Posting this here to get the reaction of other women and GLBT folks who hang out here. In the other forums, I suspect the guys would just say "meh, standard."
Paddy Power is a Irish sports book that also runs an online poker room. Unfortunately, it's not available to us Yanks, but I understand that it is pretty popular in Europe. They have a history of ads that are a bit over the top, and have had ads pulled before.
in this case, they put out an ad called
Ladies Day asks viewers to spot the "transgendered" ladies among a crowd of horse racing fans. I'd like folks here to take a lot and see what they think.
The ad was previously cleared by British agency Clearcast which pre-vets commercials according to Advertising Standards, who considered the humour while not to everyone's taste, falling short of causing offense. Paddy Power also claimed to have gained script approval from a UK transgender group called the Beaumont Society.
ESPN refused to run the ad, and it's been pulled from other outlets after a number of complaints about it.
I have to admit that I did laugh, as did most other transwomen that I've shown it to. On the other hand, it makes me cringe to see the whole he/she guessing game genre, and it's clearly somewhat sexist as well. On the whole, I don't think that it's any worse than what I usually see on Jerry Springer or Maury Povitch, it's just not any better.
If you look at
Paddy Power's other ads they tend to be a bit controversial, featuring a number of homophobic scenarios, but I think that could be said for a lot of ads that are featured during broadcasts that are aimed at a very male audience like the WSOP. Those Milwaukee Best Beer ads a few years ago, for instance where "men should act like men" and be super macho.
Interested to see what the take is on this ad here.
thanks,
Shauna
