Breaking down borders in video games.
“Everyone is doing it” Stimulus Package advertisement
A television ad for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2′s DLC pack, the Stimulus Package, is using the idea of sex to sell their product. The ad involves an older man sitting in a chair, complaining about how “everyone is doing it”. The phrases he uses are meant to make the viewer assume he is discussing sex.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 “Everyone is Doing It” ad
Transcript of the ad:
Everyone is doing it. Guys are doing it with girls. Girls are doing it with other girls. Some get together in groups and do it. Some even do it with complete strangers. Some people like to do it hardcore. Some people like to watch others doing it. Over 20 million people are doing it. Safe to say, everyone’s doing it.
An icon for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 then appears on screen and a second, different male voice says, “The Stimulus Package now only on Xbox Live. Join today.”
HAHA! This is a funny joke according to the ad company! We have people thinking the older man is discussing sex when he is actually talking about online video games. It is even called the “stimulus” package. Double meanings are so hilarious!!
The problem with this ad is not that it implies sexuality. The problem is how it uses sex and sexuality. In the context of the ad, they are not discussing intimacy or even mutual physical desire between consenting adults. No, the ad goes into voyeuristic territory. It treats sexuality as dirty, as seen by the facial expressions and tone of the man talking. It says sex is an act for the amusement of others when stating that “some people like to watch others doing it”. The man makes disapproving looks and sneers as he discusses women doing it together, people doing it with strangers, and that people like to do it “hardcore”. This is not a sex positive message. Sex is dirty, implies the man in the ad. But then the twist comes and we realize he is discussing video games. Does this change in topic make things better? I argue it does not fix anything. Now, instead of lesbian sex disgusting the man, he is looking at women gamers with that same sneer. Women and lesbians, neither one ends up in a good light with this ad. If looking at this as a man discussing sex then lesbians are used to either draw viewers to the ad or they are used to represent something the man sees as gross. If the sexual connotations are taken away, then women gamers are the object that this man views as wrong and dirty.
The ad relies on the idea that sex sells. Viewers will see a man discussing what they assume is sex and they will keep listening and watching. We can all agree that we want companies to recognize that women play video games. But using lesbians as a way to entice gamers to a commercial and then lumping them in with things someone may find unpleasant is NOT not the recognition we are hoping to receive.
Related posts:
- GameCrush – Female Gamers as Commodities A portion of GameCrush’s site header; a painted target on...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Gunthera1 on June 20, 2010 at 10:00 am, and is filed under Console Games. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
No trackbacks yet.
Article about female main characters lures out the trolls
about 3 weeks ago - 19 comments
Recently Gamasutra posted an article by Leigh Alexander discussing Activision’s lack of female main characters in their games. The article included numerous quotes from former Activision employees outlining the company’s logic when designing main characters. There is a systemic “lose the chick” attitude for main characters: But 2007 was a year when the top sellers on
Seen: Nerd=Male, duh.
about 2 months ago - 15 comments
This morning, while reading webcomics in my Google Reader, I came across this little gem of an ad in my Questionable Content feed. “Nerds and lady-nerds”. You know, I usually don’t feel the need to append my gender to any identities or titles I might claim. I’m a geek, a nerd, a writer, a gamer,
Video: Bayonetta: Innovative Advertising or Sexual Harassment Training?
about 3 months ago - 14 comments
This video, from Feminist Frequency, was making the rounds this week. It discusses an advertising campaign in Japan to promote the videogame, Bayonetta, to which we’ve devoted a few blog posts. The video’s description reads: The widely popular video game Bayonetta has had an advertising campaign that matches the on screen sexism of the game
Rule 63
about 3 months ago - 30 comments
Rule # 63 of the internet “For any male character, there is a female version of that character.” Recently some images of popular game characters with their gender swapped have been floating around the internet. The original story has artwork by David Stonecipher of a female Luigi, Kratos, Ezio, Master Chief, Sephiroth and Link, and
Choice of Games on Gender, Sexuality, and Authorship in IF
about 3 months ago - 20 comments
Choice of Games, creators of inclusive web-based multiple choice games like Choice of the Dragon, recently released a new game called Choice of Broadsides, a naval adventure in the style of the Horatio Hornblower novels. (Both games are available to play for free online in your browser as well as on the iPhone/iPod Touch and
Family Friendly + Sexy = Sensationalism
about 4 months ago - 15 comments
It seems to have started off with the Daily Star (a site whose writing is one that should be taken with a grain of salt) reporting that Wii Fit had turned a woman ‘from Nintendo to nympho.’ What has resulted are numerous sites reporting this story, continuing in the sensationalism, and blowing up a story
Homosexuality in Mass Effect 2
about 4 months ago - 23 comments
Tracey John recently interviewed some people at Bioware and among the questions asked included one about the lack of homosexual relationships in Mass Effect 2. The article had a quote from Casey Hudson, the Mass Effect 2 project lead, “We still view it as… if you’re picturing a PG-13 action movie. That’s how we’re trying
Madison Paige Does Pull Triggers
about 6 months ago - 32 comments
(Warnings: trigger for rape, sexual assault, and spoilers for Heavy Rain) Heavy Rain’s Madison Paige has had some eyebrow-raising marketing use. There has been much talk of a strip scene that occurs in the game. Then there’s this past year’s videogame females in Playboy edition, which includes her. Among the primary problems with these images
![Shepard and Kaiden in Mass Effect 2. [Pictured: two people conversing, one a white woman with short red hair, the other a Japanese man with black hair, both wearing black, form-fitting space suits.]](http://borderhouseblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/kaidan-02-o.jpg "kaidan-02-o"){kind=small}
How Can Romance Storylines Be More Engaging?
