Jean titles her post on this My computer is just like me (not): The new Mac ads are even worse than the old ones – so not only are the Windows and Mac users rather white men of two rather clichÈed stereotypes, they compare the home videos they edited. And guess what, they’re women. The Mac user’s is pretty and well-dressed and described as “professional”, whereas the Windows user’s is a man dressed as a frumpy woman. This makes me want to switch to, oh I don’t know, Linux, I suppose. If you were in any doubt that men are the default and women the aberration (or, on occasion, the creation or possession of men as in this ad), you might want to note how men’s naked bodies are “human anatomy” while women’s naked bodies are “female anatomy” (via Martin).
6 thoughts on “mac ads all about reinforcing stereotypes?”
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b¯rge
I’ve recently switched to Linux, and it was much easier than I thought. I’m dualbooting Ubuntu LInux and Windows XP, but I’ve never felt the need to boot Windows again after installing Ubuntu some months ago! If you, or anyone, would like help on switching I’m writing about at over at Jeg, en Linux-bruker? (Norwegian).
Elinesca
Actually… it’s all a joke… the woman is a very famous model, Giselle Bundchen (or something like that).
I thought it was funny.. I wouldn’t if I didn’t know who the woman was, though:-)
Jill
I don’t know that it really helps that the woman is a supermodel… Ah well.
more on the ëget a mací ads and stereotypes
[…] Update: In response to a bit of discussion going on about the ads reinforcing stereotypes, mainly started by Jill, who kindly linked to my post here: there is that, sure – the Mac is one sort of vaguely urban, effortlessly cool American guy, the PC is another, deeply unattractive, old economy nerd sort of American guy. Yes, theyíre ístereotypesí, and so is the supermodel in the ëbetterí ad. […]
H&T
A colleague of mine reckons that the ‘get a mac’ ads ‘jumped the shark’ some time ago. But I totally agree the tenor is unfortunate, even allowing for tongues that might (possibly) be deeply embedded in cheeks. At bigqueer.com (where one commentator has suggested that in addition to being sexist, the ads are ‘transhating’ is made) they’re doing a little survey FYI.
Jill
If you don’t get the problem with the Mac ads, PLEASE go read Jean’s new post that dissects them more. And thanks, H&T, for that link – yeah, clearly not very complimentary to trans…