AdTastic: Does Hallmark Think Boys Know Best for Father’s Day?

June 17th, 2009 · 19 Comments

Look: I’ll admit that I’m feeling touchy about America’s cultural bias against women right now. In Monday’s New York Times, I read that some Asian-American families are actively choosing to have boys instead of girls, and then just a few pages later, I read that girls are still notoriously underrepresented in school sports. Add the impact of Linda Holmes’ excellent recent essay about the lack of female characters in Pixar films, and you can see why Hallmark’s new Father’s Day spot is pushing me over the edge.

I mean, I know that misogyny and bias swirl around us all the time, and that they were just as pervasive two weeks or two centuries ago as they were this morning, but this is the morning I hit my limit. This is the morning when this commercial, forwarded to me by recent guest critic Laura McMaster, landed like a bamboo shoot under my fingernail:

My reaction follows…

To be fair, I don’t think Hallmark intends to suggest that girls don’t “get” their fathers, while boys speak directly to the paternal soul.

But still. This spot implies that the girls are materialistic narcissists who believe they can “improve” their father with ties and cologne. Conversely, their brother is simple and true, willing to love his dad simply for being the “perfectest” guy on the block.

Notice that the ad never lingers on the daughters’ faces. Even when they’re talking, the spot keeps cutting to the son, who’s waiting to burst in with his present.

Meanwhile, the dad may chuckle when his daughters give him stuff, but it’s only when his son gives him a Hallmark card that he reacts in earnest. After hearing the card’s recorded greeting, he stops, makes a teary-eyed face, and then watches his son dance a jig before embracing him with gratitude. The boy is the chosen one, y’all.

And what about that dance? Why does this kid get to steal focus from his father? Why do his sisters cheer him on? Why does the boy get to be so privileged that he gets all the attention, all the physical affection, and all the cool gift-giving ideas? According to this commercial’s subtext, he gets those things because he is male, and that makes him the best.

Again, I don’t think Hallmark intends to send this message. They probably just want to convince us that buying a talking card is better than spending $40 on a bottle of Brut, because unlike the cologne, the card can be personalized with a message from the heart. Hallmark probably just wants us to believe that by buying a greeting card, we are somehow sidestepping the tasteless hustle to show love through purchases.

That’s a little sinister, sure, but they’ve got cards to sell. I understand.

Why, though, does the ad also have to create a competition for daddy’s affection? Why do the girls have to lose? There are plenty of ways to make the “cards are the best” argument without subtly denigrating daughters in favor of sons.

Yes? No? Do you read gender in this ad? What are your reactions?

Tags: AdTastic · Television

19 responses so far ↓

1 Destiny // Jun 17, 2009 at 2:14 am

Mark, you have hit a nerve for me. I work in casting and I was just discussing today the way that women are still marginalized in the mass media. There are plenty of roles for women, but the substance of those roles is lacking. This ad reduces the daughters to selfish harpies, and did you notice that the mother is completely insignificant? Little Charlie’s impatience to have his gift opened is rewarded at the end by the girls acknowledging Charlie’s superior gift giving skills. Also, this ad is completely unrealistic; everyone knows that women are far better gift givers than men.
2 christy baker // Jun 17, 2009 at 5:49 am

Is Brut really $40? Holy crap.
3 katy // Jun 17, 2009 at 7:33 am

It’s even more interesting when you consider who the main market is for Hallmark cards. Let me give you a hint: it’s not little boys. Or medium-sized boys. Or jumbo boys. Or people with male genitalia of any sort.

Their cards are bought primarily by female consumers over a certain age — and one would think this was *especially* true of Father’s Day cards. Hallmark also has for years been trying to build themselves up as about “authenticity” and sincere expression of emotion that you couldn’t put into words yourself.

I’d guess this ad was designed to encourage mothers to buy these (probably expensive) cards for their kids to give to Dad, and that this card is especially supposed to be for little boys, who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in mushy cards. It’s a kind of market expansion to boys, but it relies on the traditional consumer (adult women) too.

