Oh Subliminal Messaging.... Thou art Still so Rampant!

Charmin Commercialhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo4oEdtDRPo

Here is an example of overt and subtler gender stereotyping.  (Sorry I couldn't get the YouTube video to show up here, but check it out!!)

The commercial is promoting Charmin Ultra Strong as a way to help keep underwear clean.

Overt: Women do laundry and its cleanliness is a primary concern of theirs.
Women are peppy, smily and feminine.
In the bear sections we see all the other normal stereotypes about males being large and females small and men grunting and women having soft voices.

More subtle: Messiness is a masculine trait - only the son and the dad are implied as leavers of skidmarks in their underwear.
Bathroom etiquette is not something we can speak about - (More below!)

The commercial is enforcing many overt gender stereotypes, but the most interesting connection I found was the following.  According to Charmin, women do the laundry and are cleanly, but their sons and husbands are not, sometimes leaving "skidmarks," fecal matter, in their underwear.  Direct conversation about bathroom habits would seem to be the obvious solution, but such conversation is societally taboo, especially across genders.  So, concludes Charmin, one should buy their brand of toilet paper in order to solve the problem without breaking any taboos.

This really struck me because I had to watch the commercial several times (I was watching Hulu, so you see the same commercial over and over) to get this deeper gender stereotype.  These stereotypes have been so normalized, are so taken for granted, that even a recent graduate of the 2013 Davies Forum had to look hard to get the deeper message.

Be careful what you watch, because the subliminal messages can pass by unnoticed, and then get stuck in your subconscious.  There they may fester and subtly influence your decision making process, leading to future actions of your own which enforce gender stereotypes.

Such insidious conditioning is everywhere in our society, and it is highly dangerous.  This can be seen many places, but is especially true of Charmin commercials, because as a Montana native, I can tell you that bears are neither cute nor cuddly, and anything that tells you otherwise might get you mauled.

WATCH OUT!