Jul 2, 2012

Advertising With Hadarat Nashim

This is interesting, and a bit strange. Shmuel Pappenheim (from the Eida) posted on his Facebook page (yes, Shmuel Pappenheim is a unique fellow) the following images:



They are unusual in the sense that if you look carefully you will see that they are advertisements for female products, such as tampons, breast cancer awareness, birthing classes, female fashion, etc but the models in the advertisements are all haredi men.

I thought it was weird when someone first pointed it out to me, and did not know the background. It turns out that this was a display created by a student in a school of art in Haifa. The project before the students was to express in art something in the current news of Israel. This student created this ad campaign to represent the issue of "hadarat nashim" in the Haredi community. His art looks at what advertising female products would look like in the Haredi ads.

While it may be strange, the truth is that it is fairly close to reality.What is especially wrong about it is that even with m,ale models no haredi ad campaign would publicize female products like these. No haredi magazine would advertise tampons or breast cancer awareness, even with a male model.

What is realistic about it is sometimes one reads the haredi papers and is reading an article about a woman, maybe someone received an honor, maybe is the feature of a news event, or whatever, yet the image embedded in the article is of a man, sometimes her husband, sometimes someone peripherally connected to the story.

Anyways, Bechadrei says that after this was publicized (the student posted it on the schools Facebook page. The school took it down fairly quickly, but it had already been noticed). One of the models featured is considering suing for using his image without permission in a way that is harmful to him.

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3 comments:

  1. Unoriginal - Michael Jordan did a parody commercial for a feminine hygiene product on SNL years ago. ("Hey Michael, ever get that not-so-fresh feeling?")

    I'm surprised you, as a Chicagoan, didn't pick up on that.

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  2. i don't recall the clip. don't forget I have been in Israel over 20 years. I have not watched more than just a few clips of snl in that time.
    i Will have to look for it

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  3. You know what? I think the breast cancer awareness one is excellent. Piqu'ah nefesh maybe? The could call it "Cancer Awareness."

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