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Shane Porter

Professor Hugetz

ENGL 1301

November 18, 2020

VRA Project Transcript

Sexism was very common in the media of the 1960’s. Women where very discriminated

against during that time.  Women were seen as less valuable as men in the workplace and not

treated fairly. Women at the time were expected to cook, clean and take care of the children

while staying at home. Many commercials portrayed women as unintelligent so it would seem

like women could not do the same work as men. You see this in the Xerox Copier commercial as

it shows a woman who is being depicted as dumb to promote a product by showing how easy the

product is to use. The video I will be analyzing and looking at on this website is the Xerox

Copier commercial. I will be talking about the sexism displayed in the Xerox Copier

Commercial and how it negatively portrays woman. In the Xerox commercial the company is

using a woman to help promote and sell their product. The commercial is extremely sexist and

gives a terrible representation of woman. This commercial shows a woman who explaining and

showing how easy the xerox copier is to work and use. After that the woman then goes on to

explain that she is not smart, but the Xerox copier is so easy to use that even she can figure it out

and know how to work it. The commercial blatantly shows and represents the sexism that women

in the 1960s endured on a daily basis.  The ad is promoting the new Xerox Copier machine, and

it shows how easy it is to use. The woman starts the commercial talking about all the things she

can’t do.  This expresses how women were treated and portrayed in the 1960s. Women were
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made out to seem like they were unintelligent on many advertisements and commercials. This

demonstrates that sexism ruled advertising in the 1960s and women were seen as inferior to men.

The Xerox Copier commercial displays sexism through the women’s facial expressions, speech,

and mannerisms.

In the Xerox Commercial the creators of the commercial used many different subtle

things to display the woman character as unintelligent and dumb. Sexism is displayed in the

very beginning of the advertisement by the woman is portrayed in the commercial and how she

expresses herself and talks about herself throughout the commercial. The commercial opens up

with the woman stating a list of simple tasks she can’t do. The woman in the commercial then

goes on to list basic things that she can’t do such as typing, filing and sharping pencils. In just

the first few seconds of the commercial the woman has already made herself seem very

unintelligent to the audience. The commercial does this to play off the generality that woman in

the 1960s were not as smart as men. Her boss then comes into the frame and hands her a stack of

papers. He then tells the woman to go make copies of the papers he had given her. She then

walks to the Xerox Copier machine and starts to explain why machine is so good. The woman

goes into detail about how easy the xerox copier is to use. She explains that it is very easy and

simple to use and all you have to do is just turn a knob and push a button. The commercial makes

it seem that this woman would not know how to use any complex machine and the only reason

she knows how to use the Xerox Copier machine is because it is super easy to use. The way the

woman in the commercial is displayed makes viewers think the copier easy to use and that

anybody could use it. Viewer’s get a false idea that this woman is unintelligent and not smart.

This is very sexist because it is playing off the stereotype and generality that many people had in

the 1960s which was that woman are not as smart as men. Many people believed that woman
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could not work the same jobs as men. People also believed that woman could not do their jobs as

good as men and looked down on woman who had jobs.

In the 1960s the media portrayed woman more as objects and trophies based off their

outward appearance and looks. In the beginning of the Xerox copier commercial, they use that

exact tactic to introduce and show this woman. The woman is introduced in a closeup shot of her

doing her markup. The commercial uses the looks of the actor to draw in the attention of the

audience. The commercial does this to make the woman seem like she is more of an object and

not an actual person with thought and feelings. The commercial uses the looks of the actor to

draw in the attention of the audience. When she was first introduced, she starts to talk about all

the things she can’t do. It serves a big part in the commercial because it shows that the women is

not very smart because she can’t do simple task. This helps the audience further understand how

easy the product is to use later in the commercial. The goal of the commercial is to convince

people to buy the Xerox Copier machine. The commercial conveys that the Xerox Copier is

super easy to use and that anybody can figure out how to use it. The Women starts off by talking

about how even she knows how to use the machine. This shows the audience that even this

woman who is being portrayed as unintelligent in the commercial knows how to work the Xerox

Copier machine. She then talks about how easy the machine is to use and how all you have to do

is push a button and turn a knob to work the machine. The message in the commercial reveals

that sexism is being used in the advertisement by degrading women and making them seem

unintelligent.

The commercial uses many different ways to make the woman in the commercial seem

unintelligent such as her facial expressions, the way she speaks, and how she talks. The woman

uses words such as “I can’t” and “I don’t know how.” (Xerox) To make herself seem
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unintelligent to the viewer. This is displaying sexism because it is making the woman seem

dumb. When the woman is talking about the machine, she uses facial expressions to show how

easy the machine is to use. Through her facial expressions it looks like she was surprised at first

that she knew how to work the machine.

The Xerox Copier commercial uses persuasion in order to convince the audience to buy

the Xerox Copier machine. First, the woman is handed a stack of papers from her boss who then

tells her to go make copies of the pieces of paper. Then woman walks to the machine and starts

to talk about how easy the machine is to use. This is surprising to the viewer’s because earlier in

the commercial the woman listed all things she could not do, such as filing or even sharpening a

pencil. This gives the audience a sense of just how easy the machine is to use. The audience sees

that if the woman in the commercial knows how to work the Xerox Copier machine then they

would have no problem figuring it out at all. She then talks about how good the machine is and

it's quick copying time. She is doing this to pursue the. audience to buy this product. Her words

in this part of the commercial demonstrate sexism because you see that the woman is very

capable of doing task and is actually intelligent, even though the commercial makes her out to be

dumb. The Xerox Copier commercial uses multiple different strategies during the advertisement

to pursue the audience. During the commercial the women’s facial expression and speech pursue

the audience. The way the woman acts in the commercial and how she is being portrayed in the

commercial, demonstrates how the media was very sexist in the 1960s. The advertisement makes

the women appear unintelligent to the viewer, so it makes their product look more useful. These

types of commercials were very common in this time period and was something women had to

deal with on a daily basis.

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The Xerox Copier commercial displays how woman had to deal with sexism in the

1960s. The video used many different examples to try to make it seem like woman are not

intelligent. At the time of this commercial many women were expected to stay at home and not

work. Woman were expected to take care of their families and watch over their kids from home.

Woman faced severe sexism during this time because many men did not want woman to be

working outside jobs. Woman had to deal with sexism on a daily basis and had to deal with how

they were being portrayed by the media. This commercial drives off the stereotype of the

“blonde female” it makes the woman seem dumb and not aware of her surroundings and not

capable of doing any complicated task. Sadly, this was very common in Ads and commercials

during that time period. Sexism was a very big part of day-to-day life during the 1960s and this

commercial is an example of that. Woman worked just as hard and just a good as men but, were

still being portrayed as not smart enough or not good enough in commercials such as this one.