gay or straight by just looking at how messy his room is, I think this commercial is positive overall. It is not offensive because: 1) it is a fact that most straight guys are messy and I don't think any guy will get really angry when he is told that his room is messy; 2) the commercial is portraying a positive stereotype of gays which might build up a good image of gay people and make them more acceptable in the society. 3) it makes sense for promoting IKEA's products.
ReplyDeleteActually, the commercial is interesting. The man uses IKEA furniture to make the room clean and neat. Although the girl thinks the man is a gay because the room is so neat, I do not think the commercial presents that the straight men are messy. Maybe the rooms of the straight men are not clean to this degree. It does not means their room should be messy. Therefore, the commercial does not offend straight man. It just use a little extreme way to display the IKEA furniture.
ReplyDeleteI think this commercial is brilliant and should not be considered offensive. It is humurous in the sense that the guy could neither get the girl when his room was messy nor when his room was neat. A subtle message about women could stem from this. More importantly, and explicitly shown is the stereotypes of gay men and the stereotypes of straight men. In no way was the commercial meant to be offensive for either group. I think commercials try to incorporate as many people in their target audience and do not try to offend people, because this would probably have a negative impact on sales and reputation. I also think that for the most part this stereotype is correct, although I am not attempting to place men or gays in specific categories. In fact, for gays, this commercial shows a positive characteristic, whether stereotypical or not, and for straight men, it is not necessarily a negative stereotype, just not as good because when the room was messy he only got the girl past the front door whereas when the room was neat the girl got to his bedroom.
ReplyDeleteThis paritcular commercial is probably the least humorous video we have analyzed thus far. However, I still do not believe someone would take serious offense to this commercial. I refuse to believe that a company's marketing department would design and produce a commercial or advertisement to purposefully offend someone. They would lose sales. This commercial uses stereotypes of gay & straight men. These stereotypes are not true of all gay & straight men but it works for this commercial. I also think this commercial attacks stereotypes of women as well. It shows that women are very hard to please. Two girls leave him because his room is messy and another leaves him because it's too clean. It brings up the question that guys ask frequently, "what are women thinking?"
ReplyDeleteThis commercial plays around the stereotype for gay. People always think that gay have clean and neat room and straight men usually have messy room. I personally do have these stereotype on my mind. However, for this commercial, I do not think it is offensive to anyone. The main point of this commercial is to show that furniture from IKEA make differences on people's life.
ReplyDeleteThis IKEA commercial is a clear example of how marketers change their message depending on who their target audience is. While the Netherlands most likely has different social norms, an ad like this would certainly not convince, if not outright deter, Americans from buying IKEA furniture. In the beginning of the commercial, no one would argue a messy apartment is never good when trying to end a date on a high note. However, when the third date sees that his apartment is so clean, she also ditches him because she thinks he is gay. If this ad were targeted towards an American audience, no products would be sold because typically males avoid any products that make them seem “gay” or “feminine.” That being said, the girl is at fault for automatically assuming that because a guy is clean means he is gay. From my experience, no one particularly enjoys living in filth, so the usual reason people have a messy room is laziness. Overall, I cannot see why advertisers would choose to air a commercial that associates their proudest with a typically (but wrongly) pejorative term.
ReplyDeleteThis commercial goes to show that men are always wrong in the game of love. If we're unorganized, we're lazy and gross and not worth the time or the trouble, but if we're too neat, than we must obviously be gay. IKEA hits the nail square on the head by showing how the average Joe is always at a disadvantage when dealing with women. It is impossible to ever fully understand what women are thinking, so romance is practically impossible, but IKEA demonstrates that the use of their products will, if nothing else, make one's living space tidy, comfortable, and stylish.
