Author: Victoria Petkovic-Short
For those of you who’ve been into the office, you’ll know we’re a group of chatterboxes. You’ll also probably realise it’s unusual for us to be speechless but today it happened!
Scrolling through the news feed of one of the pages we manage, we came across a pro-feminist video, posted by a follower. With a starting screen of a little girl dressed as a Princess, we clicked the play button and watched with widening eyes the following video…
Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism by FCKH8.com from FCKH8.com on Vimeo.
Entitled ‘Potty Mouthed Princesses’ the video features little girls dressed as Princesses vociferously using the word F***, and has been designed and developed by www.FCKH8.com. The ambition? To educate adults on sexism, pay inequality and rape. A somewhat odd approach, but a viral video which has used shock value to gain nearly 270,000 shares on Facebook alone.
As it played in the office, others couldn’t help but stop their work, being drawn gradually to cluster around my desk and watch the remaining seconds play out. It ended and then; there was silence! Slowly, the comments started to emerge and the pros and cons were weighed up; viral potential, a clear message and an important communication, but also one which potentially degrades the innocence of young people and tackles a sensitive issue with a sledgehammer. At the end, we struggled to draw any concrete conclusions on our feelings about the video, but were unanimously in agreement that we were left disappointed; disappointed in the content, the approach and the ending.
As a child, I was never forced to opt for Barbie’s or cabbage patch dolls and indeed hacked the hair off the one Barbie I was given! You’d usually have found me in front of Thomas the Tank Engine or teenage mutant ninja turtles, making mud pies or walking the dog with my dad learning geology and geography. I didn't considered them boys stuff when I was a kid and I still don't know; it's because my parents gave me choice and taught me to respect my own opinions! I later went on to study physical geography at University and now work in a typically ‘female’ industry apparently. Yet I have never defined myself as a woman commercially; I work in an office that happens to employ more females and I have a number of female clients, but I believe I have earned the respect of my colleagues and clients on the merit of my capabilities, not of my gender.
Unfortunately, at the end of it all I felt disappointed in the advert and I turned instead to others I’ve seen before. Remember Goldiblox? A viral video that highlighted many of the same points without the use of a sledgehammer?
And then there was the more recent example of Emma Watson in front of the United Nations delivering a well thought through, eloquent speech and calling for individuals to join the HeForShe campaign.
Now my opinion on Feminism matters little in relation to this blog, but I know that Goldieblox and Emma Watson inspired me far more to take up the cause than the www.FCKH8.com campaign ever will!
A nice sentiment, but poor delivery I feel! What do you think?