New poster for yearly trip raises eyebrows
Paige Vonk | Fulcrum Contributor
Photo by Kyle Hansford
EVERY WINTER SEMESTER, University of Ottawa students take a trip to Mont Tremblant, Que. to ski, snowboard, and just have a good old time. “Snowjam,” as the fun-filled winter weekend is commonly called, has become known around campus as an amazing three days—if you can actually remember any of it.
Snowjam is organized by Campus Vacations, a company that arranges trips for university-aged students. Organizers try to sell this vacation to students in every way possible, including advertising on Facebook and Twitter and handing out flyers around campus.
This year, Snowjam promoters took an interesting approach to advertising. Instead of pictures of people downhill skiing or doing impressive snowboarding jumps, the Snowjam poster depicts three half-naked women desperately vying for the attention of one man. The image brings to mind the most distasteful of beer commercials, to say the least.
Organizers of the trip aren’t directly affiliated with the U of O, but we as students are affiliated with Snowjam—and is this really the way we want our school represented? In my opinion, this ad has no appeal whatsoever, and I’m sure there are many other male and female students who feel the same way. Not only does this poster represent women in a unfavourable and demeaning light, but it could discourage female participation in the event. And why is it only the girls in the picture who are scantily clad, when the dude is fully dressed after a day on the hills?
This poster portrays an unrealistic ideal for the male student population, and it would be sad if they tried to emulate what it depicts. It would be equally sad if the female students tried to live up to this portrayal of women. This poster, which could have taken any number of artistic directions in its endorsement of the event, chose to stoop to the level of the many other forms of media that try to tell young people how to look and act.
Some people might say it’s just one poster, but this is where it starts: one simple depiction that, once deemed acceptable, snowballs into a never-ending cycle of images and ideals that are both unrealistic and demeaning.
Snowjam will most likely be a lot of fun and partying, but it shouldn’t take a poster like this to entice people to attend. So by all means, let’s go have fun with our friends—and hope that next year’s promotional posters feature some better dressed people.
