Beating
around the Bush: Historical Trends in Menstruation Advertising
A couple of weeks ago, American
tampon delivery service HelloFlo launched an ad featuring a spunky, pubescent
girl who leads her peers through the awkward transition into menstruation under
the self-awarded title of ‘Camp Gyno’. You can watch the ad here:
And then immediately watch it
again because of how great it is. The ad went viral in days, with media calling
it ‘hilarious’, ‘genius’, and ‘an amazing breakthrough’ in advertising[1].
This last statement – which has been reiterated in newspapers and blogs galore
– is a response to something bigger than Helloflo and their clever writing. It
alludes to the bizarre traditions that have come to characterize the
representation of menstruation in advertising. To understand why the Camp Gyno
ad really is the breakthrough everyone’s proclaiming, we have to take a brief
look at its predecessors, and the long history of period-shaming that produced
them.
The
invention of the modern tampon in 1929 may have revolutionized many women’s
experience of menstruation, but it did nothing much to change the deep-seated
culture of shame and recoil in society at large. This is not a modern
phenomenon – for as long as women have been menstruating, there have been
taboos and myths associating the process with uncleanliness and shame. In prehistoric
and ancient cultures throughout the world, menstruating women were believed to
contaminate everything they touched, and were ritually segregated from food,
growing plants, and young men, whose virility they were thought to endanger[2].
In recent times, this taboo has taken form in the widespread uses of
euphemisms, curiously inapt metaphors, and associations with female
embarrassment and incompetency in tampon and pad adverts.
Exhibit A: Tampax, 1939
This ad illustrates several of the earliest trends in menstrual
product advertising, which addressed the medical anxieties of the many women
who had previously used only sanitary pads. By declaring its product ‘designed
by a doctor’ and mentioning the American Medical Association, Tampax helped rid
its future consumers of these worries. Interestingly, at this time Tampax
didn’t actually have an endorsement from the AMA – they had merely been
approved for advertising in their journals. The AMA eventually objected to
Tampax’s implications of endorsement, and Tampax had to stop including that
text on their products, but by that time the concerns they spoke to were
largely a thing of the past anyway[3].
Notice
how this ad fails to actually mention the menstruation process at all. The
usage of the item itself is also left almost entirely omitted, except for the
line that mentions being ‘worn internally’. For a long time, the tampon was
advertised in terms of what it was not
– ‘no bulk to show. No odor can form’, because it was safer to allude to the
many problems of pads then to describe in any informative way the function they
were both supposed to serve. Advertising was already reflecting the state of
menstruation as an unspeakable taboo.
This
ad also introduces the theme of the woman with responsibilities, which first
became prevalent while women were major contributors to the American workforce
during WWII, and never really disappeared. Phrases like ‘for any woman who must keep busy and active at all times
of the month’ foreshadow a long pattern of advertisers reminding the female
consumer of her duties, and the fact that without their product, she may fail
to complete them.
Exhibit B: Modess, 1952
A few years later, with the war
ended, women’s main responsibility is once again her maintenance of beauty and
dignity, regardless of what’s going on in her life or her body. The ‘Modess…
because’ ads usually featured no writing at all except for this caption, with
the focus instead on a beautiful and elegantly dressed model such as this one.
Fortunately
for my purposes, I was able to find one that did have text, and what wonderful
text it is! The promises to make consumers feel like ‘an angel in the dancing
dress that may have been spun from a cloud’, to ensure ‘peace of mind’, and to
keep their ‘secret’ hit on a whole range of the advertising customs that still
have yet to go out of style. In the last couple of decades, the dancing angel
first invoked in ads such as this has taken to running through fields, riding
horses, and spinning in joyous circles, always while wearing a white dress and
a smile.
The
ad continues the trend of avoiding any specific mentions to menstruation or the
purpose of the product, making sure women’s greatest secret is kept secure.
Here are just a few examples of
the many things you can do while on your period.
Thanks for the reassurance, Tampax.
Exhibit C: Pursettes, 1974
Around the 70s, the sexual
revolution had brought with it some new, more informative commercials. This
comic-panel format in which a girl teaches her friend about tampons was common.
A
lot has been achieved by this point. The words ‘period’, ‘tampons’, and
‘napkins’ (American for pads) are finally common enough to use in print without
controversy, and there are some specific references to how the product is used
and how it works (‘pre-lubricated tip’, ‘super-absorbent’). The point of
secrecy is still essential, and is secured through the discrete carrying
compact. By now, advertisers had begun to speak to women in more direct, less
euphemistic terms, but their key refrain stayed the same: without us, your
period is going to stop you living your normal life.
Exhibit D: Always, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA_DviyhZwE
(couldn't upload the video, sorry guys)
I adore this Always ad from a couple of years ago. These kitsch,
convivial dancers put humorous spin on the ritual of checking yourself for
signs of your period which has been treated with so much embarrassment in the
ads of the past. It’s still obviously something women are supposed to worry
about – if they didn’t, Always would have nothing to capitalize on – but
there’s a sense of community and shared understanding here that’s lacking in
the other ads we’ve looked at, all of which feature either a solitary woman
figuring things out on her own, or a pair of women commiserating and educating each
other in privacy. Here we have a whole generation of schoolgirls bemoaning
together, and then celebrating when Always takes away this burden of
‘checking’.
The
teacher using a mysterious blue liquid to test the pad’s absorbency is an
advertising trope dating back a couple of decades. The liquid is almost always
blue, never anything close to red. This protects advertisers from getting too
close to actually mentioning blood. God forbid.
Sometimes,
as demonstrated here, advertisers can get a little carried away in their
depictions of just how joyous the life of the menstruating woman has become.
That’s always fun.
Finally, in 2013, we have Helloflo: a company not afraid to use
specific, non-euphemistic language, startlingly red liquids, and honesty to
advertise a menstrual product. By showing a young girl uninhibitedly using the
words ‘period’, ‘vagina’ and ‘vag’, Helloflo destigmatises the subject of
menstruation and makes their competitors look old-fashioned stick-in-the-muds.
The experience of menstruation is not fearfully referenced as a potential
catastrophe that must be constantly kept at bay, nor as some kind of bizarre
monthly female funfest. It’s treated as a rite of passage, and upon reaching it
first, the Camp Gyno uses it to empower herself and educate others.
The Camp Gyno is young, but she represents a life-changing moment all
menstruating women can easily recall. She reminds the female viewer of all the
awkwardness of her first period in a way that makes it seem funny instead of
humiliating. The conversations she has with her peers are frank and forthright,
instead of closeted. She talks like a real pre-teen, making her instantly
relatable to a market of young girls just beginning to menstruate, as well as
their nostalgic elders.
The ad is successful because it represents a common experience
with humour and honesty. It’s important because it breaks taboos, and because
it’s making people talk about things that have been culturally cloaked in
silence for no good reason.
To sign off, here’s an excellent parody of many of the tropes I
identified here:
Have a good week everyone!
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