about 6 months ago - 25 comments
This post contains some major end-game spoilers for Dragon Age as well as some minor character-related spoilers for Mass Effect 2. Between Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2, there’s been a lot of talk about romance storylines in games over the past several months. They are still something of a novelty, and many people feel
Bayonetta: Dragging Angels To Hell
about 6 months ago - 24 comments
By now, if you’ve kept track of the discussions on Bayonetta, you have likely heard that it is camp, so we can forgive it the transgressions of sexploitation; this does not quite create a true equation. Among the problems is whose definition of camp we are using, and this is a sticking point. For the
about 2 months ago
I’ve always thought it was the “stimulus package” after the Obama stimulus package. Guess I was wrong!
about 2 months ago
I think the double entendre applies to either though it seems more intentional here.
about 2 months ago
Hmm. I did not interpret the message as, “sexuality is dirty,” but rather as, “this geezer thinks sexuality is dirty.” I don’t think the audience is supposed to side with the actor.
about 2 months ago
Some of the audience will side with the actor, others will side with the “2 women together = hot” and there are problems with both of those tactics in a commercial. Neither one strikes me as a good way to advertise a first person shooter.
about 2 months ago
I’m not sure that I’m with you on this one. I think the ad is clearly designed to play to people who disagree with and dislike the character (as John says above,) thereby identifying with the object of his ire. I don’t think it sensationalizes lesbianism any more than it does heterosexuality or voyeurism.
The character’s message is not sex-positive, but the message of the ad is “this message is unpleasant.” I’m not sure about the transformation when the object of the ad is revealed – I think it’s pretty clear that he could still be talking about sex, but I think that either way you’re not supposed to agree with him.
I don’t think that it’s a good ad, though – I’m not really more likely to buy something because somebody I don’t like dislikes it.
about 2 months ago
I don’t think it sensationalizes lesbianism any more than it does heterosexuality or voyeurism.
To me, what makes it feel like lesbianism is being sensationalized somewhat is the fact that, as Matt mentions below, the advert pretty obviously does not include a “males doing it with males” scenario. All of the forms of sex brought up in the commercial are forms considered desirable to the heterosexual male gaze, under which lesbianism is commonly sensationalized, so I think it is trying to pander to that sensibility.
about 2 months ago
What baffles me is how this is intended to sell the product at all… your typical dudebro is likely to just get squicked out by the insinuation that what he’s doing with other dudebros = gay sex, the ad copy does nothing to sell the game as a game, and while I can see the everybody-is-doing-it-not-just-the-dudebros-so-whoever-you-are-come-try-it-out angle it’s just transparent enough to fall flat (and really this is one of those things you have to show instead of tell).
…so Modern Warfare is a turn-based resource-management Web game about negotiating with the locals in long-term counterinsurgency operations, right?
(In other news… does anyone else think this ad has almost the exact same sort of vibe as the Sega Genesis commercials from the early to mid 90s?)
about 2 months ago
“your typical dudebro is likely to just get squicked out by the insinuation that what he’s doing with other dudebros = gay sex”
Just watched the ad again and I stand correct. The script’s written quite deliberately to avoid ever explicitly mentioning two males “doing it”. The only intent here is to get the name of the game in more dudebros’ heads by establishing rapport with humour.
And only in the dudebros’ heads.
about 2 months ago
*corrected
Is there any way to edit these things at all???
about 2 months ago
They would never use the idea of gay sex. Dudebros have trouble hiding their homophobia when two men are mentioned. The image of two women, however, they will see as “sexy” and enticing. It as though the women are clearly doing this act only for the pleasure of the men watching rather than for themselves. I really despise two women being intimate being used as a vehicle for selling things to men. There are so many things wrong with that message.
about 2 months ago
And once again, I’m reminded and upset about Katy Perry.
about 2 months ago
I second a dislike for the commercial and further think that MW2 has had pretty much the most reprehensible ad campaign for any video game I’ve ever seen. Thanks Activision for bringing us all of the manufactured controversy you possibly could to promote this game. >.<
about 2 months ago
Even worse than Evony??? :O
about 2 months ago
Evony never tried to use F.A.G.S. as a comedic acronym to promote their game. Evony is just tacky softcore idiocy to promote a weak product, MW2′s stuff is the result of a massive advertising budget, that likely went through focus group after focus group to promote one of the highest selling things of all time and reaches a far greater audience with far less disdain shown for it’s disgusting bs.
about 2 months ago
I was just about to mention the “F.A.G.S.” ad. Instead of appealing to people they are just disgusting a lot of their potential audience.
about 2 months ago
…that’s official promo material!? Holy shit
…in other news, looking at the entire Wikipedia page dedicated to controversies about this stupid game I love how the Japanese and the German versions of the game are more civil… I hope America doesn’t have to go through what they did to learn.
about 2 months ago
Yup, official promo material launched by the MW2′s community manager
about 2 months ago
I find it interesting that the ad treats sex/getting the stimulus package as a dirty thing but you should do it because others are doing it. They are basically saying that someone should act and/or behave based off of how other people are acting or behaving. It is implying that the majority is right, but history has shown on multiple occasions that the majority can be wrong. It is also admitting that the stimulus package is an overpriced middle finger to all gamers (which it is). But that’s okay because everyone else is doing it.