Saturday, August 23, 2008

I love your comments, Burton. I also know what you mean about various states of undress. Little kids don't have too much modesty or too much interest except out of curiosity. I never worried as much about nudity in a movie my children might see as much as I was concerned over violence. I do worry about how young some of the current models are. There were some ads in Rolling Stone back in the 90s that could have only appealed to pedophiles. It was Calvin Klein in the heroin chic era and there were a couple of half clothed about 12 year-olds as models. I stopped my subscription to the magazine and wrote to them about why. That particular campaign was discontinued--many people wrote--but lately I've noticed the same tendency creeping into various areas of advertising. Super thin models were in the news last year after a couple of deaths with global attempts to encourage actual caloric intake. Now more and more images seem to be just barely pubescent. Or else there are the role model celebs like Paris Hilton. Her visit to a local Macy's makes me question their quality as well as taste. Maybe mine is a larger resistance to the Madison Avenue attempt to hand me some prepackaged image I am to portray. I can only speak from a woman's point of view, but if this is liberation, I want nothing to do with it.
More on the whole feminism issue later.

3 comments:

Bridgett said...

Dave Barry's take on the Calvin Klein ads:

"Some other commercial personalities who aroused great hostility were Sally Struthers; the little boy who lectures you incessantly about Welch's greap juice; the young people in Mentos commercials (don't you think those kids should all be sent to military school?); everybody in all Calvin Klein commercials ("I am sure they are what hell is really like," observed one reader); the little girl in the Shake 'N Bake commercial--Sotherners REALLY hate this little girl;..."

And so on.

I'll bring the book over. Maybe it will help.

pk said...

Aha. G'day. I can see where she gets it from now. I know she'll just love me saying that.

Bridgett said...

Oh, you know, can't fight genetics, all that jazz.