I dunno about Flo
You may think you don’t know Flo, but of course you do. She’s the woman in the Progressive Auto Insurance ads, the one with the retro makeup and 60s-ish hair and the attitude.
Those ads, and Flo, happen to set my very teeth on edge. But in one of the most basic functions of advertisements, they sure get my attention. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
I’m not alone in being irked by Flo. But I don’t share another common reaction—among a very different demographic, heterosexual males: sexual attraction. Who knew?
Flo is played by an actress/comedienne named Stephanie Courtney, a veteran of improv comedy who adds a bit of her own flair and style—and some off-the-cuff quips—to her pitchlady’s character. And the makeup and hair? It takes a full two hours, handy information to have if you happen to want to be a Flo lookalike.
I too am irked by Flo. But then, she represents the Progressive Insurance company and I tend to be irked by “progressives” in general.
Ok, gotta admit she doesn’t irk me – and there is a lil something something ’bout her…….
I guess this shows that an outgoing personality works goes a long way with men.
Progressive Insurance rubs me the wrong way for a different reason.
The only thing a vision of Flo does for me is an uncontrollable impulse to grab the remote and switch channels.
There is something of Rachael Ray (sp?) in her, I think Same “soft-p0rn” kinda fake perky H.S. cheerleader.
I guess she attracts the same men who appreciate that kind of fantasy.
I like her.
I think it’s the attitude.
uh-oh. what does that say about me and my choice of women..
Back to the drawing board. 🙂
Sloan, I’ve got a better reason to be irked by “Progressive Insurance.” It’s CEO, Peter Lewis, is a (sorta) American version of George Soros.
Flo is OK. But I really want to slap the snot out of those FreeCreditReports.com slacker hippies.
I have a simpler solution: lose cable entirely. We did, and don’t miss it at all (even our two young kids, who were fully on board with the idea).
We read a lot more, and occasionally watch shows on Hulu and Fancast, or get movies from the library and/or Netflix. All in all, a huge improvement, because we do what we want to do, rather than settling for the least bad of the options before us.
Greetings:
Well, if “Flo” is having an impact, I would like to offer an opportunity to you all take my TV commercial test. When next you settle in for an evening’s worth of commercialized TV, see if you can keep track of the following categories: Stupid White Guys (SWGs), Ass-Kicking Women (AKWs), and Obviously Superior Minorities (OSMs).
Its the SWGs that set my teeth on edge, which means my teeth are on edge quite a lot. The AKW moniker is a bit of an exaggeration; it can include the rhetorical as well as the physical. An the OSMs, well, they’re just a celebration of diversity, if you know what I mean.
years from now she will move to a new place on tv and be a waitress and say “eat my grits”… heck.. am i living backwards or forwards now?
I find her alluring. I could not stand to live with the character, or even to have dinner with the character. However, I have an (irrational?) sense that I could calm the character down into someone genuine and wonderful.
The character is forgiving of men. THAT goes a long way towards explaining her attraction. Sit down any group of twenty married men – even emotionally mature, successful, disciplined, well-adjusted men – and you will find ten men who genuinely believe their wives are harridans far too much of the time.
Flo is not a harridan. She is forgiving, understanding. She is happy – she embraces life – as opposed to many people who would just as soon be dead. She has a sense of humor. These are attractive traits. And Flo is physically attractive.
Then there is the portion of the actress which leaks into the character. The actress has a Grace Kelly vibe: you just KNOW, underneath the veneer, she is hot. Very. The actress gives off the vibe, and I instinctively sense it.
So, I’ll say it: Flo is hot. Much of me cannot stand her, yet parts of me love her.
gcotharn:
BINGO!
Two words; exuberant enthusiasm. She’s dripping with it, its coming out of her pores. And it is quite catching.
Who’s been exuberant about anything in their lives lately? That and the classy retro hair and makeup, quite a combination really.
All harking back to a self confident past that has been lost to post-modern cynicism, doubt, and self-criticism. Yeah, she’s hot…
I’m with Neo. I don’t see it.
Rachael Ray — Yay
Flo — NO
Hate to say it as a het male, I don’t see it. In fact, I’m annoyed by it.
Something wrong with me?
On a different note: Some time back there was talk of a strike by actors who did commercials. They wanted more residuals, possibly at the cost of lower up-front pay. The reason was that, if the ad was hugely successful, they were toast for further work. If a guy was the Beer Guy in an awardw-winning beer ad, he would always be the Beer Guy and, unless the beer company wanted him back, he probably wouldn’t work again.
You’ll recall Larry Linville, Frank Burns of MASH, played such a weasel that, after the show ended, he tried one non-Burns role, flopped and committed suicide.
He was no longer the actor Linville, but the slimy weasel Frank Burns, for the rest of his life.
That was an emotional burden.
