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Campari "The Secret" ad

  
  

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miss wonderstarr
14:39 / 23.04.06
Move to Film and TV if you think appropriate, but I thought this might be another potential "Body Shop"/Sex and Relationships thread.

I found this link from someone else's Livejournal today. It seems to be a 2005 silver winner in Epica's advertising awards, but I hadn't seen it before and it is apparently "on-air from Spring".

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SPOILERS!
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You might want to watch it first.

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A Campari press release describes it as confirming "Campari's position as the transgressive and passionate brand that it is."

Shot in Prague at the Praha hotel, with the soundtrack from Eyes Wide Shut, the narrative is "about a sophisticated game that is transgressive and refined".

Well, apart from the fact that I could write a better press release in my sleep, a number of things strike me about this commercial, and I wonder if anyone else has thoughts to share.

1. I wonder if this indicates a mainstreaming of "queerness" or acceptable aspects of queerness; an incorporation of gender-subversion into the marketing of a commodity, so that queerness becomes "transgression" as a selling point for an alcoholic drink (presumably meant, in this context, to suggest difference from the norm; a certain exclusivity and daring, like taking the Pepsi challenge.) So, queerness (or specifically cross-dressing here) has become... "tamed"? into a means of branding one product as daringly different from the rest.

2. Although the moment of revelation in this narrative seems quite radical, actually of course the double-reveal presents a solution to the "problem" that the first one poses. We thought it was a man pursuing a beautiful woman: the romance/lust narrative dead-ends when both are shown to be men. But the possibilities open up again when the first man becomes a woman. The actors play this very well I think, and the unveiling of the woman seems to be met with suggestive smiles on both their parts, as if to say "OK... well, maybe we can get it on after all".

3. However, I'm just taking my own reading from this and perhaps there are other, more interesting interpretations of the story - perhaps the two characters are just showing their true genders as a stripping of barriers, but without the implication that, if both did turn out to be men, the possibilities for sex and romance would be short-circuited.

4. On a personal level I found the male-dressed-as-female kind of "hot" throughout, including the strip and smear scene. I wonder though... was it actually a man in the earlier shots, or has this been cheated by using a woman for the first scenes? The fact that I'm not certain after a couple of views actually re-introduces an interesting undermining of expectations and a playful gender-uncertainty, even if the story seems to offer non-cross-dressed heterosexuality as a happy ending.

5. I wonder if ethnicity (one being Caucasian, one Asian) contributes to it. This was obviously deliberate but I'm not sure what it's meant to add, except perhaps for another dimension of "exotic" "Otherness".

You should be able to get the pdf here, with pin-ups of "my" hot girl/guy.

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Our Lady Has Left the Building
15:17 / 23.04.06
Pah, the Strongbow ad where the woman 'turned out' to be a bloke dressed up so as to not have to buy his own pint was better. And quicker. I think the woman in a suit was the same throughout, the bloke in a dress it's harder to say because we don't really see him clearly until the moment of unveiling.

I'd dump it in the reactionary camp, not only because commercials aren't revolutionary as a rule but also because the subtext I read is:

She: I'm afraid we won't be shagging, because you see, I am a bloke, and two blokes shagging is icky, bad and makes God cross.
He: Aah, but you see, I am actually a bird, so let us away and have good clean heterosexual sex.

Still, I'd rather have this on TV than that one for the kitchen towels with the two brickies in drag...
 
 
Ganesh
15:20 / 23.04.06
Will have a think about this and post more in due course but, on a first viewing, it reminded me of the Gaultier perfume adverts, featuring all manner of attractive androgynes. The Gaultier ads didn't feel it necessary to 'explain', though, with an implied "this is their real gender" money shot conclusion, but left things ambiguous throughout. The Campari ad is therefore, to my mind, more essentialist (the protagonists have a 'true' gender from which they are playfully straying but to which they can and will return) and also a little patronisingly DO YOU SEE? in its basic premise and execution.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
15:41 / 23.04.06
I see the two of you so far tend to agree with me that it ends quite safely. However, it could still have some subversive power in that, presumably, straight male (and gay female) viewers have been encouraged to see the "woman" from the "man"'s point of view, as erotic spectacle and legitimate lust-object - and vice versa for the "man".

