+
More

'SNL' Brilliantly Skewers Sexist Super Bowl Snack Commercials With This Parody Ad

When you think of a sexist Super Bowl ad, you probably think of the over-the-top, highly sexual, objectifying ads that companies like Carls Jr. and GoDaddy often run. But those are just the most obvious culprits.

On "Saturday Night Live," Vanessa Bayer and host J.K. Simmons took aim at the slightly more subtle sexism of game-day snack commercials.

Namely, the idea that women in commercials love nothing more than making snacks for their husbands and their husband's friends who are watching the game.


Of course, there's nothing wrong with enjoying making snacks for everyone, but it's the way these ads like to portray women that's outdated.

It's like the people behind these ads think women have nothing better to do than serve microwaved snacks to their husbands.

(Divorce him. Divorce him nowwwwww.)

And even if women did want to watch the game, advertisers seem to think football is too complicated for most women to follow.

But will she understand what a quarter is?!?! Everyone knows women can't do math!

SNL's parody of these ads features a product called the "Super Bowl Activity Pack (For Women!)" that gives all the wives trapped in their kitchens in Super Bowl commercials something to do in between feeding their hungry guys.

"For women!"

You know, I wouldn't put it past some companies to actually create a product like this. Because according to most advertisers, ALL MEN love football and ALL WOMEN can't watch it because it's too hard for their tiny brains to handle. As though there's no such thing as a woman who likes football and a man who couldn't care less.

These ads want you to think that all women prefer staying in the kitchen.

And it's totally OK if you genuinely enjoy being on snack duty, but it's so rare that we see anything other than that in these ads, and that's a problem.


I swear I've heard almost this exact bit of dialogue in a commercial before.

And, of course, despite preparing all the delicious food, women aren't supposed to eat much of it.

Because that wouldn't be ladylike. Not to mention, it might make them fat. And fat women have no place in commercials, especially Super Bowl commercials, unless they're advertising how to lose weight. At least, that's the message advertisers love to send. I'm rolling my eyes so hard you can probably hear it.

These ads aren't very kind to men, either. Men are often portrayed as being annoyed and frustrated with their clueless wives.

Because in a loving and healthy relationship, you never want your significant other to share in the activities you enjoy. Right? How weird is that!?


Isn't it kind of insulting to men for ads to imply that men need women to microwave a snack for them? I'm pretty sure most men can handle something that simple. If only advertisers had that much confidence in them.

Of course, this isn't a real ad. It's just a parody.

But keep your eyes open while you're watching commercials during any sports game, and you'll start to see these tropes being used over and over again.

What can you do to change the way advertisers sell products?

If you're on Twitter, use the hashtag #NotBuyingIt to tweet at advertisers who are using sexist and outdated gender roles to sell products. The campaign has been successful at getting advertisers to change their ways, and the more people who speak up, the sooner we'll get ads that are fairer to people of all genders.

Sponsored

ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

True

If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

Keep ReadingShow less

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
Keep ReadingShow less
@Steve_Perrault/Twitter

Some moments never get old.

On November 19, 1999, a man named John Carpenter made game show history and quite possibly gave us all the greatest game show moment of all time.

Carpenter was a contestant on the very first season of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” shot in America. Hosted by the late Regis Philbin, the quiz show featured three "lifeline" options to help them with difficult questions, the most popular being able to “Phone-a-Friend.”

Carpenter had impressively not used a single lifeline for any of his questions. That is, until question 15. The million-dollar question, to be exact.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

Keep ReadingShow less

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

Keep ReadingShow less