What is weird is that the whole “girls are so materialistic” thing was aimed at female consumers, so there’s a kind of expectation of self-hatred here. Buy the card for your son so he won’t have to do the buying. You be the materialistic one so he can authentically express love.
4 Collin H // Jun 17, 2009 at 8:22 am

I think your points are valid, but I’m of the opinion that the crime being committed here is not one based upon gender, but of age. The commercial is guilty of glorifying the baby of the family as the golden child. The youngest kid is always the one that everyone gives all the attention to, the one whats always the most lovable, the one that the whole family turns to to refresh their soul.

Gag. Let’s call it Baby Michelle Syndrome and do our best to endure that this trope dies a quick, brutal death.
5 Karen // Jun 17, 2009 at 9:24 am

I know I’m reading way too much into this, but I also hate how the boy is the youngest of three, implying that they were specifically trying to have that all-important male “heir”. Why are boys still so coveted in today’s society?

As the mother of a daughter who is adored and cherished by her father, this really yanks my chain.
6 steven kidd // Jun 17, 2009 at 9:27 am

seriously? listen. i like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy and i’m all for equality for everyone, but seriously? you know why the kid gets attention? because he’s the youngest. the commercial is about the youngest and his parent. they’re playing to the stereotype that the youngest is always best loved and most spoiled a la joseph and his awesome multi-colored outerwear. it has nothing to do w/ demographics other than the family is white.

or does it? maybe i’ve been looking at this all wrong! i think i will also become unbelievably offended because i have long hair and the little boy doesn’t! long-haired boys didn’t even make the cut, so now i can be even more morally outraged than anyone else….except my wife. she’s black. how come there are no black family members? people adopt outside their race all the time! where is the black kid? these people are obviously racist! we should riot against hallmark!

or it’s just a stupid commercial to remind you to spend $2.99 to tell your father you love him. one or the other. i get confused.
7 Jeff C // Jun 17, 2009 at 10:02 am

Oh, lord. This is one of the few commercials on American television that doesn’t portray male characters as simpering dolts in need of their wife/girlfriend’s superior common sense (and household purchases). I would hardly frame it as the harbinger of a cultural trend in advertising. And yes, I have a daughter.

On a related note, let’s talk about the way Mother’s Day is observed with ten times the enthusiasm as Father’s Day – in part because of a soft paternalism of sorts towards mothers, who certainly deserve the day, and in part because most of modern society has little positive to say about fathers. If boys are in fact coveted in society, men are becoming more and more of an afterthought; you no longer need them to have children, the social stigma with being an unmarried mother is gone, and the government will stand in as a provider. I am guessing in many households Father’s Day is an awkward occasion, for a number of reasons.

Having said all this, the commercial *is* a swipe at the narcissistic sisters, for whom gift-giving is an exercise in self-promotion, instead of a genuine expression of love. Hallmark knows that usually “just a card” isn’t enough for such types, so they’re trying to rebut this kind of thinking.

Men buy lots of cards. Go to a supermarket on the morning of Father’s Day and see who’s in line
8 Linda // Jun 17, 2009 at 10:03 am

In fairness, there are plenty of commercials that make boys and men out to be incompetent, ungrateful slobs, so in some ways, there’s plenty to go around.

But what shocks me about this commercial is the entire notion that Charlie is showing up his sisters in some kind of Father’s Day gift contest. The Hallmark death grip on holidays is one thing, encouraging people to believe they MUST purchase gifts and cards, whatever. But coming this close to an outright declaration that you should buy a loving Father’s Day card to stick it to your siblings is really weird.

They could have made essentially the same point by having Charlie try to figure out what to get Dad, going through the cologne and the tie and so forth, before he shows his mom the card and says a little guiltily, “It’s not worth as much as the other stuff.” And then Charlie’s mom says, “I think it’s worth more.” Cut to Dad opening the personalized card. There! I just wrote a Hallmark commercial. The “Charlie’s stupid incompetent sisters” subplot is just gratuitous and hits a sour note, for me, in what’s supposed to be a warmhearted campaign.

