[News-releases] NOW Foundation Gets in The Game With Its First-Ever FeministReview of Super Bowl Commercials

NOW Press Office
202-628-8669 Rebecca Farmer, x 116
202-785-8576 (fax) 

NOW Foundation Gets in The Game With Its First-Ever Feminist Review of Super
Bowl Commercials

January 24, 2003

"Every year Super Bowl viewers are glued to their television sets not just for
the game, but for all the new commercials," said NOW Foundation President Kim
Gandy. "But this year, feminist viewers will be paying particularly close
attention to the ads and scoring them based on their portrayal of women." 

The NOW Foundation's Watch Out, Listen Up! campaign, which has issued reports
on primetime entertainment programming over the last three years, will release
its first-ever feminist review of the Super Bowl commercials on Monday,
January
27. 

"This football season, we have received numerous emails and phone calls about
the sexist beer ads that have been running, specifically Miller Lite's
'Catfight' ad and Coors Light's exploitative series that features 'the
twins,'"
said Gandy. "We thought it was about time that we brought a woman's
perspective
to the Monday-morning-quarterbacking on the ads." 

Volunteer feminist monitors will be grading the best and the worst of the ads
and the NOW Foundation will release its findings early Monday. Results will be
posted on http://www.nowfoundation.org.

"Clearly the advertisers paying $2.2 million for 30 seconds of airtime feel
that running a commercial in the Super Bowl is important," Gandy said.
"Well we
agree, and that's why the NOW Foundation will be watching, listening and
talking back." 

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