So, in the double-reveal, the erotic targeting of the viewer presumably has to be shifted - stereotypically, your straight fella would have to switch from fancying the "woman" to fancying the woman, and retroactively repress any desire he felt for the former (or perhaps have his sexuality interestingly challenged.)

Also, the ending is no more reactionary or heterosexual than the opening. The first reveal promises something more original and transgressive, but it's not like the ending betrays anything radical that was offered at the beginning.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:05 / 23.04.06
No, I don't feel that these shots show the same person: I do think the left is female, and the right, obviously, is male. The jaw and cheeks seem quite different to me.



If that's true - and if it's not, I should wonder why I'm claiming it - then there's a slightly different cast to the... casting.

If it's like a conjuring switch whereby the first shot was a "real" woman and the second a "fake" one, then it's actually (even) less subversive, transgressive and radical, because the straight male (viewer's) gaze has been concentrated on a woman initially, and the ad has "cheated" that desire so that the male straight viewer was tricked into briefly fancying another man, rather than fancying him (albeit disguised) all along, which I think is a bit more challenging.

There is a possible link to the Transamerica thread * and the discussion about a transsexual male-to-female having to be played by a woman, rather than a man. Here (I suggest) until the reveal when it was necessary, a transvestite (man as woman) is played by a woman, which seems a similar... cowardice I suppose, although I of course recognise the difference between the drag-man of this ad and Bree in the movie.
 
 
Ganesh
16:22 / 23.04.06
I think those two photos are of the same person, Wonderstarr, just from different angles.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
16:43 / 23.04.06
I don't read the 'reveal' as expressing a heteronormative, "I'm a woman," and "I'm a man." Sure, they exchange smiles, but neither seems the heterosexual type, to me. I guess I read the 'woman' throughout as butch/trans, and so saw the original pursuit as queered. When she revealed her bound chest, I read her still not as 'woman' but as butch, and probably lesbian.

But no, the ad is not revolutionary, and yes it does indicate that genderqueerness has once again been recruited to sell expensive consumables. It's just that the particular style of genderqueerness is a bit different. And hey, I've never seen an ad with a transbutch or ftm in it before.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
17:21 / 23.04.06
I may seem to keep changing my mind for the sake of discussion, here. Perhaps it's a more interesting ad than I'd thought.

Sure, they exchange smiles, but neither seems the heterosexual type, to me.

Actually, whatever the straight male-female set-up at the end, these were two people dressed up as the opposite sex in public for no obvious reason - ie. it's not a masked ball or drag party, it's just a "normal" bar/salon - so perhaps it's about a queer heterosexuality. Which might sound contradictory but is surely entirely possible. They are a straight couple at the end, as they seemed at the start, but the fact of the disguising makes it a lot more transgressive than it would be if, for instance, a man in a tux had pursued a woman in a dress, spilled drink on her and watched her take her dress down to reveal her breasts.

Perhaps I was wrong to suggest that it's "sold out" to straightness at the end. A heterosexual man and woman who were both in drag, without the "excuse" of a costume party, does not really make an un-queer couple.



I guess I read the 'woman' throughout as butch/trans, and so saw the original pursuit as queered. When she revealed her bound chest, I read her still not as 'woman' but as butch, and probably lesbian.

I'm afraid it's my fault that I don't understand the connotations of these terms. You read the "woman" (the Asian character) as a butch woman or female-to-male transsexual, and so saw it as a female/female pursuit* - and then at the end, you saw a butch (probably lesbian) woman facing off against what kind of man? Is she not "woman" to you, as a butch lesbian? NB. I am not having a go. What would have happened after the end of this story, in your reading - if it matters?

