Whenever I watch Axe commercials I always picture the crazed women hordes reaching the guy and just pulling him apart like the zombies from Shawn of the Dead, while he screams in agony…anyway I liked Sarah’s expression of revulsion in the bit on the couch.  You do wonder how many women who pipe up with really inappropriate stuff about kids etc. on the first date do it to drive the guy away.  I hope it’s lots. 

Whenever I watch Axe commercials I always picture the crazed women hordes reaching the guy and just pulling him apart like the zombies from Shawn of the Dead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maenad

This is news? Two words: Beer Commercials. I found them ridiculous by the time I could drink. It’s about time someone made sport of these ads.

BTW, I like how the Febreze bottle ejaculated.

actually, i think about the execution scene in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, but hey, that’s just me!

quite amusing. however (there’s always a “however”!), what i noticed right off was that, with the sole exception of the commercial for the men’s hair dye, the rest were supposed to be funny, not to be taken seriously. at least, i never have.

oh dear….............................

The idea of this commercial is a variant of “you’ll have to beat them off of you with a stick”.

Never saw the Burger King commercial before.  Facepalmed myself so hard that there’s a big red handprint between my eyes.

This is news? Two words: Beer Commercials. I found them ridiculous by the time I could drink. It’s about time someone made sport of these ads.

Of course, another motief in the beer ads is the idea of preferring beer to women. And sometimes the ads do both.

Of course, besides annoying ads, BK is the only national chain to offer veggie burgers.  They’re frozen, pre-fried, but hey… Have it your way and all, they’re actually going through with it.

I’ve seen at least some amusing beer commercials.  The old series of “gimme a light” commercials was pretty classic.  I’ve never, however, seen an Axe commercial that wasn’t just dreadful.

And even when a commercial makes fun of a trope, it’s still reinforcing it—the ultimate idea, after all, is to get a guy to see their product and think “hot chick”. It’s like the ads that make liberals think nice thoughts about archer daniels midland.

I think I liked it better when beer was sold by cartoon bears, as nature intended.

I think I liked it better when beer was sold by cartoon bears, as nature intended.

The sad part is, I didn’t even have to clink your link to have the entire jingle go through my head.  They used the exact same song well into the 1980s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maenad

The Neal Gaiman version of the story has so infected my brain that I forgot that Orpheus is actually killed in the original myth.

“I forgot that Orpheus is actually killed in the original myth.”

Define Original.  Ancient myths were often found in multiple forms depending on exaclty what message was trying to be conveyed.  You can talk about which one was written down first, but that doesn’t mean it was the “original” version, just the first one someone with access to an alphabet plonked down.  For all we know, Gaiman reinterated the first version verbatim by pure cosmic chance

Axe commercials?  Too over the top to be taken seriously except by idiots.  Riiiiight - all I have to do is spray this scent and women will flock to me.  Whatever.  I find the commercials mildly amusing.  And no, I use another brand of deodorant.

Plus, Axe smells terrible. But I’m not its target victim, so maybe that has something to do with it.

And even when a commercial makes fun of a trope, it’s still reinforcing it

Fail.

I tell ya, though. Target Women is pretty awesome, but Current kinda lost me when they started having serious issues with mission creep…

Plus, Axe smells terrible. But I’m not its target victim, so maybe that has something to do with it.

I am the target audience, and I find the smell nauseating.  And it’s that cheap kind of shit that actually seems to stick to the back of your throat and noise in an oily, smarmy puddle and make inroads into your brain randomly for the next twenty minutes.

Sure, I want to attack guys who have it on.  With my steel-toed boots.

Dammit.  That should be NOSE.

FFS

Axe is aerosolized desperation.  Whether or not the ads were originally meant to be tongue-in-cheek, the earnest manner in which those fetid compounds have been embraced by the 16-28 male set makes the intentions of the ad execs irrelevant.

Making fun of a trope only reinforces it if one assumes the vast majority of viewers won’t spot the satire, or somehow manage to subordinate their initial reaction and internalize the trope anyway.  In the case of the Axe demographic, the latter seems more likely.

something one of my boys brought up: why aren’t the gay guys chasing the guy with the AXE cologne, too?

I do like the chocolate man ad, though.

something one of my boys brought up: why aren’t the gay guys chasing the guy with the AXE cologne, too?

THAT would be a great commercial!

Whether or not the ads were originally meant to be tongue-in-cheek, the earnest manner in which those fetid compounds have been embraced by the 16-28 male set makes the intentions of the ad execs irrelevant.

Or they might have bought the product because they recognized the over the top humor in the commercials and thought they were funny.  16-28 year old males as a group aren’t really stupid enough to think that deodorant is an aphrodisiac.

something one of my boys brought up: why aren’t the gay guys chasing the guy with the AXE cologne, too?

