Tuesday, June 26, 2007

When Everyone In the Room Tells You You're Drunk, It's Time to Sit Down

So FOX and CBS have refused to run Trojan's new ad in which "women at a bar [are] surrounded by pigs. When one pig goes to the restroom and returns with a condom purchased at a vending machine, he is transformed into an attractive man. The end of the commercial carries the message: 'Evolve: Use a condom every time.'" [source]

See for yourself:



Dr. Vanessa Cullins, Planned Parenthood's vice president of medical affairs, is beside herself:

As the nation's leading reproductive health care advocate and provider, Planned Parenthood knows that for sexually active people, condoms are the best way to prevent unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections [emphasis added].


"...the best way..."

The.

Best.

Way.

I guess that would explain the dramatic fall in the unintended pregnancy rate and the equally dramatic fall in the spread of STDs we've seen now that The Almighty Condom is ubiquitously promoted, right?

But I digress...

Jill Stanek doesn't buy FOX/CBS's reasons for rejecting the ads, and thinks there's an easier explanation:

The ad is simply in poor taste. A man exploiting a woman in a bar to be his unpaid hooker is a pig with or without a condom in his pocket.

You know it's bad when your ad is in such poor taste that it gets rejected by two networks that, like just about every other network, line their pockets by peddling poor taste.

I can't help but recall the scene in This Is Spinal Tap when the band members express their sincere incredulity that the record company wouldn't go for their proposed album cover for Smell the Glove featuring "a greased, naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck and a leash ... and a man's arm holding on to the leash extended out to her shoving a black glove in her face to sniff it."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, but you missed the essential qualifier: "for sexually active people..."

We all know that "sexually active" isn't a code phrase for Joe-Bob and Louann having another go in the ol' marriage bed.

IOW, "If you want to have random sex with strangers, at least use a condom."

Anonymous said...

I just realized I hadn't come back to thank you for posting information about this ad. As I said in my blog entry here:
http://blog.earthlingshandbook.org/2007/08/01/planned-porcine-hoods.aspx
I had been urged by Planned Parenthood to complain about the networks' refusal to air this ad, but they hadn't told me what the ad actually said! I found out when I happened to hop over to your blog from my cousin Simcha's.

I have a different perspective on the issue than you do, but I'm upset about how the "pro-choice" organizations handled it, too!

John Jansen said...

Becca,

Since the comments on your blog post were closed, I'll post what I was going to say there here:

Isn't it ironic that this person some would label "anti-choice" was my first source of clear information so I could make an informed decision about this ad?

In all sincerity, thanks. It's all about transparency.

Speaking of Planned Parenthood, the organization I work for is currently in the midst of sponsoring a 40-day prayer vigil outside the site of a ginormous, build-under-the-radar Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in the western suburbs of Chicago.