Friday, July 01, 2011

The T-Mobile Woman: sexist rubbish?

Discuss. Her name is Carly Foulkes, Canadian fashion model. One thing's for sure: that branded dress is pure stupid brilliance. Another thing is for sure: young men are fapping to her commercials. If you're somehow not familiar with the spots, watch some here. Wonder what they're paying her? Five years ago, they paid Catherine Zeta-Jones 20 mil. Related: T-Mobile creepy disembodied head print ads via Puerto Rico.

15 Comments:

Anonymous You know me said...

Paying her, not here.

9:32 AM  
Blogger copyranter said...

* steam out of ears *

9:46 AM  
Anonymous I love Carly said...

A) She is hot B) Of course, young men would be fapping to her commercials (only poufters won't) and C) Why the hell are you talking about this campaign now? It's already a few years old.

9:47 AM  
Anonymous Josh said...

Hey, I got an idea. What if we took those Apple commercials, put a HOT CHICK in them and used them to sell our shitty phones?

9:48 AM  
Anonymous AdFreak Sucks said...

If you allow me, Copyranter, I would like to use your blog to tell AdFreak to go fuck themselves. I know their freaky editors read your blog. Now they have decided to start censoring the comments on their site, and obviously they approve only the nice ones. Fucking idiots!

10:00 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

My first thought when I first saw her in these commercials was: Oh, they found a younger, skinnier Catherine Zeta Jones lookalike. That's gotta really piss the elder CZJ (who's had age-shaving rumors following her her whole career) right off, even if it's just for an ad campaign.

The second, and this was borne out a few months ago, is that someone should put together a site along the lines of "Who Is That Hot Ad Girl", which of course now exists. It's a paradigm older than the Jantzen Girls.

Good on Carly for lucking into this gig, and good luck on her trying to break the inevitable typecasting that will come with it. (The "Can You Hear Me Now" guy has a decade of indie films before he'll live down his phone-shilling past.)

10:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is someone actually saying they're sexist ads?? No way. I like to think of myself as a horribly belligerent feminist, but sorry, I just don't see it. Or do you mean it's the guys who are being exploited by her? Are you just stirring the pot Mr Copyranter??

10:35 AM  
Blogger copyranter said...

Yeah, I guess 90% rubbish, 10% sexist.
It's just my opinion, but the set-up of these spots, the dresses, the feel, etc,. reminds me of those typical car commercials with an interchangeable hot woman "showcasing" the vehicle.

11:06 AM  
Anonymous Copyraver said...

@Copyranter

I bet you like the "Get A Mac" campaign. T Mobie's is just a parody of it, and a pretty good one. Just because they use a hot girl does not mean the campaign is sexist. And the dresses?? lol What about those dresses? Don't be stupid. In any event, why focus on the girl, and not, say, on the copy, which is hilarious? I agree that dress in the photo is ghastly. I noticed though that she does not wear it in any of the spots, does she?

11:30 AM  
Blogger copyranter said...

Yes, she does. It's the dress that launched the campaign.

11:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

My GF noticed something odd about [or is that aboot] the commercials.
She's always taller than the guys in them.
Always!
What's up with that?

There are also canvas renderings of her on the sides of downtown buildings in Chicago that are at least 25 feet tall.

2:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Copyranter, its difficult to determine whether the ads are sexist. She's only objectified as far as any attractive person is objectified in order to sell a product.

Personally, I hate these ads because I feel she's being terribly condescending. I can feel it in both her words and the look she gives the camera at the end. "You're an idiot if you aren't using T-Mobile." I hate that angle; instead of saying anything about the product, it just shits on the viewer. Same goes for "I'm a Mac/PC," and Geico's increasingly annoying "Question Guy" spots.

6:43 AM  
Anonymous dude said...

two comments:

a) she is super hot, i thought she was jessica biel at first.

b) once the at&t merger goes through, she will be out of a job, just like the rest of the poor fucks at publicis seattle who work on t-mobile. :(

11:42 PM  
Blogger watchwhathappens said...

They don't strike me as sexist, and I consider myself pretty attuned to that. She represents the attractive, pleasing alternative to the iPhone's ridiculous gouging prices and bad coverage. I think that's the point they're making, personified.

9:46 PM  
Anonymous Lincoln said...

CR:

I actually like the ads a lot. Especially the one poking fun at AT&T. I'm downloading them to my computer, because once the merger goes through, Carly's probably getting canned, so the ads are going away.

Here's a couple of them:

http://bit.ly/csnkyJ

http://bit.ly/ePVy4a

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is to separate the ads from the fan pages and you tube comments. :-)

2:05 PM  

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