Flo here is going to be Flo forever. Hope she has good residuals.
Richard Aubrey: Flo seems to be an either/or thing, even among heteros. You either love her (hot!) or you don’t (cold). There doesn’t seem to be much in-between.
And if you follow the link and look at the photo of the actress without the Flo makeup, i think she looks different enough from the Flo character that she won’t necessarily be associated with her in future roles.
Flo is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Wikipedia Entry.
Essay 16 films featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls at avclub.com
Entry at TVTropes.com
What I find interesting is the extreme light/dark of the commercials. Everything light (including Flo’s face) is washed out. Her hair is raven-black (or as near to it as you can see on television) and her lipstick is very strong. It reminds me of a theory I had a while ago: that in centuries past women used lead white as a cosmetic so that their features would be more visible indoors and especially in the evening, with limited light.
Is she attractive? I don’t know. But the extremes of ‘value’ (light intensity) make her visually interesting and her mannerisms reinforce that.
njcommuter: Like Geisha makeup.
She stirs something in me, not sure what it is, a little big for my tastes, Maggie Gyllenhaal does the same thing, not sure what. Hot as a pistol, wouldn’t touch their product with a ten foot poll even if it did save money, they are one of the famous left wing bank rollers, the name of the company should be a hint
Compared to so many irritating other commercials on the air now, Flo is a minor irritant.
Now that guy for Sonic, I want 5 minutes alone in a room with his sorry a$$.
I’m with Sloan, Matthew M, and Occam’s Beard in being irked by Progressive Insurance. Had I not learned about Peter Lewis’s interest in “progressive” causes, I might find Flo’s “exuberant enthusiasm” rather charming, but instead the ads set my teeth on edge because they make me wonder how many folks Flo is winning over for the company.
I think she’s kind of cute.
But I’m getting older and I don’t get out much.
On the other hand, I’ve heard that Progressive Insurance is run by a leftist, so I’m not very cool with that.
Now, on the other hand, Rachael Ray is SMOKING hot.
But the few times I’ve watched her TV show, she seems to talk incessantly, which I would quickly grow tired of in real life.
Then again, I need all the cooking help I can get, so I might have to put up with Rachael’s loquaciousness.
Theoretically speaking, of course.
I notice the lack of character in everyone in juxtaposition to Flo. Reminds me of the hip vs square dynamic pushed in Apple commercials with the bland Mr PC.
Whats scary is that this type of perception manipulation is now in high gear at picking our political leaders and our future.
11B40,
So, you noticed the catagorization too then? I was talking with wifey this past weekend about that exact thing, but without the acronyms.
Its “That Girl”!!!
11B40.
When were you last doing the 11B40 thing?
I had the honor to be 11B10 and 71542 just over forty years ago.
I think what both ‘Flo’ and Rachel Ray have is an approachability vibe that piques men’s interest. They are both physically attractive but don’t give off the ‘touch me and draw back a bloody stump’ vibe of an ice queen beauty or a skanky ‘don’t touch me you don’t know where I’ve been’. Guys look at them and think ‘I could talk to her’
derhahn
I knew a woman who gave off a “don’t even think it” vibe in public. Self defense. Beautiful, fantastic figure. Perfectly personable one-on-one or in quite small groups.
I think it intimidated the wimps and challenged another type. But the other type would have been approaching, anyway.
So, maybe, she was spared the wimps.
its a nice theory, but i dont think it pans out. most of these things we do are about secondary sexual characteristics and enhancing other sexually related things.
it also is interesting as to watch all through history women copy mens affectations and make them their own, but usually along certain lines over time.
you find themes of constraint, false parts, false signals, etc.
for instance, up until recently many womens affectations had to do with demonstrating 2 things, great genetics, and not having to work. even the zoftigs followed this theme.
so women took up binding clothes, long nails, delicate clothing, jewelry, long hair, and lots of other things. all are demonstrations of liesure and safety…
the other areas is in accenting what you have or making another set. so cleavage makes the same view that a womans ass makes. facial lips mimic other areas. and the color of lipstick choice follows tendencies that follow the fertility cycle. hair color, skin color.
for each of the things that women use, even if they complain about it, there is a clear biological reason you can see if you know it. and just like gluing a extra long tail on a stickleback makes him into an alpha, women raise their base this way. sometimes going to heroic degrees.
mens markers are less lying. that is they are harder to fake than womens, and less acceptable for men to fake it. a woman that gets larger boobs is not generally ostracized, a man who pretends to be rich and isnt, gets walloped.
ok… make up does three things having to do with what we look for biologically.
it allows one to look like they are in a state that usually occurs just after orgasm, it makes the skin appear even and clear, and it makes womens skin color lighter because mens skin color is darker.
just as advertisers and magazine cover artists lengthen legs, women make their skin color lighter (generally) for the same reason. her skin color and her legs are secondary sexual characteristics and longer legs make one hyperfeminine, and so does light skin.
