Rose Petal NOTtage

When I looked the ad up on YouTube so I could watch it again, I read through some of the comments. They ranged from extreme disapproval to reasonable defense to complete nonsense, as is the norm with YouTube. One comment that received a lot of dislikes was this:

"funny huh.... when a girl wants to be in the army or something manly everyone "praises her and will fight for her wants" when a girl just wants to be a house wife... everyone thinks she's weak and no one will let her have what she wants...."

I thought this was a good attempt at reason. The commenter clearly has good intentions, but I think he or she looked at the ad from the wrong angle. I agree completely that if a girl wants to be a housewife, she should not be subjected to criticism. But the problem that the commenter is not addressing is that this ad is addressing young, impressionable girls with the idea that being a housewife is a "dream, dream, dream." Some of the tag lines for the product include  "For little girls with big dreams" and "A place where she can contain her imagination." These phrases very clearly give off the idea that a little girl cannot dream any bigger or go any further or imagine any greater than being a housewife. Yes, being a housewife is a perfectly honorable route in life, as is being a soldier, but that doesn't mean that it is okay to give young girls the impression that being a housewife is the best and only path they can take.

Anyway, as far as making a new ad, I think it's a pretty easy fix. I would change the name, first of all, and give it a more fun, gender-neutral name such as "Kidville Playhouse." That's the name my group came up with. Then I would change the color scheme. I would replace the pastels with bright primary colors, giving it a not-so-serious vibe, because I think it's important that this toy does not too closely resemble an actual house in order to avoid having kids grow up too fast. 

For the action in the ad, I am picturing an adaptation of the Out of the Box theme song. This was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid, and I think it definitely helped me expand my imagination. I think the ad should picture kids of all races and both genders helping each other set up the house and then assuming various roles in groups, some groups all girls, some all boys, some a mix. The playhouse would be pictured on a field of green grass, with kids surrounding it on all sides doing different activities.

I think the most important element of the ad should not be the housework accessories, but the imagination required for a kid to make an actual house out of a four foot wide hunk of plastic. This way, gender is not even addressed, and rather than teaching girls how to do housework, it's teaching kids how to make something great out of something that's just okay. I know that's what I would have wanted to get out of it when I was that age. In fact, that's what I want to get out of life now.

-Saige