Posted on 01/28/2003 11:13:02 AM PST by KMC1
I, like every other person in America, made sure that I was there for the kick-off. Super Bowl Sunday, the premiere American statement about our sports, about our life, about our country. Even if you didn't see a single down of regular season play all year long, you most likely found yourself planted in front of the TV for at least part of the game between the Bucs and the Raiders. A lot of people find themselves also checking it out for those million-dollar commercials. This year's batch was pretty good. The "Sierra Mist" ones were my favorite. Whether it was the dog kicking off the tab of the fire hydrant and shooting his owner up against the building on the hot city day, or whether it was the monkeys figuring out how they could ingeniously shoot themselves from the tropical summer heat to the cold refuge of the polar bears, the message "shockingly refreshing" certainly came through.
In recent days one of the big controversies in the ad world had come from the Miller Lite commercial featuring the two girls arguing over the "Taste Great" or "Less Filling" aspects of its product. The ad eventually ends up with the two girls stripped to nothing but their underwear and wrestling in a pool, then in mud. The scene cuts to the two guys discussing the concept in their local bar saying to each other, "Who wouldn't want to see a commercial like that ..." The camera pans to the two girls who are accompanying them with disgusted looks on their faces. In some late-night editions of the commercial it ends with the two panty-clad mud wrestlers saying to each other, "Let's make out!"
Of course this ad because of its overt sexual nature garnered a lot of attention. But ABC television felt it necessary to spoof the spot, because in promos for its upcoming show later that evening, "The Practice," they had both male and female versions of the same spot airing.
Something has really gone loose over at ABC.
The "Disney" version of broadcast television has continually pushed the envelope on how much sexual content it seems is necessary to shove down America's throat. Starting with the early broadcasts of "NYPD Blue," America got to see the backside of Dennis Franz, and the breasts of Kim Delaney. This was also the network that brought us the "Victoria Secret's Fashion Show."
Last night during the Super Bowl, continual ads for the upcoming "Alias" broadcast, put into the glare of the headlights, the figure of Jennifer Garner covered only in her "almost theres." Add to that the spoofs of the naughty girls rumbling around in water and mud, The Bachelorette kissing her remaining four men, and their "in and outs" of the hot tubs and dance floors and there was enough material already to be concerned about.
Then there was the spot that kind of set me over the edge.
It aired sometime in the second half. A totally blank screen with just the words of the text coming on. "He has an IQ of 180," "She has won four gold medals," "and none of that matters here." Then the flashing screen loaded with just the torsos of chiseled abs, enhanced breasts, tiny bikinis, and boxer shorts. "The search for America's sexiest people. Coming to ABC."
They actually flashed the questions on the screen with accompanied voiceover - "Is she hot? Is he hot? Are you hot?"
Are you hot? Are you kidding?
This is to be a new prime-time offering. But what does it offer? What does it say to the nearly 5 million girls in America this year that will struggle with their body image to the degree that they will develop an eating disorder. What does it say to the millions of American boys who have been told to respect girls and control their sexual appetite only to have access to any type of imaginable pornography that says anything but "control"?
We wonder how sexual assaults happen. We wonder why we are to the breaking point when we here stories from the headlines almost daily of men and women doing perverse and criminal things to have an addict's high for their next sexual experience.
Are you hot?
In a day in which supposed elected officials are concerned about the educational systems in our country. In a day in which we wonder how we are now turning out some of the worst-educated kids in the world. In a day in which we see more crime amongst the age group that could be some of the highest producers in terms of economic and commercial stimulus, we ask the question - Are you hot?
We wonder why our society today drifts from the high ideals the arts once drew them to. We wonder why kids get immediately bored with the techniques of the paint brush, the subtlety of the pirouette, the decrescendo of a musical movement. Heck we wonder why most of the films made in America today have turned into this great wasteland of PG13 putridness. The truth is - we asked for it.
