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 the NOW Foundation web site.

"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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