Target's "Free To Be You and Me" ad

[mcity]

Just a cute ad about how school can promote individuality, right? Wrong.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UnfortunateImplications/Advertising

A Target commercial begins with triplet girls who are attired in school uniforms eating breakfast and going off to school. Then throughout the school day their outfits morph until they exit the school in brightly colored outfits of the same style but different colors. The unfortunate implication from this commercial, due to the expressions used throughout the day and the song playing throughout the commercial, is that every child who attends a school where school uniforms are worn is a cookie-cutter conformist and the only way to show your individuality is to wear "regular" clothing, even though every child coming out of the school is wearing similar styles of "regular" clothing. There is also a second, possible unfortunate implication in that it says the only way to express one's individual spirit is through outward appearances, disregarding anything internal.

I'm just surprised they didn't manage to find an excuse to use the word "heteronormative" or "paradigm".

And if you can look closely at the ad, the school doesn't actually wear uniforms. Those are just three identically dressed triplets.