NEWSBYSHELBY KNOX

Every Super Bowl has those one or two ads that everyone is talking about around the watercooler the next day. Remember last year’s Chrysler commercial starring Detroit and Eminem? And that adorable (and notably genderless) kid in the Darth Vader costumewho magically started the family car?It’s no wonder companies spend big ad bucks on the big game. $3.5 million for a 30 second spot buys access to over 110 million viewers, many of whom tune in as much for the ads as for the game. In fact, 66 percent of female viewers say they watch as much or more for the ads, compared to 46 percent of male viewers.

Yet the same polls suggest that men are regularly more satisfied with the ads than women. Why? Because many Super Bowl advertisers turn to sexist, racist, and otherwise offensive stereotypes to market their wares. GoDaddy is a regular offender, showcasing racecar driver Danica Patrick as a sex object rather than a driving champion. And last year Pepsi Max went for a double whammy of racism and sexism with an ad that may or may not have been poking fun at First Lady Michelle Obama. And who could forget Groupon’s ad from last year, making light of the plight of the people of Tibet to promote their services?

Some folks choose to skip watching the bowl altogether rather than rage at the ads. But this year there’s a way to voice your displeasure and make a real change in the way Super Bowl ads are framed. Miss Representation, the movie turned movement to challenge the portrayal of women and girls in the media, is calling for Super Bowl viewers to tweet their displeasure with sexist Super Bowl ads by using the tag #NotBuyingIt. Viewers on this tag will be asking others tweeting about the #SuperBowl who the ad was directed at and what message was sent about gender.

Last night, Change.org member Lauren Todd saw a shirt on the JC Penney website and, she says, "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

The t-shirt, clearly labeled for girls seven to sixteen, said “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” Right next to the picture, the retailer helpfully provided some text to talk the buyer into making a back-to-school purchase:  "Who has time for homework when there's a new Justin Bieber album out? She'll love this tee that's just as cute and sassy as she is."

Lauren didn’t think it was "cute and sassy," however. She thought it was one in a "series of small, seemingly cute and harmless messages, that can seep into a girl's mind and damage her self-perception and her self-worth." So she started a petition on Change.org asking the retailer to pull the offensive tee from its shelves.

After receiving a flood of angry feedback, including emails from over 8,000 Change.org members, Got Milk has decided to suspend their sexist "PMS" ad campaign.

Last week, Got Milk released a new ad series targeting men who evidently suffer greatly when their lady friends have PMS. The solution? Milk.

The pictures show cowering men holding out bottles of milk, with faux apologies over their head’s like “I’m sorry for not reading between the right lines.” The seemingly caveman created campaign came complete with a website just for men, www.everythingidoiswrong.org, that featured an “emergency milk locator” and a “Global PMS Scale.”

Women (and men) across the internet weighed in immediately, condemning the portrayal of both women as hormonal “volatile monsters” and men as unable to deal with relationship conflict as sexist. Ms. Magazine introduced their Change.org petition with a post called “Nothing Like an Ice Cold Glass of Sexism” that noted the campaign uses “the same stereotypes cited by those trying to keep women out of good jobs, and those who say we shouldn’t have a woman president because she’d start a war just because it was her time of the month.”

Sexualizing women in skimpy clothes is a typical clothing advertising ploy, but Zappos.com’s new ad campaign is drawing fire for zooming straight ahead and skipping the skimpy clothes.

The new ad campaign for the online shopping giant portrays models -- all female -- going about their daily activities in the buff. Naked lady hailing a cab, naked jogger, naked model riding a scooter: all wear only shoes and a banner over their private parts that features the campaign’s slogan, "More than shoes!" In each, creepy blurry men oggle the women from the fringes of the photos.

It’s clear what the product is in these ads -- and, as the tag line admits, it’s not the shoes. MissRepresentation.org, the online outgrowth of the Sundance award-winning film of the same name that spotlights media objectification of women, has started a Change.org petition calling on Zappos to discontinue their ad campaign on the basis that it sends a litany of bad messages to men and women alike.

Last night, MSNBC announced that “The Ed Show” host Ed Schultz would be suspended for a week without pay for calling radio host Laura Ingraham a “right wing slut.” The decision came after almost 500 Change.org members signed a petition started by the Women’s Media Center calling on the network to hold Schultz accountable for his sexist statement.

