Alex in Spain sent us some links to this safer sex ad campaign. I think the image below is particularly interesting. In the U.S. anyway, we rarely see safer sex principles being applied to oral sex. Also, I much prefer the musical instrument metaphor to the gun metaphor.
Thanks Alex!
More safer sex campaigns: Milwaukee, New York, the United Kingdom, and France and Germany.
GWEN ADDS: I want to point out Oxydo is a sunglasses company. I think these images are advertisements for their sunglasses, not a safe-sex campaign. Here are two more posters:
Notice that in all of these, the woman is a faceless body to have sex with, whereas the guy is presumably supposed to be cool because he's wearing sunglasses. I'm not sure it's an AIDS awareness campaign at all--I think it's actually an ad campaign for Oxydo, and "protected" sex means wearing their sunglasses. They add the AIDS ribbon at the bottom to make a connection to anti-AIDS campaigns. See Copyranter's discussion here. Did anyone else notice the musical score in the first image is for "The Magic Flute"?
So there you go, folks--polysemy in action. People read images differently, and not always as the creator intended. This might be a unique AIDS-awareness campaign, or it might just be an ad that makes a superficial nod to AIDS awareness.
Safer Sex In Spain: Differing Opinions
Apparently Women Want What Porsche Symbolizes
Thanks Miguel! Found here.
Also in cars as replacements for sexual partners: driving is sexual stimulation, is that a hand break in your pocket?, and conflating women and cars.
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Map of Happiness
This is a map of global levels of happiness, put together by a social psychologist at the University of Leicester. The original is found here. This could be useful for a discussion of how we measure things like "happiness," as well as the obvious correlation between levels of economic development and overall happiness of the population.
Thanks to Tracy R.!
1908 Schlitz Ad: Beer Is Good for You!
This ad is from April, 1908:
Beer as a healthy tonic--I'm surprised beer companies haven't returned to this, now that we're obsessed with whole grains again. Apparently they also used to call Schlitz "liquid bread."
Thanks to Larry H. at the Los Angeles Times Daily Mirror blog!
Perplexing Censorship
WARNING: As you scroll down, this post is not safe for work.
We've posted about Tom Ford's most recent provocative campaign (see here), but Urban Artiste drew our attention to an interesting development. The Italian Advertising Institute has banned one of his ads for being too "vulgar," "sexually implicit," "beyond bad taste," and an "offensive gesture which insults women and the dignity of all" (quotes found at The Daily Telegraph). Which ad?
Not this one (found here):
Nope, not this one either (found here):
Nope, not even this one (found here):
Or this one (found here):
Nope, they banned this one (found here):
To be fair, I can't find out much information on this. I don't even know for sure if the other ads circulated in Italy (though I don't know of any reason why they wouldn't be). I'd love your speculations as to why the last would be singled out for censorship, as well as any additional information you hear about the ban.
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Axe Skin Contact Shower Gel Ad
I just saw the American version of this Axe ad (here in French) while watching Comedy Central:
This could be interesting for a discussion of how media portrayals imply that "hot" sex is extremely athletic and may include rough-housing or mild (or not-so-mild) violence.
Bud Lite X-Ray Vision Ad
In this ad for Bud Lite, we see a reversal of the usual gender pattern--in this case, a woman has x-ray vision and uses it to imagine what men look like under their clothes. When a chubby man appears and she sees his body under his clothes, she's disgusted and looks away.
An interesting example of men's bodies under scrutiny.
recruiting Women Marines
Kate N. pointed us towards this article in the New York Times today discussing 25 years of Marines recruitment aimed at women. Below is the content of their slide show.
1974:
1976:
1978:
1980:
1984:
1988:
1995:
1995:
2000:
2000:
The article says that the Marines have only recently began a concerted attempt to recruit women. Does anyone have any information about the shift in the racial targeting? Or is that just an artifact of the slide show?
Thanks so much for the tip, Kate!
Also in military recruitment: which military would you join?, the homefront, and war as entertainment.
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Men Doing Housework Fantasy Calendar
Also note that it's another example of social activism through consumption--the company makes a donation to breast cancer research for every calendar sold.
