We were looking for a particular theme song from an airline commercial when we ran into this 1960's era black and white commercial for Folgers Coffee with . . . Mrs. Olson.
Of course, and especially from a feminist pov (point-of-view), what stands out in the video below - besides the easily parodied aspect of the script - are the messages they were sending their audiences at the time . . . and in just thirty seconds:
- that it was a wife's responsibility to make her husband's coffee in the morning
- that it was her responsibility to make it good
- that she served him, called him sir, while he was in the bathroom shaving
- all to please him.
Then after he thanks her, after he sips the coffee, the now ungrateful Neanderthal opines sarcastically about its lack of quality. But the real capper comes when, in an obviously intended ha-ha moment to endear him to the male audience, associates that coffee failure with his wife's attractiveness, by saying How can such a pretty wife make such bad coffee, (emphasis spoken) as if there is some sort of natural connection between a wife's looks and her particular skill sets in making coffee.
It certainly represents a time capsule of a hopefully long gone era while also serving to illustrate the attitudes that initially drove feminism - an easily understandable need to be respected and appreciated in a then world that offered little, if any of that.
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