This past weekend, we went and visited Jennifer’s sister up in Washington. On Friday night, while sitting around and watching the Olympics, we caught this ad:

Followed immediately by this one:

At the time, I didn’t really catch the irony. I was mostly stuck on the whole notion of premium M&M’s, which strikes me as just absurd. But the more I’ve been thinking about it, the more I am struck by the mixed messages that are being sent by these two ads, particularly since, as the Hathor Legacy points out, the Green M&M is almost always portrayed in a sexualized way. Even this commercial makes me a little wary, mostly because the intent of Green’s photoshoot is pretty obvious in the reactions of the Red, Blue, and Yellow M&M’s at the end of the commercial.

I just can’t help wonder what sort of mixed message my 7-year-old niece would have gotten if she’d been awake and watching television with us at the time. “You’re beautiful as you are, hun, but you’d be even more beautiful if you threw on some high heels and sexy stockings?” Seems somehow wrong to me.

Funny, but while I was writing up this blog entry, Jennifer pointed me at this video, the LHC rap:

Which is cool not just because it’s a rap about the Large Hadron Collider, but also because the lead rapper/artist/presenter/scientist in this video is a woman. Makes me want to be a high energy particle physicist all over again.

And buy a chemistry set for my little niece.