More Urinals
I found this one here. Are those supposed to be nuns? If so...why?
This mural is from the Sofitel Hotel in New Zealand:
The photo was sent to me; you can find it here. I was initially a bit suspicious, but Snopes says it's true, so I decided to post it. I assume I don't really need to explain that they're making fun of both the idea that you're not supposed to look at anyone while using a urinal and men's fears that women really do care about penis size.
And I found more pictures of nun (or maybe the Virgin Mary?) urinals here.
I don't know what to make of them.
Thanks to Pitseleh S. for introducing me to even more urinal images to add to these!
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Guns Protect Women Better Than Men
What's interesting about this image is the comment on masculinity--the implication is that "pacifist" men (whatever "pacifist" is taken to mean) aren't "real" men because they can't or won't fulfill their role of protecting women. The gun becomes a replacement for sissified men.
You can find the image here. You might compare it to this post.
Thanks, Bill F.!
Cord Blood Banking: Playing on Parental Fear
I found this ad for an umbilical cord blood storage company in the April 2008 issue of Healthy Las Vegas.
It provides a list of all kinds of very scary-sounding diseases as reasons you should pay to store your baby's blood cord. It's another example of scaring parents into buying expensive products to protect their kids--and, obviously, if you won't spend the money to store your baby's umbilical cord blood for years, you aren't a very good parent.
I went to the company's website. Under the heading "You Only Get One Chance to Bank Cord Blood" it says:
Banking a baby’s cord blood could prove invaluable should you ever need it. You only have one chance to collect this vital fluid and minutes after your baby is born. This sample has the potential to not only help the baby in the future, but also to blood relatives such as parents and siblings. It offers a powerful medical resource in fighting devastating chronic and acute diseases. Think of it as an investment in your family's future.It costs $1,850 for the kit to collect the blood from a single birth, plus $95 a year, or $1600 for 18 years, to store it.
Just for fun I looked up the prevalence of some of the diseases listed in the ad. Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome occurs in about 1 out of every 380,000 people. For amyloidosis, it's about 1 in 100,000. Less than 1 in 200,000 people have Wolman disease (these are all NIH estimates).
To put this in perspective, according to some calculations, a male African American child has about a 1 in 20 lifetime chance of being killed by gunfire. I don't know what it is for white kids, but I bet that, risk-wise, you'd be better off buying your kid a bullet-proof vest than banking their cord blood.
Maid Café
CBS Sunday Morning had a segment on the new-ish phenomenon of "Maid Cafés." I gathered from the report that they are most popular in areas of Japan where there are a lot of (male) "geeks." Here's a description from a Boston.com article on these restaurants:
"Welcome home, Master," says the maid as she bows deeply, hands clasped in front of a starched pinafore worn over a short pink dress.Here's a wikipedia description-- discussing how these cafés pull various cultural practices-- Japanese manga, anime, Japanese geishas, and French (or English) maids. Apparently, there are now Maid Cafés in Canada and Hong Kong (the one in Hong Kong is called the "Master-and-maid café"). Here are some videos as well-- from the U.S. news, and from Japanese news (sorry it isn't translated). These might make for an interesting discussion on culture, globalization, and gender.
This maid serves not some aristocrat but a string of pop-culture-mad customers at a "Maid Cafe" in Tokyo's Akihabara district, long known as a Mecca for electronics buffs but now also the center of the capital's "nerd culture.""When they address you as 'Master', the feeling you get is like a high," says Koji Abei, a 20-year-old student having coffee with a friend at the Royal Milk Cafe and Aromacare.
What Do You Think?
A reader saw this ad in Cosmo. Word on the street is that it is meant to look like a vulva.
Thanks aa bb!
Also in suggestive of sex (as if our 113 posts under the label "sex" doesn't count): not just a parking break and more not-so-subliminal sex.
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Selling Cars With Pro-Communist Sentiment
In this commercial a cadre of communist icons are gathered in a delapidated estate. Fidel Castro approaches Karl Marx and Che Guevara. Che says: "It's time for a new revolution." Karl says: "It's about what people need."
And the last line, according to googe translation German-English, says: "The first estate, which everyone can afford."