There’s definitely a note of “Only Charlie speaks to Dad’s heart” here, and while I’m sure they didn’t set out to make a “boys rule, girls drool” ad, it does kind of come off that way.
9 Michael // Jun 17, 2009 at 10:47 am

May I speak as the only one in this thread (so far) who has ever received a father’s day gift? Perhaps that’s one of the reasons my reactions are so different from those above. (The text for this sermon will be the Cosby show father’s day episode where Cos tells his kids “I want better presents.”)

An ad, for its brevity, can only manipulate a few familiar images, so there are always tropes. There are indeed tropes here that prefer the boy over his sisters, but–at least the first time I watched it–I found I was simply following different patterns in the mix. To wit: I was following the thread of the youngest child trying to be heard in a room where he’s being ignored and left out of gift-giving, but really wants to give.

It matters (and no one has remarked this so far) that the gifts the older children are giving are the uninspired, pro-forma, clicheed father’s day gifts of cologne and tie. Every Dad in America has concealed a wince and taken these gestures on the chin–their very clicheed nature suggests that the giver didn’t think very specifically or personally about the dad, maybe even can’t. And the one who breaks the pattern is the youngest–young enough that he can’t even buy a gift (I think that’s important), young enough that he has to struggle to be heard, but, when he breaks through, he gives a gift that is personal in three ways: it speaks in his voice, his childish grammar, and his world of Disney music. And it transforms the ceremony, makes it dance. THAT’s the story the Hallmark people were trying to tell, and–partly because the camera work so clearly tells it from the youngest child’s point of view–that was the one that hit me first. (In point of fact, the first time I saw it I didn’t even listen to the things the older kids were saying as they handed their gifts. I was identifying with the youngest who was hoping his gift would be welcome.) The first time I saw it, it was about a kid too young to enter the conventional gift-giving economy, who, with the help of Hallmark, transforms it.

The problem, of course, is that they screwed up by gendering it, and this I freely admit: very similar points could have been made if it were the daughter with the card and two sons chiding their dad on his look. (Would have been better, maybe–although we might have managed a sexist read on that, too: oh, girls can’t earn money and buy gifts?) And maybe that does open the door to assumptions that the daughters are materialistic, but that never occurred to me–the cliche of the tie and the cologne isn’t about materialism, it’s about an uninspired, impersonal tradition of gift-giving–it’s about not getting your dad.

By the way–do we think it’s wrong to refer to the fact that fathers and daughters often have a different connection from fathers and sons? It does happen–
10 katy // Jun 17, 2009 at 11:22 am

Men do buy cards, but women make up the majority of the greeting card market (more than eighty percent, I think?). This has been true since God was a boy, and it’s reflected in the advertisements for sure.

I can’t “read” this commercial without imagining its intended audience, and all due respect, I don’t think that audience is (A) those who receive Father’s Day gifts; (B) adult men who buy cards for their fathers on Father’s Day or really even (C) innocent children hoping to please their daddies on Father’s Day. None of those groups really make sense for Hallmark to be targeting for this product.

I think the intended audience is adult women with kids, who are likely to say awwwwww and spend the five bucks or more on the recordable card so that Junior will melt Daddy’s heart.

And no, I don’t think gender is a coincidence here. It’s possible to imagine this ad with two older boys and a younger girl waiting her turn. But the innocent, emotional exuberance of dancing along with the goofy card vs. the pat, fashionable gifts and the bossy tones of voice … that stuff is associated with gender, especially the gender of kids. Little boys are seen as especially free from the corrupting influence of consumer culture.

By the way … portraying men as dolts in commercials? That’s also relying on tired gender tropes, and it gets on my nerves big time. It happens in commercials that target women (as in, look what idiots men are and look how superior we are) and in those that target men (as in, look how we’re just goofy big kids and trying to get away from the bossy women.) There was a great Frontline documentary a few years back that discussed this intentional depiction of men in marketing agencies.
11 Tommy // Jun 17, 2009 at 12:13 pm

Yikes — I think you’ve misinterpreted this commercial in a big way. The point of the spot is simple: by doing something personal and cheap (recording your voice on a paper card) you can avoid the impersonal and expensive and get a more desirable result. Why play the gender card?
12 Michael // Jun 17, 2009 at 12:46 pm