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* my bad. A ftm transsexual following a woman wouldn't make this a female/female pursuit, of course.
...in which case your "butch/trans" confuses me more as the two alternatives, butch (f) or trans (ftm) seem to imply different pursuits (f-->f and m-->f)
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But no, the ad is not revolutionary, and yes it does indicate that genderqueerness has once again been recruited to sell expensive consumables.

The point now occurs to me that of course un-queer gender roles have been used to sell expensive consumables for many years, so I wonder if this really makes any difference or is "worse", more cynical and cheap. I suppose the notion of incorporating "transgression" as meaning "buy a different brand from the norm" is pretty shallow.
 
 
Cherielabombe
20:41 / 23.04.06
In case anyone wants to watch the ad themselves...
 
 
miss wonderstarr
20:45 / 23.04.06
My first post (I think) linked it from the first asterisk. I admit it was a subtle kind of link.
 
 
ibis the being
21:04 / 23.04.06
Though I haven't seen the Gaultier ads Ganesh refers to, I agree with him that this Campari ad is too patronizing. Way back in my art school days, one of the most basic lessons of illustration (and I think advertising is a form of illustration) is to let the audience do a little work - don't spell it out completely or the piece becomes boring. I found the Campari ad intriguing until the reveal. I was surprised that the person in the dress was male but that may be because we only saw fleeting glimpses of hir - the person in the suit was pretty androgynous all along and I liked that better than the banality of the ace bandages and unpinned look-at-me-I'm-feminine hair.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
21:28 / 23.04.06
No, I don't feel that these shots show the same person: I do think the left is female, and the right, obviously, is male.



What is "obvious" about the maleness of the person on the right, miss wonderstarr? What obvious male attributes does this person have that a female person would obviously never possess?
 
 
miss wonderstarr
21:45 / 23.04.06
If you have seen the clip, Flyboy, you will know that the person on the right unties and pulls down a dress to reveal what certainly looks a great deal like a man's body. I could be wrong, but I believe that actor is shown to be a man, hence my comment. Thanks for the question!
 
 
Ganesh
21:49 / 23.04.06
I'm looking again, Wonderstarr, but I'm not seeing differences between these two individuals: to me, this is simply the same person; same nose, same lips, same eyes, same hair. The different camera angle might subtly emphasise or de-emphasise face shape or jawline, but I don't think these are shots of different people.

(Incidentally, is anyone else picking up a hint of young, beautiful Marlon Brando in that configuration of facial features?)
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
22:36 / 23.04.06
My apologies, miss wonderstarr, I should have specified that I was referring to the shots posted above; however I thought that might be obvious, given that your original, quoted comment was specifically about those shots.

What is obviously male about the shot on the right?
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
22:45 / 23.04.06
I'm not sure anything's "obvious" (I suspect that may have been a poor word choice), but I thought the picture on the right was a man in drag almost immediately. The neck, I think, was the biggest hint (it is a man in drag, right? Or did I miss something?).

And for some reason, the angle of the shot suggests "male" to me. I'm not sure why. It is the same person in each shot, right?
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
22:53 / 23.04.06
Ah. Just watched the ad.


I'm pretty confident it's the same actor throughout.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:11 / 23.04.06
Heh. So how does the fact that a lot of people can't tell whether it's the same actor throughout or not affect the reading of the piece?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
23:11 / 23.04.06

I'm pretty confident it's the same actor throughout.

Yes, of course it is. I am, frankly, very surprised that anyone with any experience of even observing transvesticism and transgender people from a distance would be unable to accept that.
 
 
Ganesh
23:24 / 23.04.06
I am, frankly, very surprised that anyone with any experience of even observing transvesticism and transgender people from a distance would be unable to accept that.

I'm not, particularly. I don't see that experience of observing trans people necessarily has a lot to do with facial recognition. It wouldn't be unheard of for an advert which relies upon such a reveal to 'cheat' - although I don't think they have done in this case.

