What do you think of princesses who swear like sailors?

Personally, hate it. Everything about it is cynical and opportunistic.

I don't think there's something deep beneath the surface here. Just classic shock tactics to galvanize its victimhood core and use outraged men as viral vehicles. This took little intelligence, just some visual design and lines parroted from a thousand other places.

Other subtexts:

* "We're coming for your kids, and we're gonna puppeteer them"- Major kneejerk response, esp from dads who fear losing a grip on their parenting and not being loved/respected by their kids. .

* "You are an idiot, and everything you think is feminine is a societal construct and smokeshow for idiotic misogynists like you". That's both a lie and condescending. And people don't like being lied and condescended to.

* Bunch of buzzwords, rape, pay inequality, etc which trigger guilt instinct- "Huh, did I actually do that? what does this have to do with me?"

Will they sell more T-shirts? Maybe. But it's a pyrrhic victory.

The truth is most men aren't the enemy. At worst they're indifferent. And it does them no favors to carpet bomb an entire gender with their marketing. Feminism needs goodwill to succeed (though frankly I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish anymore).

The feminists made a big marketing mistake when they tried to implicate every man in some kind of original sin, and that's where the pushback is coming from. Ironically, the tactics they're resorting to are going to push even open minded people to the other extreme. The "refund" effect, if you will.

I think it misses the underlying premise of the polarization
of people who care or don't about cursing. The people who
put importance on "proper" language have a visceral
response to cursing. They are the real target audience of
this piece and they'll just stop listening and the message
is lost.

For those who do not place the same importance on language
the message loses impact. There's no shock value and they,
most likely, already feel the issue of gender inequality is more
important.

This.

I love pushing the line when it comes to boundaries. So seeing girls cuss in a video doesn't bother me. But it's not the cussing that's a turn off, it's the overall attitude/way of talking throughout the video. I felt like I was in line at walmart. It's not the polarization of people that forced the message to be lost, it was the content and delivery.

Exploiting women = bad
Exploiting children = good?

Because the propaganda is mostly BS and focuses on being destructive to men rather than empowering to women. The group being attacked will be defensive. And if women understood how the video is damaging to them as well then they would be upset about the propaganda too. But that requires more than 1 step in the thinking process and, yeah... facebook. Then again, I'm just a walking rape machine because I've never been taught not to be so, so I might be wrong here.

Interesting... or maybe appalling thing is... these Tees are sold by a FOR PROFIT company... who promise to donate a percentage of sales to charity. The same company FCKH8 made a profit off Ferguson by selling Ferguson t-shirts. Now they're profiting off feminism. Who wants to bet on their next target? Homosexuality? Trans-sexuality? Ebola? Oh yeah - gotta be Ebola.
It's f*cked-up, man.

I mean... from a marketing standpoint I'm sure it's working well.

From an ethical standpoint, it seems a little screwed up to have children swearing all in an effort to sell shirts.

From a truthfulness standpoint, it's beyond f*cked up, considering all of the things the campaign is supposedly rallying for (the supposed wage gap between men and women chief among them) are complete myths that have been repeatedly disproved by economists.

But hey, if they can get idiots to but t-shirts based on made up statistics and overly dramatized causes, I guess that's... good for them?

Well technically speaking just about every advertiser or marketer out there uses the stats that support their cause. Depending on how you look at the research, everything has been both proven and disproven several times over.

It seems the biggest issue is that they're claiming to be about feminism (or any other causes for that matter) while they're really about selling shirts. After that, it's the facts and how the facts were presented.

I'm noticing an interesting trend and I'm curious as to whether it will hold true here too.

By and large, parents tend to be most disgusted with the language/presentation. Not a scientific measurement by any stretch of the imagination. Just the reactions I've observed in my own circles.

As far as exploiting children is concerned, I think that argument can be made of just about any company that uses children to sell. I'm curious as to why THIS exploitation has so many all up in arms. Just language? Feminist propaganda? Both?

Thanks all for participating I love intellectual discussions about controversial topics.

I should add for clarity's sake: unmarried with no kids. I consider myself a gender quality activist/feminist. I wasn't bothered by this and was in fact highly amused. But then again, I swear a lot (maybe not so much as these girls though). I also wasn't moved to buy a t-shirt, despite the amusement. And I think the main message is very unclear. Definitely could have been done better.

I think anytime kids are used to voice support (or just appear to support) a religious or political view there is push back. It's makes people uncomfortable. There is a sense that adults have taken advantage of their innocents and made them say things they may later regret. It's a visceral reaction. The word "exploitation" is used to convey that discomfort.

Advertising Bucks Super Pizza has the best pizza EVER is fine. Kids like pizza. It's "cute" and "quirky." Nothing to be uncomfortable about.

So the difference is not really the situation, kids used to push/sell an idea, it's how that idea makes the audience feel.

Pizza: Non-threatening.
Teach men not to rape: Threatening

That's my take.

Don't most die-hard feminists usually get offended at being called "girl" instead of "woman"? (See tshirt)

"Bossy" is the wrong word because it gives a negative tone. I think you're looking for "leadership exuberation."

DISCLAIMER: I didn't watch the video, neither here nor on the FB discussion.

I was born and educated where you can get jail time for using the F-word, so you
can understand my sensitivity to reading or hearing it.

BUT any marketer who has to go to such extreme to get attention shows that he
lacks creativity. It's like running naked across the football field at the Super Bowl
rather than creating an effective Super Bowl ad. One is easy and the other takes brain.

-Ray Edwards

I like it. Are there hardly any women in this section of the forum?

It's funny how people are upset about this selling t-shirts but the princess dresses and makeup those kids are wearing seem completely legit apparently.

They ripped off Pearl!

My fiance and I were just talking about this topic.

Honestly, this thread just about lost me at "princesses." Pop culture teaching little girls that they're all little princesses and that, because of that, they'll find this amazing prince charming of a man who will sweep them off their feet and worship the ground they walk on, give them everything thing they demand and even pee sitting down if she nags him hard enough about leaving the toilet seat up.

Then, they grow up and find that no man can stand to even date them for longer than 3 months. No matter how hot they are or how many accessories they have. Adding this masculine edge will only take away any last shred of feminine appeal. Maybe, in 2045, they can all marry each other and have test tube babies.

They'll still have to hire someone to kill the spiders.

I never dreamed of being a princess and having a prince rescue me when I was a little girl.

And my dear southern mama never let me think I was one either.

But then again, my idea of a fun time was always climbing trees and making mud pies. It wasn't until Merida from Brave that I felt there was a Disney princess like me.

This topic was on one of the tv talk shows today. Even had one of the little girls there being interviewed -- the main one dropping the f-bomb, I think. She seemed a little clueless, like she was parroting what the grownups taught her to say.

Anyway -- guess what I learned? The ad was written by a guy! Not that it matters (...or does it)?

Hmm....

Gheeeeeeeeeeeeetttt-ooooooooooooo

This is so stupid. In business, ie in our marketing, good taste should always prevail. Male or female. It makes absolutely no difference. In my personal life, and on occasion on Facebook, I do talk like a sailor. If people don't like it, that can delete me. I couldn't care less. But in my marketing and in my business communications, I use common sense and good taste. What other people do is there business. I don't care. But, I won't buy from someone who writes emails to "Hey Susanna" or "Hey" or some other stupid greeting. Bad enough they use my first name when they don't even know me and they're probably eighteen if they're a day.