A great example of something we'd NEVER see in the U.S.
Found here. Thanks to Miguel for the image and the translation!
Using American Indian Genocide To Spread Anti-Immigrant Sentiment
Marcello sent us this really fascinating example of political propaganda from an anti-immigrant party in Italy. He translated the text as:
They suffered immigrationThe implication is, if they let immigrants into Italy, the current residents will suffer the same fate as American Indians.
Now they live in reserves
Think about it
Marcello writes:
Original post, by Marcello, here. Thanks!Beside the obvious racist concept i think it's quite ironic that they identify
themselves with people they would probably discriminate [against] if they ever
met any american-native people here in italy and the fact that they criminalize
the role that the very same "western civilization" they stand for (against the
"bastardization of culture from muslim heretics", their words, not mine) played
in the american-native genocide.
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The M.I.L.F. Sale Sequel
Looks like Spirit Airlines is back at it again, as seen on The Consumerist.
The Reification Of Race
Toothpaste and tampons designed with your skin color "in mind." MultiCult Classics says:
OK, Pantene offers products designed with Black women in mind. But Crest, Always and Tampax?
Also, apparently the black that is beautiful is light-skinned, with supposedly "European" facial features. See also: black models that don't look black.UPDATE: In the comments, Brian asked what I mean by "reification." Thanks for the question, Brian! I mean "treating an abstraction as if it were real." And, yep, race isn't real. See racial categories as a historical artifact and check out this great website by the American Anthropological Association.
As I re-read... the contradiction between the two last paragraphs (black models that look white and there's no such thing as black and white) is awesomely reflective of the reality of its race and its simultaneous non-reality!
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Baby Got Stats
Okay, I know that many of our readers are NOT giant nerds, and even those of you that are giant nerds are not stats nerds... so for those of you that ARE stats nerds... giant stats nerds, I recommend the following:
Found on youtube via Wicked Anomie.
The first commenter to write a final exam based on this clip gets extra credit in our hearts. :)
Weird Company American Bistro Ad: Intentional or Accidental?
A reader sent me an email about this image, found at Photoshop Disaster. I thought it was an interesting image, but I was also suspicious that it might be a hoax ad--I mean, could someone really fail to notice they'd photoshopped a white head onto a black body? It also occurred to me that maybe it wasn't a photoshopping mistake--maybe it was on purpose. Either way, if the image was real, that would be fascinating--the idea that though a black woman's body might be attractive enough to use in an ad, a black face wouldn't be.
But as I said, I wasn't sure about the image, so I went through the comments from the Photoshop Disaster post and discovered that the creator of the ad said it was nothing like the original and the difference in tones must be due to a crappy camera. He provided a link for the original:
Although not nearly as obvious as the original, her head and body still don't really match, but whatever.
But another commenter pointed out that the ad had been posted on LasVegasVegas.com and, though not as dark as the first one, was definitely darker than the original.
Another commenter, the one who took the photo of the ad and sent it in to Photoshop Disasters, added that the photo she took was exactly what the actual poster that was displayed around Vegas looked like--that the body was in fact that dark. Whether somewhere along the line it had been intentionally darked or there was a printing problem she couldn't say.
I'm not at all sure what's going on here--has the original image been manipulated to make the head/body contrast more obvious? If so, why? Or was it an accident, and in that case, why didn't anyone notice? What do you all think?
Thanks to Peter H. for pointing this image out!
Kids' Book on Cosmetic Surgery
This book, self-published by a cosmetic surgeon, is supposed to help kids understand the wonderful transformation their mothers are about to go through, with the help of Dr. Michael, the superhero-like surgeon.
Read more in this post at boingboing.
Thanks, Nick W., and Jason S., and Green Ink!
Sex Tourism In Thailand
A reader, Kate K., drew our attention to this 32-minute documentary about sex tourism in Thailand. The entire video is quite interesting! If you scroll over to the 18 minute mark, you can hear the men and the women explain that European men like Thai women specifically because they, unlike European women, submit (my words, not theirs).
If you have any trouble with the embed, here is the documentary on google video.
Thanks so much, Kate!