ReplyDeleteI think that the underlying message of this commercial is how it is impossible to please women. The first two young ladies seem to be enjoying the man’s company until they come to an unclean and disorganized room. They stomp out in anger and disappointment. The man then tries to change himself by cleaning up his room and making it appealing to the eye in its organization and design. The woman he brings next is not repulsed away immediately and she comes in to finish the date. But when she talks to her friend at the end, she says how she thinks he is gay. This plays on the stereotype that gay men are clean and organized. It is a quality that mostly women possess so when this guy cleans this room; it is seen as a feminine characteristic. This is funny because the man tries to be himself, a manly dirty man, who doesn’t care about beauty in his apartment but the females don’t like that. He tries to do better with an IKEA makeover, but still fails to woo his women.
ReplyDeleteI think this commercial did a good job in expressing the stereotypes of gays, straights, and even women. People sometimes expect gay men to be very neat and able to decorate well while straight men are messy and cluttered. It was also very funny how no matter what, the women found a problem with the man's room. The last woman who thought he was gay could have thought that less from the organization and more from the abundance of bright colors. This commercial did express how men are always at a disadvantage though when trying to impress a girl.
ReplyDeleteI think this commercial is not offensive to its audience because the main message of this ad is to show how IKEA's product can make such significant changes to someone's home. However, after buying furniture from IKEA, the girl thought that the man is gay. Therefore, I think it is kinda risky to put this ad on air as guys will not want things that make him look gay. People will try to avoid buying things from IKEA as the commercial represents that IKEA's furnitures make people look gay and women don't like it.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this commercial is offensive, but I am not quite sure what IKEA is trying to sell with this ad. It's very strange that a woman would make it all the way to a man's bedroom before fleeing and informing people that her date was homosexual. By examining this music we can see that the women this "man" brings home have good reason to run away: namely, he is, in fact, a space alien. The "beep bop" electronic music gives the impression of a futuristic alien society that this imposter is undoubtedly part of. The women who enter his house can immediately sense that there is something wrong based, undoubtedly, on his strange alien mannerisms and use of strange alien sentence syntax; however, they are willing to be lead to his lair -- probably because of his alien hypnotic powers. However, once they hear his music and see the filthy state of his existence they are able to break from his spell and immediately flee. This look of disappointment is clear in his eyes each time this happens. So our alien friend decides to fix up the location that Master Control undoubtedly abandoned him at and proceeds to spend all of his available earth credits on Earth furniture and removes the foreign electronic elements from his music so that the more-preferred-by-human-subjects piano is at the forefront of the musical styling. After these changes, he is able to lead the subject in her trance all the way to his lair and almost to the secret lab behind the bookshelf until she spies the painting of Master Control that he keeps by his bed. She immediately senses that something is wrong and narrowly escapes a horrible fate, indeed. When she returns home, she is too embarrassed to tell her roommate that she was almost abducted by an alien so she tells her roommate that she believes her date was homosexual in order to avoid the embarrassment.
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Deleteyou deserve props for this post. i never would have thought this was the reason.
DeleteIn my opinion I don’t think the commercial is offensive. The commercial is merely promoting their furniture in a humorous and creative ways. By giving different scenarios for the viewers to see, the viewers can relate it to their daily life. Furthermore, as the writer suggested gay marriage is legalised in the country it is produced. In showing this commercial Ikea is trying to reach out two target audience i.e. straight and gays. In the different scenarios shown, it trying to praise the gays by portraying that the gays are really good in keeping the home clean and tidy and at the same time telling the straight that they could also be clean and tidy if they want to by using Ikea furniture. It clever strategy used by Ikea in promoting their furnitures.
ReplyDeleteAS the subject of my research paper, it's very interesting that a homosexual portrayal or use in advertisements is being discussed here. In my research I found that homosexual portrayal in advertisements where viewed more favorably by those who had an acceptance for homosexuality. So it is very interesting that this commercial was aired in Denmark, because as you said, they are one of the leaders of the world in homosexual rights. However this commercial doesn't actually portray any gay characters, only a gay stereotype at the end. I agree with others when they say that while this commercial might come of as rude or offensive to our American culture, it would be viewed as not as offensive in Scandinavian culture. Homosexuals are simply another demographic of their society, and a prominent one at that, and thus the joke would be viewed as a comment on society as a whole, rather than the individual group.
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