Between the infamous Peloton commercial, the wild Boyhood wannabe that ended up being a Subway ad, and the endless #girlboss marketing reminding you that even women can be part of the capitalist machine, 2019 was a year for advertising.
But nothing quite tops this one, which was released in September but resurfaced in a viral tweet on Friday.
The ad starts off with a bleak statistic: women hold just 10 percent of all patented inventions. Then, it pans over to a delightful montage of ambitious young women. Each one is filmed preparing for their career goals, from mixing delicate chemicals in a laboratory to carefully testing the consistency of soil.
A 16-year-old says she's working on an invention that'll detect the amount of harmful dyes in soft drinks and other sugary products. A 13-year-old tells the audience that she's working on an invention that'll detect lead in drinking water. Another 16-year-old wants to invent a device that can detect sinkholes before they collapse.
And what are they all gifted, courtesy of Hasbro, Inc?
Ms. Monopoly.
Tweet may have been deleted
In true corporate fashion, the Hasbro Toy Company is making great strides in the name of feminism. Even girls can be property owners! At the time of the game's release, Hasbro got a lot of flak for Ms. Monopoly. The rage has just picked up again as the commercial made the Twitter rounds once more.
Here's the full version, which Hasbro posted on its YouTube channel last year.
To be fair, Hasbro also gave each of the young inventors a $20,580 grant to develop their ideas. The grant amount reflects the total amount of in-game money that comes with every box of Monopoly.
The game's rules are bizarre, though — all in the name of empowerment, of course. Female players start off with $1,900 instead of $1,500, like male players do, and collect $240 instead of just $200 when they pass go. Unlike in real life, women make more than men. And instead of collecting properties, players invest in products invented by women, per the Smithsonian, including WiFi, chocolate chip cookies, and modern shapewear. Ironically, there's no in-game acknowledgment of Monopoly creator Lizzie Magie, whose idea was stolen by a man who sold it to the Parker Brothers, which was eventually folded into Hasbro.
Yikes.
But hey, who needs to acknowledge the labor of women when you could learn to build monopolies by investing in modern shapewear!
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