"This ad is a shameless attempt to make consumers think they are doing something worthwhile in buying overpriced gifts in a failing store that used to share its profits with staff but hasn't paid them any bonus in the past few years. If anything, the relentless pressure of advertising (where the Christmas season starts earlier each year) only serves to pile more pressure on people who are struggling."
"Your editorial's claim that the new John Lewis Christmas ad was harking back to the 1990s and evoked a less complicated time to be a young man would be news to anyone who remembers that time as the era of laddism and Loaded, and the underlying unease about men's emotional lives as shown in novels such as Tim Lott's White City Blue and Nick Hornby's About a Boy. Questions of contemporary masculinity and fatherhood existed back then too."
"After reading your editorial on the John Lewis Christmas ad, am I the only one to feel uncomfortable that not only are the females in the narrative shadowy figures in the background but that their roles are domestic tasks? I'm all for positive male role modelling, but not with the (unintended) negative consequence of perpetuating female stereotypes. Brigid Reid Leeds"
Critics argue the John Lewis Christmas ad manipulates consumer sentiment to drive purchases for a retailer seen as overpriced and financially struggling, which has not paid staff bonuses recently. The increasingly early Christmas advertising season intensifies economic pressure on people already struggling. The ad's warmth is described as cynical, engineered to trigger a habitual shopping response. Nostalgic depictions of masculinity are contested, with critics noting that 1990s culture already contained laddism and anxieties about men's emotions. The ad's portrayal of women as shadowy, domestic background figures raises concerns about reinforcing female stereotypes despite promoting male role models.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]