What are our girls made of?

Nike released a feminist video. Everything (well, almost everything) is delighted

As part of the new Nike Russia campaign, they released a motivating advertising video “What are our girls made of?” Video with the participation of star athletes calls on to abandon the stereotypes that surround women since childhood. There was no such expressive attempts at the feminist statement from a large brand in Russia. "Medusa" says that it is useful in such advertising and what are its shortcomings.

The two -minute video oriented towards Russia became the nuclear of the new Nike campaign “made of ...” , inspired by famous athletes, their determination and how they “change the culture of sports”. The Olympic champion in the women's single figure skating Adelina Sotnikova, the Russian champion in Thai boxing and the fighter MMA Anastasia Yankova, the skateboarder Katya Shengelia, the athlete Christina Sivkova, the defender of the FC “Chertanovo” Ksenia Lazareva, the ballerina Olga Kuraeva, the coach of Anastasia, starred in the campaign and the video. Kotelnikova and actress Irina Gorbacheva.

The main character of the video is a girl who performs on stage with the famous Soviet song "From what, from what ...". Having reached the description of what exactly the girls were made of, the heroine thinks. Then athletes who break into the hall come to her aid - and the girl changes the Soviet text to a new one.

According to the author of the words of the original version of Jacob Khaletsky, the boys are made “from freckles and crackers, from lines and batteries”, and girls “from scarves and glomeruli, from riddles and marmalade”. The authors of the Nike video decided to show what such a distribution of roles and interests (science and impudence are boys, needlework and tenderness - girls) not only outdated, but also drives women into the framework of stereotypes, preventing them from choosing their own path. Therefore, in the updated version of the girl, “from iron, from aspirations, from dedication and battles”, as well as “from bruises and cuffs” and “grace that the whole nation is proud”.

The director of the video was Briton David Wilson , the author of the clips Tame Impala, Metronomy and Arctic Monkeys, as well as the winner of the Grammy nomination for the video Arcade Fire “We Exist”. During the day, the video scored more than 500 thousand views on the Nike Women Yutub channel and more than three thousand reposts on Facebook. Most shares it in social networks with enthusiasm: “People who shoot such videos change the world ”, “ never forget that we are made of fire, aspirations and achievements!”

“When you look at the video and you cry a little of joy, pride, mixed feelings, from the fact that Girl Power, from what is important, is from the fact that the girls are made of what they do, and not from what someone else can be there inside them,” the runner of Nike Alexander Boyarskaya shared her feelings.

For some spectators, the video also caused critical remarks, and not only aesthetic nature . In discussions, it raises as a question of “consumer feminism” (that is, using brands of feminist ideas for commercial purposes), and manifestations of eijism in the video (all the positive heroines in it are young and conventionally beautiful).

The editor -in -chief of Gorky Nina Nazarova noted the similarity of the key moment of the video with the scene from Sex in the Bolshoi City, where one of the heroines after chemotherapy publicly pulled off the wig, and other women followed her example. “15 years ago we were shown a 40-year-old bald woman after breast cancer, and now a thin girl in fashionable underwear,” she wrote. In her opinion, this is a failed attempt by Empaurge - the glorification of the internal power of women.

The philologist and teacher of Alexander Bazhenov-Sorokina in his telegram channel Grownups_not_only writes that it is not worth exaggerating the revolutionary of the video, because in 2017 "a huge part of women of all ages and he is constantly promoted as a source of health and as a source of beauty." Musical manager Lena Gracheva also drew attention to mizoginistic notes in an interview with one of the heroines of the campaign of Anastasia Yankova, who called the female team the “apotheosis of cruelty” and prefers the company of men “who allow me to feel protected.”

Among other things, the video also contrasts two stereotypical female images (“Girls in the Dress” and “Strong Woman”), again putting women before the choice: either that, or that. But all these disadvantages do not cancel the fact that Nike, against the background of a huge number of sexist cliches , created a precedent in the Russian market - and, judging by the reaction of the audience, fell into a point.

Olga Strachovskaya