Procter & Gamble pulls Clairol shampoo commercial and apologizes to nurses
June 11, 2003 -- As a result of protests from nurses, Procter & Gamble promised on June 9 to stop running a Clairol Herbal Essences television commercial that showed a female nurse leave her patient unmonitored to wash her hair in his bathroom, then dance around his room, waving her hair in ecstasy....more
Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.
Originally posted by SandySummers
Hi Teshiee:
The hoopla is all about--nurses must start to have a say in how the media portrays their image. Every time we allow a company or a television show to portray us as sex objects or neglectfully malevolent or angels or handmaidens, this wrongheaded idea of who we are sticks in the head of the average member of the public. And when the portrayal is bad, people lose respect for our profession and decide that they don't want to become a nurse, that they don't think it's a profession worthy enough to encourage their kids to join and hence--we have a grave nursing shortage!
So as soon as we start taking control of our image, we can educate the public that nursing is a great, rewarding profession that takes education and great talent to do well and you can pursue it to the highest levels of academia. Only then will we be able to recruit the best and the brightest to our profession and make it the most coveted health profession. If we don't start taking control of our media image, our profession will surely perish.
Sandy
*************************************************
Thank you Sandy! I don't get why people "don't get it". This makes me so angry sometimes. Don't people see, things like this are what hold us back in the public's view of nursing as a profession. It has to begin SOMEwhere and I become incensed seeing nursing professionals portrayed such a way. I don't care if it's "just TV". In the USA, so much of where people derive their perspective of the world comes from the idiot box. I am tired of seeing nursing bashed this way, unfairly. IF the other professionals are offended similarly, well let THEM take up THEIR cause. MINE is nursing.
Clairol has been running idiotic commercials for decades, but they outdid themselves with the shampoo thing:( It was the last straw for me: I now willingly drive>20 miles to a beauty supply place to buy hairdye, etc., from any company not affiliated with Clairol, P&G, or their subsidiaries.
Ya'll make good points for its removal but as a guy I kinda get a chuckle from those silly commercials.
Yah Tom, they're silly and we (as nurses)can shake our head and grin. Sadly, the uninformed Joe public does form opinions of professions based on such silly things though. Sexualizing female nurses has been going on too long, IMO.
Would a male nurse think it just 'silly' if they saw a male nurse on duty faking an orgasm while their patient became tachycardic?
Whaddya say guys? Is it different? Would ya complain?
:kiss
SmilingBluEyes
20,964 Posts