BEST OVERALL: Dove Men+Care’s “The Journey to Comfort”
At last, a commercial that celebrates manhood without being sexist, stupid or beer-related! It’s basically a mini-movie crammed into 45-seconds (seriously, try counting the number of scenes they had to shoot) that follows one Everyman’s life from birth to adulthood by highlighting the big moments as well as the mundane ones: puberty, love, marriage, jar-opening, parenthood. The message is “You’re mature and comfortable enough in your own skin that you don’t have to worry about seeming like a pussy if you want to moisturize your skin.” And it avoids all the divisive or offensive gender stereotypes often found in Super Bowl ads. BUT — and it’s a big “but” — the title of “best ad” only applies to the 45-second version that aired during the Super Bowl last night. If you search online for it (and on the Dove site), the version that will probably come up first is the ONE minute version, which sadly DOES include a bunch of tired gender stereotypes, like fighting at parties, never showing your sensitive side and never showing fear — ugh! Like with good film making, good commercial making is all about editing, editing, editing.
45-Second Version (Yay!):
One-Minute Version (Boo!):
See the winners for “Most Romantic,” “Most Sexist” and “Funniest” after the jump:
To kick off your Superbowl weekend, check out these 3 bits that you won’t (but should!) see during the game this Sunday — all are in response to the anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-gay Christian group Focus on the Family’s 2.5-million-dollar spot (that we mentioned the other day) featuring football star Tim Tebow and his mom talking about how she refused to have an abortion after doctors advised her to. Hey, good for Mrs. Tebow, who had the right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health! Guess we can now hold our breath until CBS runs an equally “appropriate” ad about preserving that right to choose:
1644 painting “Ideal View of Tivoli” by Claude Lorrain
It’s a long standing tradition that the mayors of the two teams fighting it out in a sports championship, such as the World Series or Super Bowl, will wager on the outcome and bet their city’s local offerings, typically food. In this year’s Super Bowl, the respective museums of the two cities, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Indianapolis Museum of Art are beating their proverbial (artsy) chests and betting a major art piece from their collection. There’s been a lot of trash talk between the two museum directors as words such as “insignificant” and “gaudy tchotchke” to describe some of the paitings has been tossed and tweeted back and forth.
