Ad Standards Board rules a Fremantle hotel ‘ball and chain’ billboard is sexist
The Ad Standards Board has ruled against a billboard advertising a Fremantle hotel as it was found to be sexist against women.
The billboard for Hougoumont Hotel in Fremantle had an image of a woman’s body in which the face is covered by a three mast tall ship, alongside a yellow blob of paint with an “old style” ball and chain attached to the woman. It is accompanied by the text ‘Room for you and your ball and chain’.
Complainants argued the outdoor ad objectified women and suggested that the ad implies that a woman now only has the right to be allowed in the public sphere of the Hougoumont Hotel.
“The ad objectifies women. The woman, for one, has only part of her body showing, her face unimportant and covered by a ship (no doubt an artistic attempt at relating to Fremantle). It suggests that a woman is an annoying weight a man has to drag around,” the complainant continued.
“The add (sic) implies that only now a woman has the right – but only as an object, a “ball and chain”, and only through the movement of her male partner who drags her around – to be allowed in the public sphere of the Hougoumont hotel”.
The hotel, along with its advertising agency Jam Jar, defended the spot, suggesting the advert artwork is post-modern “and requires the viewer to consider and break down the various elements of the image”.
“Similar post-modern art is located throughout the Hotel and draws relationships with various historical elements Hougoumont as Fremantle’s relatively unknown last convict ship, Bannister Street as the location of 3 infamous war time brothels, and Fremantle as Perth’s premier cultural hub.”
The hotel argued that the complainant had “misinterpreted” the artwork.
“Depending on the individual’s inclination and understanding of historical Fremantle, the ball & chain may just as easily be seen to symbolise the male,” the hotel said in a statement to the ASB.
In its ruling, the board noted the detailed breakdown of the imagery’s meaning, however it ruled that while the creative idea may have a different interpretation, the overall message was a “negative one and is purposefully categorising women as the ball and chain and not men”.
It was the board’s view that the ad did amount to a depiction that discriminates or vilifies a section of the community on account of gender, thus it upheld the complaint.
While the hotel disagreed with the board’s ruling, it has agreed to take the billboard down.
In a response to the ASB the hotel said: “I have given it some thought and we don’t agree with the committee’s comments. Fremantle has a world heritage listed convict prison and most people coming to Fremantle would know that. The double entendre is pretty clear and if indeed your interpretation is taken (by the majority), it would be seen (by the majority) as having tongue in cheek overtones. The main subject is still, in our view, the relationship to the history of Fremantle and the Hougoumont ship. Nevertheless, it is hardly a subject worth fighting over or spending additional time on, so we will take the billboard down.”
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PC is a curse, it makes any kind of thought outside the square either sinister or square depending upon the limits of the beholder and subsequent complainant.
Ball and chain was the part of a man’s wife that retarded his wandering or pub hours.
Ball and chain was also the pub or the gaming house or whatever vice held him back from family life. It is a simile, not a pejorative.
Like mother in law jokes, which were never accurate descriptions of mothers in law, neither were they an accurate description of the relationship that each married man had with the mother of his wife.
They were a recognisable, obvious facet of the likely archetype of a mother in law.
They also worked both ways for husband or wife.
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