I can’t hear the audio since I’m at work, so let me know if there is anything less than cool there. But the visual? I LOVE THIS COMMERCIAL.
What do you think?
Hi! I'm Marianne Kirby! I'm fat!
How are you?
I'm on a mission here to let you know that fat people are not your enemy. And skinny people aren't your enemy either.
Here, the body is a political one no matter its size or shape. We are going to unpack society's standards of beauty, the oppression of the dominant social paradigm when it comes to body conformity, and talk about clothes. Maybe even makeup. Because I do love makeup.
Here, I hope, we will come to a place of acceptance. Acceptance for our own bodies and for the bodies of others.
Got something to say? Contact me. All hate mail, particularly fat-phobic rants, is subject to mocking.
19 Comments
I don’t recognize the song and the tag line is “Japanese Subarus just got a little sexier”.
What do I think? I need a very cold shower now!
DROOOLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve seen this on TV lots (maybe it’s been playing in Canada longer than it has south of the border?) and absolutely love it. How much fun are they having?!?!
Haha! I love it. I need to go find that song.
Way awesome. And I love that song – it was in Charlie’s Angels while the girls are strutting around doing something sexy. Not as sexy as these dudes tho!
The original video to the song (”Danger! High Voltage!” by Electric Six) is pretty AWESOME to begin with. The sumos take it to another level.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQQeg3jYgOA&fmt=18
I fucking love it.
I love it, but hilariously it wakes my baby up every.single.time. Nothing else on TV wakes her up! Just that! So I have a teensy bit of resentment towards it.
Super hot, in addition to being awesome.
Too. Awesome. For. Words.
Hot sumos having fun? Make me happy.
This is why I love reading your blog, TR. Because my first reaction is to be pissed, at what looks a whole lot like mockery and racism to me. Sumos are not feminized in Japan, but they had these guys flipping their hair and holding up their hands to hold off water and cocking their hip and flipping their wrists just like girly girls from all of those oh look hawt chix washing a car oh look soap on their tits its almost like cum ads and movies. They even dumped soapy water on the head of one of the sumos. I’m pretty darn sure the makers of the ad don’t see these guys with our eyes; I’m certain their message about “sexy” was mocking hipster irony.
But then I read the comments, and I realize that it is also an ad showing nearly naked fat people having a whole lot of fun.
Screw the thin gaze. These guys are awesome.
This is totally my favourite ad right now. Makes my day every time. I too saw it without the audio at first and feared the worst but the song is awesome and the whole thing just feels very joyful. Love it!
LOVE IT. I’m bookmarking it FOREVER.
That is AWESOME! I LOVE it! Kudos to Subaru!
I’m in love with this commercial (I already liked Subaru cars). It captures the feel of a recurring fantasy event that I desperately want to set up for Big Moves somewhere, anywhere: a size-diverse carwash fundraiser. I’ve been wanting to do one for ages, and I’m always held back by my own fear, for myself and on behalf of the dancers, of that thin gaze. (Also, try finding a parking lot with decent water supply!)
But here, you have fatties having a good time with the water, out in public, in daylight, and WOW. It is mind-blowing imagery. I hardly ever see a group of fatties out in daylight, unless it’s at a conference or some event that (sometimes) I helped organize. Usually I only see groups like that at dark BBW events, which, hey, yay for dark dance floors, but sometimes? I want to see flesh in the daytime. Like in this video. And fuck the freaked-out people watching.
Good times!
I love it! So creative.
Oh, man, I’ve always loved that Electric Six song. LOVED the commercial!
My favourite is the guy near the end with the bucket on his head.
I love this comercial. It makes me want to wash my car.
SUMOOOO!!!! LoL, just wanted to say that.
I didn’t know it was that Electric Six song until I got to actually listen to it – I love that song so the commercial got twice as awesome.
kmd, that comment means a huge amount to me. I really, really appreciate it.
At the end of the day, I think, I am still an English major and so, for me most of the time, intent isn’t something I spend a lot of time thinking about. Unless, you know, it’s fun to for the sake of irony (like with those Brazilian yogurt ads that turned out to be absolutely gorgeous). So there might be some hipster irony brewing behind this commercial but truly all I see is nearly naked fat people having a hell of a time.
Actually, I DO see the parallels between this and the bikini girls commercials (and that scene in Dodgeball) but I didn’t see this as feminizing the sumo wrestlers so much as assigning American signifiers of sexy to them – because I think a majority of what signifies sexy to Americans is based around women instead of men. Our language of attractiveness is woefully, if you’ll pardon the pun, thin.
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