23rd Jul 2008
Goodyear Tires: for the helpless female driver
Here’s a novel thought… when there’s no man around, change your own tire. In college I had to change a flat when there were men around — simply because I’d learned how and they hadn’t. (They helped, of course, but they didn’t know what lug nuts were. Of course, they were Harvard boys, so there ya go.) We’d gotten the flat on the Mass Pike, and eventually a state trooper stopped — and he fucking stood there and watched while I was putting the spare on. Didn’t even offer to help. (Probably just wanted to make sure we’d stop blocking the shoulder of the turnpike soon. Ahhh, Massachusetts driving, how I loved thee…)
So, whether there’s a man around or not, it’s probably a good idea to learn how to change your own tires, check your oil, pump gas, and all those little things that keep a car moving. (Hell, just not driving over large metal spikes might help.) You’ll then be less likely to hike to a phone booth in your high heels.
What I really can’t figure out about the commercial, though, is why the narrator is talking kinda like a soft-core porn narrator when he first says, “When there’s no man around…” It sounds like he’s introducing a scene in a sorority house that involves underwear and pillow fights. Making car tires sexy just doesn’t really work.
Via Feministing.
Note the tag at the end, “Give her a second chance”? It sounds like the target audience was men buying cars for their daughters or trophy wives. (After all, why would a woman be picking out tires?) Hence the Psycho-like atmosphere; you don’t want Norman Bates jumping out at your treasure while she’s trying to call AAA.