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Dream Merchants (1960)

🕑 Added 2021-11-08 14:18:11 +0000 UTC

Comments

William E Lee

Perhaps, if one looks only at the value of money? I am thinking about the useful life and reliability of current appliances. Will they last as long as the 1950's models? Are they repairable?

Chris Crowther

That was...very 50s, despite being from 1960. In a "oh god, please shut up" kind of way.

Chris Crowther

More or less that would be the equivalent value: https://www.measuringworth.com/dollarvaluetoday/?amount=149&from=1960

William E Lee

Try buying a range for $149.00 today. More like ten times that would be my guess.

Matt Wietlispach

Oh, I know it was for salesmen, but were they trying to convince men to buy the product for their wives or did GE think women would walk into a store just to gaze at the GE "dream"? Like you, I found this to be extremely demeaning to women and is the most "over-the-top" production that wreaks of sexist stereotypes of the day. Today, it serves as something so backward-thinking that, with a little editing, could be a hilarious parody of the era. Unfortunately, stereotyping of women continued into the 70s with housewives touting the great performance of Tide laundry detergent as if the laundry was the most important, and satisfying, part of their day. The later part of the 70s, it seems the commercials with women started leaning towards sex appeal and that opened the door to all kinds of "dumb blonde" jokes. But even those can't compare to this film's use of velvet sheets and vivid colors for something so non-glamorous as a kitchen appliance. Even if it is for salesmen, there had to be just a few thinking "You gotta be kidding! My wife would crush my skull in with a skillet if I tried to convince her that life would be 100 times better with a GE range." After all, during WW2 is was mostly women who built all those aircraft for the war effort. Suddenly they had skills and easily performed "men's work". After the war it seems like industry forgot about them and the kitchen was the only place for them and stupid things like cooking a meal would be as gratifying as building an aircraft. It was a backward time for us as a society and Fran's movie just seems to be the most blatant case of "woman's place is in the kitchen" that I have EVER seen. I mean, WOW, this film, even now, is an embarrassment for GE and I would not be surprised if GE asked YouTube to take this down.

lohphat

As we look back at history we see life as it once was -- women were still a growing segment of the workforce so that the "default case" was a single wage earner and a stay-at-home wife. That's not a value judgement, but just a recounting of demographic facts of the time. The 60s and 70s began the great change. When my parents divorced in 1974 my mom had to go out and become our family's primary wage earner. We had to grow up really quickly in making our own meals and do our laundry -- me from age 8. So that patronizing tone of ads did change and we can look back and see where we were -- and why we don't want to go back.

Matt Wietlispach

I wasn't even born when this abomination was filmed, but I feel sorry for every women who actually had to live in the era when their biggest "dream" was an electric range. What's even more pathetic is that each MAN who watched this nightmare was actually probably convinced that women considered an oven some sort of status symbol. "Oh, honey, it's a GE range! I've never been so happy! Doris next door doesn't have half the meters and buttons on her range and, gee willikers, she's going to be so jealous! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" and the guy says "I knew you'd love it, honey! Now cook me up a roast with all the trimmings while I smoke my pipe and read the newspaper." "Wait until her birthday when I give her a SECOND toilet brush for the bathroom. Old Doris next door doesn't have TWO toilet brushes in her bathroom, by golly!" And if at all possible they will be GE toilet brushes!