Make no mistake about it. If ABC thought that people would be offended that they turn their network into America's version of the "Blue" channel from Europe, they would not have considered it. But the fact that they continue to push the envelope, dragging them further into the nudity, sex, sleaze that they do just indicates to me that they are making money at it. This means people are watching, commercials are selling, and no one is objecting.
Are you hot?
Isn't that a great question. One laden with intellectual prowess and incredible depth of philosophy? Isn't the kind of thing you want the young men who may come to call on your daughter to ask them when they call them up for a date?
Are you hot?
Won't that help us solve the social ills that television definitely has contributed to in America today. (eg., www.eating-disorder.org) Won't that help our young men, like the ones in suburban Chicago just two weeks ago that gang-raped a drunk 16-year-old girl (who I'm sure WAS hot) and videotaped the ordeal as it happened?
Are you hot?
Isn't that the kind of question that the singer R. Kelly asks right before he takes a teen-aged girl and has his way with her, usually videotaping or photographing it?
Are you hot?
Yes I am, I'm hot and angry. It's just way too sad to see that very few other people are!
CONTACT KEVIN: kmc@wyll.com
Whoa. I haven't seen that one. I guess they don't show it on TVLand.
We wonder how sexual assaults happen. We wonder why we are to the breaking point when we here stories from the headlines almost daily of men and women doing perverse and criminal things to have an addict's high for their next sexual experience.
Codswallop. People aren't puppets. The notion that all human action can be reduced to "monkey see, monkey do" is an authoritarian lie concocted to justify someone's absolute control over what people see and hear. The same hobnailed sanctimony emanates from both right and left.
Piffle. Raising a ruckus of objections (and attendant free publicity) was no doubt part of their strategery.
This is a straw man argument. You libertarians say that the only proper action to the degradation of culture is to turn one's own TV off. I have seen that argument before on feminazi's bumper stickers sneering -"If you are against abortion, don't have one!". The problem is not ME seeing all that crap, the problem is that our civilization is turning into a whorehouse and sodomy parlor. Children's innocence is being destroyed at younger and younger ages, and once it's debased and perverted, it can never be returned to them.
What people see and hear affects their minds and hearts and to pretend otherwise is to deny the obvious. Otherwise neither advertising nor education would have any effect. Sure, people still have free will, but that will is influenced by what is taken in through the senses.
For most of the existence of this country, we had censorship. Time to bring it back, one way or another.
I guess the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to buy it else they not have sanctioned special protections for faked-cyber child porn intended solely for the sexual gratification of the apes punching out credit card numbers on the keyboard.
I made the mistake of sitting down with my grandfather ... as if the SuperBowl were "family entertainment".
I'll never watch another game again.
Here's an exercise for your memory. When your were one-on-one with an adult during your childhood, can you recall if you adjusted your behavior (your manners, if you like) so as to increase your odds of pleasing that adult, if you 'looked up' to them? The deepest essence of that exercise in human relating is the key to why we ought to have clearer taboo structures agreed upon for the way we want our children to form their value system.
There is no doubt that I find the two females in the Miller commercial very attractive ... they're gorgeous broads! I wouldn't want my precious granddaughter exposed to that sort of 'condoned visual display' on a regular basis, because it would numb her taboo structures in a way that I would find negative preparation for adolescent and then adult life. Taking a more extreme example, exposing children to obvious sexual activity on a regular basis is likely to generate a too accepting norm in her taboo system for later life.
That's not a very scientific explanation for why I think the ad is in bad taste for general consumption, but perhaps you get the gist. Children learn what is acceptable. By condoning overt display, we imply there is NOTHING wrong with it.
Sex is a wonderful activity that I continue to believe is intended for private enjoyment with a loved partner. Too much exposure to sexualization in our society (in every direction one looks!) shapes a future society that offends my learned taboo structures. Shucks, it's already here! By erasing the parameters of the taboo structures, a society loses its way. Anthropologists have confirmed this with primitive societies studied as they 'adjust' following contact with our 'modern' world.
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