One thing that strikes me is that, unlike the Bounty ads, say, or the horrendous Special K one, the protagonists of the Campari advert are not portrayed as figures of fun or 'freaks'. Both are sleekly attractive, apparently wealthy/successful/aspirational and seemingly enjoying their gender-play. In that sense, I think this is probably a groundbreaking depiction of trans people in advertisement.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
23:26 / 23.04.06
Anyway, my response to the ad was pretty similar to Mister Disco's (even down to how I 'read' the two protagonists), which I think is a pretty simple position. IE, it doesn't stop being a queer moment just because half their clothes are off, even if this affects how they're now reading each other's genders. I tend to see queer as a pretty broad church. But then, even if you don't, I find it very hard to believe that potential homophobic, transphobic or generally queer-shy viewers would be reassured by the conclusion.

I think it's a good advert, in as much as any advert can ever be good, which I have sort of accepted that they can be in my lazy compromised capitalism-complicit way. I tend to think that greater representation of queerness, trans-people and drag in advertising isn't going to solve anything on its own, but it's not going to hurt either, and this advertisement may well set a few wheels turning in people's heads that might otherwise have remained... static.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
23:43 / 23.04.06
I think that the Brandonesque beauty was quite cunningly lit so as to suggest a bosom under hir evening gown, making the transition a bit more striking and at first making me wonder if a body-double had been involved.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
04:16 / 24.04.06
My apologies, miss wonderstarr, I should have specified that I was referring to the shots posted above; however I thought that might be obvious, given that your original, quoted comment was specifically about those shots.

What is obviously male about the shot on the right?

I'm afraid you misunderstood me. I was saying that the person on the right was obviously male in the context of the clip only.

I find your tone towards me unnecessarily rude and almost bullying, Flyboy. Sorry about this but as I avoid such people on the internet, I'll have to put you on ignore.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
04:27 / 24.04.06
Remember, I did raise the question above as to what it means if it is or isn't the same actor throughout (in terms of it being a more cowardly casting to have a woman play an attractive "female" transvestite) and noted that it was worth me asking myself if I had anything invested in making a distinction between the earlier figure and the later. I thought the idea of a switch was interesting, but I also find it appealing if "she" is a man successfully passing, throughout. I suppose in that respect my sexual response to the character is that I'm happy to be fooled by such a creature.

Apart from it being a mildly fascinating puzzle to think about why (and if) my first screengrab looks slightly different from the second, in terms of angle and so on, I'm happy to be wrong about it. That there is any discussion over the biological gender of the "woman" character makes it an interesting ad, I think - if it was clearly a man dressed up, from the first shots, the short film wouldn't work in the same way.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
06:15 / 24.04.06
There's a slight difference in the hairline but that might just be the hairdressers work between scenes. As they had a woman in a suit for the 'guy' from the start I suspect it was a man in a dress all along, keeping him out of centre-stage as long as possible.

I suppose a more sympathetic reading is that usually the shedding of the clothes on television normally is followed by violence (Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) or surprise and disgust (The Crying Game), in both cases the tv's are exposing themselves out of their choice, rather than being forced to by someone else. But it IS an advert, so I can't get too excited.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:26 / 24.04.06
Does anyone else think that by asking miss wonderstarr a couple of questions about a statement she has made I am being rude and bullying her?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
11:40 / 24.04.06
Brusque and abrupt perhaps, but then I have the advantage of having met you IRL, I don't think Miss Wonderstar has. And weren't you and she arguing in the Shadowsax banning thread?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:54 / 24.04.06
What relevance does that have? I still fail to see how a request for clarification can amount to rudeness or bullying.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
11:58 / 24.04.06
I think this is more radical than reactionary, the woman with the hair clearly has the hots for androgynous supermodel type man regardless of gender. It's rather nice to see some bisexual representation.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
11:59 / 24.04.06
I just think it's possible not to read the reveal as signifying that either character has a stable, easily definable gender. I don't agree that one is being lead to read that the gown-clad character is 'really a man'. Just because you see what's 'underneath', the supposed 'real body', shouldn't leave you any the wiser about how each character might self-identify.

