1950's sales strategy #37: Humiliate the weak

Boy, is This One Depressing. In October 1950, Listerine ran an ad much like all the other ads they ran from the 1910'a all the way up until someone invented dentistry: cruel, shrill, exploitative, and chauvinistic. This time, they added Pointless Capitalization (for the First Three Paragraphs).

As always, click on the image to enlarge its bludgeon-like message.

Unpacking the assumptions herein makes me want to curl up in a fetal position and weep for the soul of womankind. It's not bad enough that Dora has bad breath; not bad enough that she's losing her only chance at romance, marriage, and family (the shameful potential fate that haunts every page of every women's magazine in the 50's); not bad enough that, because of her ignorance, she never even had a chance. They have to call her dumb. Dumb with a capital D, Dumb.

What an idiot, not to recognize that the odds are always in favor of a woman being offensive. What a moron, not to realize that halitosis was so common, and so offensive, that every woman who wasn't raised in a barn ought to know to spend three minutes a day painfully burning her mouth with alcohol. What an idiot, not to be ashamed of herself, her body, and her expectations. No wonder she isn't popular; she's been turned back from the border of popularity by the homeland security agents of offended Mankind.

Toonpedia tells us

The phrase "Dumb Dora" was slang in the 1920s for a not-very-bright female, made popular by the vaudeville act of George Burns and Gracie Allen. Allen played Dora, who was so dumb — and what followed would be a typical bit of her illogical logic, of the sort that got huge laughs from vaudeville, movie and eventually TV audiences. (The schtick was revived decades later on The Match Game, but with audience participation added — right before the punchline, in unison, they'd shout, "How dumb was she?")

Chic Young's Dumb Dora (actual name, Dora Bell) debuted from King Features in 1924, as a seven-day feature. Despite her subtitle, "She's Not So Dumb As She Looks". she sometimes did look very, very dumb. She was a typical young woman of the flapper era, with a reasonably steady boyfriend, Bing Brown, and a crowd of other suitors.

So at least the original Dumb Dora got some dates.