In announcing their decision to suspend the talk show host, MSNBC said, “remarks of this nature are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.” Julie Burton, president of the Women’s Media Center, announced that MSNBC and Schultz have also offered to meet with her organization to discuss how to make sure his inappropriate and degrading language will not be used again.

Schultz apologized on air Wednesday before handing his show over to Thomas Roberts for the duration of his suspension. He called his comments “vile and inappropriate” before offering apologies to Ingraham as well as his wife and children. While only time will tell, it seems Schultz may have learned to stick to the facts when debating an opponent rather than resorting to sexist slurs. “To the staff here at MSNBC, I apologize for embarrassing the company and the only way that I can really make restitution for you is to give you a guarantee, and the only way that I can prove my sincerity in all of this is if I never use those words again. Tonight, you have my word that I won't,” Schultz said.

"I’m a woman and I never felt discriminated against. I saw a lot of black people who didn’t want to work as hard. Women don’t want to work as hard as men." -- Oklahoma State Representative Sally Kern, during an April 27th debate on affirmative action.

These were fighting words to Sally’s List, an Oklahoma-based group dedicated to electing pro-equality women to state and local positions. (And, no, Sally's List is definitely not named for the offensive Sally in question.) The group started a petition on Change.org to tell Kern she does not speak for all Oklahoma women and to demand an apology for her racist, sexist rhetoric.

Almost 500 Change.org members signed Sally’s List’s petition and on Monday, Kern issued an apology to the full Oklahoma House of Representatives. “I said some words that were not real thought out and that offended many African-Americans and many women,” Kern said. “That was not my intent. ... I take full responsibility for it and I am truly sorry.”

The good news: domestic violence arrests were up by 7% in New York City between 2009 and 2010, while indictments were up by 36% over the same period.

Unfortunately, while more batterers being held accountable is undoubtedly a good thing, advocates say the higher rate of arrest corresponds with an increase in the overall occurrence of domestic violence. That's bad news. According to Ruth Villonga, spokeswoman for the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence, the New York Family Justice Center currently sees a hundred more people a week seeking domestic violence services compared to last year.

What’s better than a good ol’ game of Capture the Flag? According to the makers of the video game Duke Nukem Forever, a misogynistic high tech version called Capture the Babe.

The Duke is no stranger to controversy. The last version of the game, which came out in 1995, featured a button the player could push to force women in the game to bare their breasts. Classy.

But it seems Gearbox Software, the Texas-based company that purchased the rights from 3D Realms to revive the alien war game franchise, are attempting to up the creepster factor this time around. An early review of the game in the Official Xbox Magazine reveals one of the player modes is called Capture the Babe. Objective: capture the enemy’s sex object from their base, throw her over your shoulder, and carry her back to your base to share the spoils with your fellow soldiers. She may start to “freak out” -- because she’s a woman and we’re wont to do that, I guess, especially when gang rape is intimated as the outcome of being kidnapped -- at which point, the player has the option to, according to Official Xbox Magazine, "gently give her a reassuring slap."

What's in fashion for spring? According to one branch of Dillard's department store, racism and anti-abortion extremism.

The American Independent reports that the Southern department store giant's Memorial City location in Houston, TX, is set to sponsor a fashion show fundraiser for Heroic Media. That's the Austin-based outfit behind a series of race-baiting anti-abortion billboards creating controversy across the country.

Last month, Life Always -- which shares an owner and a North Austin office with Heroic Media -- erected a billboard in New York City with an image of a young Black girl next to the words "the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb." The billboard directed viewers to crisis pregnancy centers, which are non-medical, ideologically driven outfits that use shame, misinformation, and scare tactics to convince women not to have abortions. Change.org members joined the successful push to get the offending billboard taken down almost immediately.

In a matter of days, over 40,000 Change.org members have sent emails expressing outrage over a recent New York Times article that insinuated an 11-year-old Texas girl was to blame for her own gang-rape. This afternoon the public editor, Arthur Brisbane, took note of this outpouring by condemning the article's lack of "balance" in his blog on the paper's website. The appalling piece in question included community gossip about what the preteen victim wore and who she hung out with.

Brisbane wrote in his post:

My assessment is that the outrage is understandable. The story dealt with a hideous crime but addressed concerns about the ruined lives of the perpetrators without acknowledging the obvious: concern for the victim.