Katy: My sermon was, in response to Mark’s opening essay, a description of my own response as a viewer of the ad and the buttons it pushes for me. I’m curious, though: if, as you sensibly point out, the intended audience is probably women with kids, how, as you see it, does that affect the gender implications of the ad? Did Hallmark misunderstand that audience in labeling girls as superficial and boys as genuine? Or were they guessing that moms might have a special feeling for their little boys? (By the way, I’d need some demonstration of the point that boys are generally understood to be more emotionally free–have more innocent, emotional exuberance–than girls: a lot of grown-up boys would tell you we were trained otherwise. Is this a compensatory fantasy: with real-world little boys being perhaps LESS likely to strike the right gift-giving note, the fantasy becomes more touching?)
13 Dandy Darkly // Jun 17, 2009 at 12:48 pm

I’m upset there’s not more commercials with trannies in them.
14 ferretrick // Jun 17, 2009 at 1:32 pm

Interesting the number of different interpretations of the same thirty second spot, and to me there’s merit in every one. I would be willing to give a pass on the sexism aspect if it was just that the girls picked impersonal gifts. But the dialogue pushes it into definitely sexist. The combined comments of, “Because I’m a fashion expert” and “I smelled it in a magazine” reinforce the worst gender stereotyping, because obviously all pre-teen girls know or care about is fashion and other superficial things. They could have solved a lot of the problem by having an older child of each sex.

And the youngest child receiving all the attention is definitely another valid interpretation. As long as we are using Cosby show metaphors, call it the Rudy/Olivia syndrome. Keisha Knight Pulliam was the epicenter of cute the show kept going to for its most memorable moments until she grew too old for the part-at which point Raven Symone was brought in and Rudy was shunted to the side.

“Did Hallmark misunderstand that audience in labeling girls as superficial and boys as genuine? Or were they guessing that moms might have a special feeling for their little boys?”

I don’t think they misunderstood at all. Let’s face it, this is aimed at the same kind of people who cry at “The Christmas Shoes” and think its a good piece of music. I don’t think they expect anyone in the target market to look at it any deeper than, “Oh isn’t that little boy cute! I must run out and buy one of those cards so my child can be cute like that!” And they were probably right.
15 Mark Blankenship // Jun 17, 2009 at 2:46 pm

I agree with Ferretrick, in that I think all these interpretations are valid. I hadn’t thought about the ad from the perspective of “younger kids are always at the center,” for instance, so thanks for that, y’all.

Also, nice to hear from the fathers in the room. Thanks Jeff C. and Michael!

At the end of the day, I just really want ads to stop reinforcing so many useless cliches about the way people (men, women, children, boys, girls, etc.) supposedly behave. But I’m not counting on that.
16 katy // Jun 18, 2009 at 11:53 am

Oh mercy, Michael, they’re probably not misinterpreting their audience *at all.* (Sadly they usually don’t.) It’s probably very pleasing for many women to think of cute ways for their little boys to be emotionally expressive. That’s what this comes down to — Hallmark wants to present the ideal gift for little boys to give their dads! This recordable card is personal, it’s authentic, it’s not just about shopping! After all, it’s easy to get *girls* to pick out gifts for Father’s Day. Those wild little boys are the problem.

And by the way, to me this commercial seems right in line with the whole “men are dolts” trope — not an exception to that tendency at all. The little boy is a kid, so it’s sentimentalized. But if in ads men are depicted as emotionally-unsophisticated, sex-obsessed, beer-obsessed, childlike mooks, it’s usually in contrast to the women in their lives, who are being bossy, nagging, but savvy and practical shoppers. This ad is just a sentimentalized version of that. There was a good discussion of why this “mook” stereotype is so popular among marketers in a Frontline documentary a few years back called The Marketing of Cool.

Totally agree about the trannies, btw.
17 katy // Jun 18, 2009 at 11:58 am

Repeated myself about the Frontline doc. But it’s good, and worth repeating.
18 Mike // Jun 23, 2009 at 3:07 am

What the point is he an adorable cool boy that does a cool thing for his Dad. Go Charlie, yoau are sooo cute!
19 Darryl // Jul 13, 2009 at 6:19 pm

Linda – if you are not already an advertising executive then you have missed your true calling. Bravo!

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