The deluge of blog posts that sunk the most sexist men’s casualwear ad – EVER!

Did you catch the JCPenney commercial with the bikini-clad teenager? It had been blogged about here and there a few months ago, but Copyranter’s coverage seems to have open the gate to the recent flood of opinions. And boy did the opinions flow. So much so that JCPenney has apparently pulled the ad.

Behold, the power of the blogosphere!

Copyranter:
“Nice way to catch the attention of 40+ year-old horndog sports guys, I guess—using video of a girl about the age of their daughters.”

 

AdFreak:
“Now, there’s this dirty-old-man ad, clearly aimed at guys who remember the iconic stoner flick and might have replayed that Cates scene in their heads a million times. That was almost 30 years ago. Using the pubescent Cates now is not only weird and random, it’s just plain pervy.” – T.L. Stanley

 

Jezebel:
“Are you using computers to come up with your concepts now? Did this ad result from some sort of ad algorithm gone wrong: lady in bikini + sports personality = middle-aged men buy things. Beep bop boop.” – Cassie Murdoch

 

The Consumerist:
“What will you remember after watching it? That you really love Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Survey says? Advertising fail!” – MB Quirk

 

Styleite:
“We’re starting to wonder if J.C. Penney is actively courting bad press.” – Verena von Pfetten

 

Village Voice (Runnin’ Scared Blog):
“The one thing this doesn’t do is make us want to buy men’s clothing from J.C. Penney, so we guess it’s a lose-lose on that count.” – Jen Doll

 

Mommyish:
“I’m glad that, for once, this blatant sexism isn’t directly marketed towards girls. But, even so, it’s insulting to men and sends the message that they’re all nothing but horny, hot-chick-obsessed beings.” – Shawna Cohen

 

Racked:
Remember a couple of weeks ago, JCPenney was busy trying to sell teenage girls this “I’m too pretty to do homework” shirt? Well, the sexist team at JCP are at it again

 

Sociological Images:
“I’m not sure that quite everybody wins here. No, not quite everybody.” – Gwen Sharp

 

BlissTree:
So maybe we should take JC Penney’s use of Phoebe Cates‘ sexy bikini-clad body to sell dress shirts as a clever compliment to the female form, but instead, we mostly feel insulted by the implication that our bodies are just an advertising prop.” – Briana Rognlin

 

NowPublic:
“Maybe the strip-mall retailer should have used another Phoebe Cates film: Gremlins.”

 

The Huffington Post:
“We have to admit, when we saw the ad on TV, we just rolled our eyes at how blatant and unoriginal it was — how many ads have used girls in bikinis to sell, well, anything and everything besides a bikini? We’re so used to it… but does that make it any less wrong?” – Ellie Krupnick