Transgender people in advertising
IN THE MEDIA
Bruce Chambers / National / Saturday, December 31, 2011
http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Transgender_people_in_advertising-11307.aspxIn October, General Mills' Totino's brand ran a promotion called Who's the next Totino's Pizza Stuffers Mom? It included dramatized video of actors playing mothers auditioning for the role. All the videos were meant to be funny, including one that showed what was obviously a "masculine" man dressed up in comedic women's makeup, wig and dress. The joke was that this guy wanted to win so badly he was willing to dress in women's clothing.
Men-dressed-like-women-for-laughs is a tried and true attention-getting device in advertising. In 2010, a Miller Lite commercial featured a guy in a skirt being told to "man up" by choosing the right beer. A 2009 commercial for KGB text service showed a guy forced to dress in women's clothing after losing a sports bet. A 2008 commercial from Australia featured a fundraising promotion called Cross Dress for Red Cross, which showed average blokes acting silly in dresses. A 2008 Renault commercial from France showed a young man discovering his father in full drag waiting to get into a nightclub. But this one ended a little more constructively, with the son asking his dad to help him get into the club too.
