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Well, I *Was* Thinking About A Droid

2009 December 7 at 9:34 AM (2009, advertising, feminism, i write letters, pop culture)

…and then this weekend I saw the Verizon/Motorola ad spots, which are all about how manly and robotic and fast and strong and super awesome and completely not girly the Droid is. Lines from the ad include “tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen” and, “it’s not a princess, it’s a robot.” Kara describes the ad at All Things Digital

“Should a phone be pretty?” [the ad] begins, using an odd series of images that is packed full of random misogyny. “Should it be a tiara-wearing, digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?”

Then comes all the manly imagery–a racehorse, a powerfully pointed Scud missile, bananas and buzzsaws to represent the Droid. A surging missile, as well as several creamy explosions too. Get it?

And let’s not forget the bunch of fey, effeminately-dressed mannequins, with one getting bashed with an ink-filled ball thrown by some tough masked thug with the line, “Is it a precious porcelain figurine of a phone?”

Then back to anti-women name-calling, saying an iPhone is a “princess,” unlike the Droid, “a phone that trades hair-do for can-do.”

The ad suggests that the Droid is a toy for techie men, and that women are universally delicate idiots who value aesthetics over tech capabilities. I’m quite disappointed, because I had been seriously considering purchasing a Droid (my family is currently debating between Droids and iPhones, although I think we’ll end up sticking with feature phones), and now my excitement over the phone has completely soured: I have absolutely no desire to support a product or a business that treats me, a potential customer, as an idiot. I have absolutely no desire to support the continued misogynistic stereotyping and dismissal of women by giving money that, ironically, I earned while working in a tech-related, male-dominated field, to a product sold with this ad campaign.

I wrote a letter to Verizon and Motorola, using the addresses from Geekfeminism’s post on the subject:

To Whom It May Concern,

I am currently a Verizon customer with a contract up for renewal and a phone upgrade. Based on the tech specs, I had been considering upgrading from my current feature phone and purchasing a Droid handset. Indeed, I was the one to suggest the Droid to my brother, who is also looking for a new phone; my father, who currently has an iPhone; and my mother, who is considering purchasing a smartphone herself and is also the final decision-maker on cell phone purchases and contracts for our family. I followed the early reviews of Droid on tech blogs and was strongly leaning toward a Droid over a BlackBerry or an iPhone.

Then I saw the “Pretty” ad spot for the Droid. In addition to being incoherent, the imagery and voice over in the ad suggests that the Droid is specifically a toy for manly, techie men. It suggests that women are obsessed with fluff and aesthetics and are too idiotic to care about a phone’s specs and technical capabilities (“tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen”; “it’s not a princess, it’s a robot”; “a phone that trades hair-do for can-do.”). I have no desire to spend my hard-earned money–money that I earned in a tech-related field, incidentally–on a product that is sold with misogynistic advertising. Congratulations: you’ve successfully soured my enthusiasm for the Droid and ensured that when I purchase a new handset, Droid will not be on the list of possible options.

Best,

[PD]

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