For many viewers, checking out Super Bowl commercials can be even more exciting than watching the game itself. These ads are now teased days before the game, and many contain celebrities lending their talents to create an entertaining TV spot. Unfortunately, one such ad totally missed the mark, as Kevin Hart's Super Bowl Hyundai commercial plays into sexist tropes and makes his daughter's agency the butt of the joke.
The premise of the ad is simple. Hart's daughter is going on a date, and he's letting the young couple drive his Hyundai Genesis, which has a "Car Finder" feature. Using that tool, Hart follows the teens on their date, sitting behind them at a movie theater, popping out among the prizes at a carnival, and taking a helicopter to spy on them as they park their car in a scenic location and attempt to kiss. The "joke" of the commercial is — thanks to Hart's surprise interruptions — his daughter's date is too scared to kiss her and even ends the date early. Every time he tries to get close to her, Hart pops up, putting an end to it. While the trope of an overprotective father is already all too prevalent in media, this commercial takes it to a new low in its treatment of Hart's daughter.
We never see the young woman have any agency. Her date initiates everything that happens throughout the night, and her father stops it. She's totally oblivious to her father's interruptions (even though by the end, they include an actual helicopter), and is essentially bounced between the two men in the situation. The below tweet really sums up just what makes this ad one of the most sexist seen during the Super Bowl so far.
The Super Bowl is known for providing an enormous audience for commercials, and it's disappointing that this ad used such a lucrative time to show two men volleying for a young woman's agency. Surely, there was a better way to use Hart's comedy to advertise a car — one that didn't diminish a young woman to being an object to be won.
