Oh, J.C. Penney, you need some help, don’t you? First, with that ridiculous “Too Pretty for Homework” t-shirt and now with this insanely misguided commercial. It might—might—be excusable to use a bikini-clad Phoebe Cates (from 1982, wtf?!) to sell your men’s dress shirts if it made ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER. But it doesn’t! Are you using computers to come up with your concepts now? Did this ad result from some sort of ad algorithm gone wrong: lady in bikini + sports personality = middle-aged men buy things. Beep bop boop. Yeah, the problem with that equation is this: in these modern times, if you insist on playing off of broad stereotypes, an ad has to be clever and funny.
This ad isn’t offensive because it’s sexist (though it is), it’s offensive because it’s stupid. It insults men by assuming that they’re such Neanderthals that they won’t watch ads or shop unless there’s the promise of sex involved. It insults women by, duh, objectifying them (and also sullies the memory of the adorable and talented Phoebe Cates in Fast Times at Ridgemont High). At least in beer commercials, they’re using hot, half-naked women to sell a fantasy lifestyle to men. Here they’re using one to, what? Give you permission to jack off in the dressing room while you shop? It seems like—contrary to the ad’s banal claim that “everybody wins!”—nobody wins! Congratulations, J.C. Penney, it is seriously hot in here…which is exactly how people want it to be when they shop at a boring department store in the mall?