And some definitions: 'trans-butch' might signify someone assigned female at birth, who may now identify neither as wholly male or female, but index hir gender via 'butchness' itself. Therefore, no, if I read hir as a butch lesbian, s/he might not be read as 'woman'. When this happens on real time, I generally make sure I ask what pronouns someone uses before I make assumptions, and in the ad, the same. But of course, I am also reading the character based on a knowledge of the accoutrements and visible signifiers of ftm/ftx/drag king/dyke dandy culture. S/he could also be read as a femme drag king.

The point is, this ad really depends on how you read it. If you're conditioned to understand the flesh reveal as that which 'truly' defines a person's gender, then you'll read it like that. If your ideas about gender are more complex, you might read it differently.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:23 / 24.04.06
Just to say: I'd like to think my opinions/thoughts on gender are more complex than I've perhaps presented them in this thread, I'm just dubious as to whether the people who made this ad are clever or just working out how to get a laugh for their product.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:41 / 24.04.06
But I don't think the intended tone of the advert is that hard to read either, is it? It seems pretty clear to me that they're not going for a WKD-ad effect. It clearly aspires to a form of sophistication, regardless of whether or not it succeeds.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
15:56 / 24.04.06
Just because you see what's 'underneath', the supposed 'real body', shouldn't leave you any the wiser about how each character might self-identify.

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The point is, this ad really depends on how you read it. If you're conditioned to understand the flesh reveal as that which 'truly' defines a person's gender, then you'll read it like that. If your ideas about gender are more complex, you might read it differently.

I take your point that the character in the gown might legitimately identify as female. Particularly in the context of these people and their transgressive dressing, I accept that it could be seen as reductive to think that the reveal shows an absolute, bottom-line "proof" of gender in either character (and that full nudity wouldn't provide any further proof).

But while I think your approach to people in real life is admirable -

... When this happens on real time, I generally make sure I ask what pronouns someone uses before I make assumptions, and in the ad, the same.

- I don't honestly see how it's possible with regard to the ad, given that you can't ask the characters.

So in terms of watching a TV clip, when a viewer can't check with the character about how s/he self-identifies or what pronouns s/he uses, I think it's understandable, albeit symptomatic of a less complex view of sexuality than yours, to read someone with what looks like a biologically male half-naked body as a male-identifying person.



For instance, in this still from recent flick She's The Man, I would read the bare-chested character as "male". I don't know if that character or that actor self-identify as female, and strictly speaking it is more simplistic for me to think it more probable that s/he doesn't identify as female, but... I'd say sometimes it's useful (I think forgivable) to go by what's probable. (To be honest, the fact that this is an character/actor in a mainstream Hollywood romantic comedy for teenagers shapes my judgement. If it was a queerer kind of text about queerer sorts of characters, my take would be more open.)

In most everyday situations (for instance, at a bus stop - not so much in a club) I wouldn't usually hesitate to refer to "that man over there" even if I didn't know for certain how the person I perceived as male self-identified in gender terms. On occasion I'm sure my perception would be wrong, in which case I'd apologise and hope the person was good enough to accept it; but to me that seems more practical than asking every person before using a gendered pronoun to describe them.

As such I admit I am simpler and straighter than some.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:03 / 24.04.06
The haze having cleared from my mind, I've just remembered that in fact She's The Man is, as an adaptation of Twelfth Night, based around female-to-male crossdressing. So to hold it up as an example of a not-very-queer mainstream text was... not so clever of me.

Nevertheless, I think it likely that it is only intended to have one character who identifies as female and disguises herself as a man, so I hope my point about that bare-chested character stands as well as it would have otherwise.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
17:24 / 24.04.06
Tell you what, miss wonderstarr, why is it important to know the proper gender of the characters, or the person at the bus-stop? I'm not saying you can't make any judgments about gender, I just wonder why it's so important right here. Of course I can't ask the characters in the ad what pronouns they prefer. But I can find them both fabulously sexy, without needing to know exactly what their 'real' genders are meant to be. Just like in real life.
 
  

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