Life or Wife? Representations of female vulnerability in a Super Bowl tire commercial

--Shivani Williams



In this Super Bowl commercial advertisement that was shown in 2010, Bridgestone Tires made a rather bold statement about the role of women in less than sixty seconds.

This commercial depicts a man driving a very fast car only to be stopped by a group of men who threaten him to give up either “his Bridgestone tires or his life.” The driver mistakes the word “life” for “wife” and quickly makes the decision that he would rather keep his tires by throwing his wife out of the car and driving away. By choosing to keep his tires, the woman is shown as less important than material items, such as the parts to a car. Not only is the message a sexist one, but the environment also aids in setting the tone for the exclusion of women. The illusion of the industrial setting as the workplace for men helps create the tone for this commercial. As British feminist and political theorist Carole Pateman put it, “men represent the series of liberal separations and oppositions: female or, --nature, personal, emotional, private, intuition morality, subjection; male—or culture, political, reason, justice, public, philosophy, power, achievement, universal, freedom...” The fast-moving vehicle and power tools imply that the world is a man-dominant one with man being the central character who is associated with power and achievement in this scenario. The scared, surprised look on the woman’s face is associated with vulnerability and emotion—terms commonly used to describe a woman’s innate characteristics.

The physical appearance of the wife can be interpreted as how women should be viewed according to not just men’s standards, but society’s standards in general. The woman in the commercial is unrealistically represented as “the modern wife,” or how the modern wife should look. She is a young, thin female wearing a leather outfit and heavy eye-makeup. Is this the model that society thinks all women should strive to be? Bridgestone sure seems to think so. Furthermore, the man driving is not even shown, demonstrating that a man’s appearance is not nearly as important as that of a woman’s. Again, this gives men some level of superiority over women.

The fact that the man who was threatening the driver didn’t even think twice about threatening the life of the driver’s wife gives women everywhere a representation that they are not worthy against the value of a set of tires. The man gives a look of defeat thus proving that the woman in front of him is useless.

Basically, Bridgestone sums it up for us with its motto at the end of the commercial, “It’s Bridgestone or nothing,” which seems to leave us thinking that they live by this a bit too literally.