Outside the Beltway

Most Sexist Ad Ever Isn’t An Ad

The webmaster of a local Republican chapter linked a YouTube video that implies Democratic women are ugly.

James Joyner · Friday, August 20, 2010 · 4 comments

In a posting titled “The Most Sexist Ad, Well, Ever,” Atlantic staff editor Nicole Allan reports:

In an act of shockingly retro, sexist stupidity, a local unit of the Republican Party of Minnesota has broadcast a new reason you should vote Republican: GOP women are hot, and Democratic women are not.

The group has made a web video contrasting photos of attractive, semi-clothed Republican women with ones of distorted, Photoshopped Democratic women. The Republican portion of the slideshow — set to Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady” — features everyone from Michele Bachmann, to Angie Harmon, to Condoleezza Rice. It is bookended with pictures of Sarah Palin. The Democratic portion, set to Baha Mens’ “Who Let the Dogs Out,” begins with a photo of a grimacing Rosie O’Donnell, who pops up later Photoshopped onto the hairy body of Guantanamo detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Janeane Garofalo all make appearances.

I’d embed the video but, alas, it “contains content from UMG, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.” (Even though, if the description above is accurate, the use of the song is highly transformative and almost certainly covered under Fair Use.)

Dave Wraith (“GOP Hate Machine Cranks It Up“) gives “thanks to the Atlantic for getting the word out on this latest, vile trash from the Republicans, without further comment I offer this advertisement from the Minnesota GOP.”

HuffPo’s Elyse Siegel (“GOP Web Ad Touts Red ‘Hot’ Republican Women Alongside Democratic ‘Dogs’ (VIDEO)“) leads off with, “The Republican Party of Minnesota’s fifty-sixth Senate district is out with a new web video firing an unusual line of attack: women affiliated with the GOP are hotter than their Democratic counterparts.”

But this is a variant of a meme that’s been circulating for years (Jezebel and Feministing covered a variant in 2007. Here’s another from 2005.) and rather clearly not an ad.  One of Allan’s commenters notes that there are none of the required “Paid for” disclaimers.    Nor was it produced by the Minnesota Republican Party.  Instead, Mother Jones‘ Adam Weinstein reports, this was put up by somebody named Randy Brown, the webmaster of some local GOP chapter who thought it was funny.   And the Minnesota GOP has denounced the video as “juvenile.”

The biggest sin here would appear to be  turning the keys of a local party website to some snot nosed kid without much good sense.   But, frankly, that’s who’s likely to volunteer to be the webmaster.

As to the meme itself, I found it funnier fifteen years ago.    But Ann Althouse is right:  it’s “offputting an sad.”  But not surprising.  The nature of Us versus  Them is the ridiculing of Them.