OH GOD. Anyone remember the Chris Farley (i loved him) SNL skit where featuring the Swedish Bikini Team? Only it’s all men, and Chris and his buddy are high fiving each other? It Doesn’t Get any Better Then This? HILAROUS.

Gee wow, guys and gals. Thanks to Richard Goblin, I now realize these commercials were supposed to be jokes! I mean, I was convinced Axe would turn me into a giant chocolate man. Thanks for the insight Richard.

“Whenever I watch Axe commercials I always picture the crazed women hordes reaching the guy and just pulling him apart like the zombies from Shawn of the Dead, while he screams in agony…”

The Buffy episode from Season 3 where that almost happens to Xander was pretty awesome.

“OH GOD. Anyone remember the Chris Farley (i loved him) SNL skit where featuring the Swedish Bikini Team? Only it’s all men, and Chris and his buddy are high fiving each other? It Doesn’t Get any Better Then This? HILAROUS.”

Was that the Schlitz Gay ad? My memory of that is a little hazy, but it wasn’t it just like a normal beer commercial with the straight men and women replaced with gay guys.

I could swear I remember the “Women flock to men who use this cologne” thing being done in the sixties or at least the early 70s.  Or maybe it was after-shave.  Remember when Joe Namath endorsed Brut?  Women flocked to him, but even as a child I realized that women flocked to him because he was Joe Frickin’ Namath and he was wealthy and a big star and had a reputation as the ultimate in cool and hip.

Do they even have after-shave anymore?  I started shaving at 13 and bought a bottle of Brut after-shave.  I stopped using it after shaving because, the first time I did, having nicked myself, found out why you shouldn’t rub alcohol into a wound.  Also, even with the Brut after-shave, women didn’t flock to me.  I never understood why they didn’t.  I was a hot mess, after all.  Thirteen, near-sighted, after-shaved, Bar Mitzvahed and ready to rock.  Where’d the chicks go?  Joe Namath said that if I used Brut, women would flock to me.

Who else remembers Hai Karate commercials?  Stupidest commercials ever and the forerunner of Axe.  The hot chick goes nuts over him and he starts fighting her off.  What the hell?  Wasn’t the point of using the cologne to have the hot chick go nuts over you?

DBK:

But the point of having hot chicks go nuts over you is to be able to humiliate them before allowing them to service you.

Two words: Beer Commercials.

Two more words:  Beer goggles.  After a couple belgiums I’m the smartest, funniest, toughest, prettiest guy in the bar.

Let’s not forget Douche Cologne

“Whenever I watch Axe commercials I always picture the crazed women hordes reaching the guy and just pulling him apart like the zombies from Shawn of the Dead, while he screams in agony…”

I can’t remember the name of the story, but there was a ‘love potion’ story by William Tenn that ends that way, or maybe it was Robert Sheckley?

“I could swear I remember the “Women flock to men who use this cologne” thing being done in the sixties or at least the early 70s.  Or maybe it was after-shave. “

Check my link @ 5, that was for Hai Karate, that’s a very young Regis Philbin you see in the clip, which was a live commercial, back when the stars weren’t too proud to be selling something…......

Well….

All true and an AXE user being mobbed by zombies and some such would be hilarious.  However, smell is important to sexual attraction.  The natural smell of the target sex is wonderful.  However, are their smells that you particularly find attractive (that you’ll admit)?

I can’t remember the name of the story, but there was a ‘love potion’ story by William Tenn that ends that way, or maybe it was Robert Sheckley?

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

“Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer” ends that way, at least the book version.

@ #33: spot on. These commercials don’t parody the tropes, they enhance them through humour. Saying something is “a joke” is about as meanigful as saying “it’s on telly” - you have to look at what the jokes is, whose expense it’s at, and what it’s target is before you know whether the parody defense can stand or not.

I had this fantasy on the way to work today, where the Burger King commercial or that cable commercial go on longer than we’ve seen, and the guy who’s had the chicks flock to him turns around to one of them and says “so, you want to have sex?” and she shrieks and runs away, or hits him with her handbag, or screams “rapist!”, or just looks at him in disgust. Now that would have been trope subversion!

Like in <i>Tootsie<>, where Dustin Hoffman, out of drag for once, comes up to Jessica Lange and delivers the exact speech she had told his female self she longed to hear from men, almost word for word. All about how let’s not play games and just get down to the dirty. She throws her drink in his face. The moral there was not, like so many of my male friends wanted to believe “women are crazy and don’t know what they want”, but “women only fall for the cheesy tricks of guys they already find attractive”.

The latest ond spice commercial I’ve seen, is really just awful. (I wear it because I’m a man…? WTF?)