[make up has other effects too including disocciaiton of the self for women, and even a mood setting crutch. recent mri studies show that a woman with make up sees herself as another woman. also how you wear it can advertise what kind of experience you may be after and so cause things to happen. men do not have such relationships with their shoes, underwear, clothes, and certainly not makeup(for most)]
from greeks and romans covering themselves up, to parasols, and heavy white make up. women competed with other women to catch the favors of the few men who were not underclass.
some of the things even became classical sexual fantasies that have been kind of passed down even to today. the lord who is smittin by the milk maide (whose cow pox protected her from other pox and so had clear skin), and makes her a lady.
[remember in feudal states, like we are moving into, they have harem or equivalents. but thats another story for another day]
so ultimately lighter skin and in some cases hyper light skin color is considered more feminine. the men who would be outside and doing what men do would have darker skin and the women of wealth and class would have lighter skin.
oh… lipstick? the redder it is the closer to your fertility you are. now this isnt a hard fast rule and is usually proportional to the person. so what is red for one is not so red for another. studies were done where they took oral samples from the women to determine their fertility, and they measured the amount of skin showing and the color of the lipsticks. closer to fertility, more skin, redder lips.
colors became more prevalent later when forms of sex which were not procreative became more acceptable.
ultimately though, just lipstick in itself being a constant difference (most of the time) is enough to set it as a sexual signal even if these tendencies are not hard rules.
thats too long… eh? (and there is so much more)
sigh
flo reminds everyone of the goth chick who has to work and seems to men to be more likely to have sex with. she promises the potential of no string sex that may be more intense cause she is weird.
go to the village.. there used to be tons of her around (and last i was there, still are).
oh… she also has the attitude of the originals, not the copies of today
There’s only one auto insurance hottie, and it’s not Flo:
http://www.vectorvault.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/esurance-2-vectorvault.jpg
I see the attraction, and think it is best not to dwell on the topic to discover in myself what it comes from…
Until now I was afraid to admit it. I think Flo is kind of hot.
I may be kind of strange–ask my friends–but annoying has always trumped hot.
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I don’t even have cable or satellite (in fact I sold my TV) at home, and I’m still sick to death of the Progressive ads.
How, you ask? Because I work in an office where there are a LOT of “down” periods, and the TV is on continually in order to entertain us. During that time, I see literally dozens of Progressive Insurance ads in an 8 or 11 hour shift.
Flo is perky to the point of being annoying. I find myself blinded by her rows of dazzling white teeth. I’m also frequently annoyed by the other people in the commercials. The two guys who approach her to buy insurance, one of whom has sold the other his watch, for instance. I can’t put my finger on it, but they really set off my “gay-dar.” Also one of the latest ones, with the price gun. Puhleaze.
Flo is somewhat physically attractive, I suppose, but it’s hard for me to tell completely. She wears white pants and there is so much light in the background that I can’t see very much of her “curves.” What little there is to see is largely hidden behind that stupid apron she’s always wearing. (And she wears too much makeup, frankly. It reminds me of that line in Ferris Bueler’s Day Off, the one from the Charlie Sheen character, “My sister wears too much eye makeup. People say she looks like a whore.”
Don’t you love that little pin she always has on next to her “tricked-out name tag?” The one that says “I Love Insurance?” Uhm, no. Insurance is an expensive necessity…something you hate spending money on. Something you buy for the rare contingencies in life, like a car crash.
To make matters worse, Flo has started showing up in banner ads on my favorite websites, as well as on TV. I’m telling you, this chick is everywhere. The pink-haired cartoon girl on Esurance or the Geico gecko are both far, far easier for me to swallow than Flo is.
One of my co-workers had the best line. He said, “I want to hit her (Flo) in the head with a golf club.” I responded, “One of these days I’m going to write to the Progressive insurance company and tell them that I will NEVER buy insurance from them, just because their commercials are so annoying and so frequently shown on TV.” One of my other co-workers said, “Yeah, but you remember the name, don’t you?” True…but at the least, I couldn’t help wondering how much lower Progressive’s insurance premiums would be if the company didn’t spend so much on advertising.
I had wondered about the company’s name…if there was any connection with political “progressives.” Now that I found out there is, I’m DEFINITELY never buying insurance from them.
Ugh. Do. Not. Want.
That voice, those annoying expressions. Being with a woman like that seems like an earthly version of hell. This is an ad that guarantees that I’ll never do business with this company ever.
*shudder*
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Progressive Insurance and this woman are disgusting. Trouble is when I turn the channel there she is again. I cancelled my son’s Progressive Insurance when I learned where my money was going. If this American hater Peter Lewis wants Europeon socialism he should take his company and this freak over there.