Via Ampersand, this commercial triggers three thoughts:
1) I can't believe that people ever imagined marriages revolving around anything this trivial, even in la-la advertising land where people frequently spend hours discussing the merits of various laundry soaps.
2) I can't believe that my mother grew up in an era where this kind of humiliating message was routinely broadcast.
3) I can't believe that anyone finds it that hard to make a cup of coffee. Did it used to come encased in a hard shell, or something?
1. What do you think most marital conversations revolve around? Sartre and Proust? Probably most of them revolve around cooking, housekeeping, scheduling the children, etc. Obviously the husband in the ad is a little ruder than most people are in real life, but, hey, it's an ad. Most wives aren't quite as unhappy as the one in the Heinz ad who set her microwave timer on 2 minutes before having sex.
2. I can't believe my sons or daughters are growing up in an era where the humililiating Heinz ad is broadcast. Is that really our model of marital sex?
3. The people in the ad are talking about finding instant coffee that is as good as percolator coffee. This quest is about as far from contemporary experience as a discussion of who makes the best spindles. I have no idea how hard it was in 1955 to make instant coffee that tasted as *good* as percolator coffee.
You're really showing your youth.
On pt. 3, my (rural)family started using instant coffee around 1955, so I suspect the context is trying to get people to switch from ground to instant coffee. Compared to today's coffees, no coffee in the 1950's was much good. Remember that was well before "drip coffee". Using a percolator (see Wikipedia) required more skill than using Mr. Coffee. (Thank you Joe DiMaggio.)
Oh, you should see how black people were portrayed back in the day!
If this blew your mind . . . geesh, you have no idea.
Off-topic: Did you see that John Scalzi is crushing on you?
I used to think I was a bit of a coffee snob, so when I started visiting my in-laws and noticed that they drank Folgers, I cringed. Then I tried it, and it is actually pretty good. It doesn’t quite taste like coffee; it has some strange coffee like flavor, but that doesn’t mean it is bad.
"We’ve secretly replaced the coffee in this fancy restaurant with Folgers Crystals. Let’s see how people react.”
The percolator is an intrinsicaly bad design. You can make decent coffee with one, but it is pretty tricky.
Once it starts to perk, you need to decrease the heat by a lot, but not so much that it stops perking. The problem is that you are putting heat directly into already made coffee and this tends to burn it.
But why were people using percolators in the first place? I mean, we had one when I was a kid. Corningware. It's not like there weren't drip coffee makers at the time.
wiki
In Poland in the 80s one just dumped a teaspoon of ground coffee into a tea glass. If you added sugar, you did not stir.
This isn't much different than the sort of ads in which the guy is rubbernecking over some chick because of her hair conditioner. I hope that someday those ads will seem just as offensive and ridiculous as this one.
Although drip coffee was around in the '50s, it was always in diners and restaurants--not in homes. Everyone I knew that made coffee used a percolator. My parent's recipe was to grind (one variable) the coffee beans (another variable) and place a certain quantity (another variable) in the basket. Fill the pot to the bottom of the basket (another variable which depended on the brand and size of the percolator) and place on the stove on high heat. As soon as the coffee started to perk, turn the heat down to a simmer and perk for 7 minutes (another variable).
When I started making my own coffee in my own percolator, I found that I liked to perk the coffee for 10 minutes.
The best cup of coffee I had was with an electric percolator that I started on Monday morning and forgot about until Friday. Nice rich nutty flavor that was out of this world.
You guys are all missing the key point. Forget the wife, and her pathetic need to please her man in every way. Imagine: there was once a time when the girls at the office used to make coffee. I work in an office. There are girls in my office. None of them make coffee. I have to walk two blocks to a Starbucks and pay $3.00. Sometimes, building a bridge to the past doesn't seem like such a bad idea.
Talk about a foreign country.
When he first said that, I thought she was going to murder him. I thought she would go off to the side, get a HARPOON, and murder him.
Then have an on-camera lesbian affair with the neighbor.
... my mind wandered.
HOT POT OF COFFEE!
Re: There are girls in my office. None of them make coffee. I have to walk two blocks to a Starbucks and pay $3.00.
We have a nifty little coffee maker that brews up one cup at a time. You put a little single serve packet (the office stocks multiple flavors, and teas too) press the button and presto! coffee in a cup.
Tell your boss or HR person you want one. They really are neat. No one has to make coffee, and you never have to deal with cleaning up old coffee pots that someone left on the burner overnight.
What's really funny is that "Ampersand" had to go back 50 years to find a suitable commercial that can be considered "degrading" to womyn- as compared to what's readily available today.
"I have no idea how hard it was in 1955 to make instant coffee that tasted as *good* as percolator coffee."
In 1955 all instant coffee sucked. I am an old man, I know.
You can't believe it used to be hard to make a cup of good coffee???
Here's a challenge for you:
1. Take Folgers or Maxwell House.
2. "Brew" it using one of those percolators.
3. Drink it without choking.
My hat's off to you if you can do it.