For this week’s gender journal I
decided to analyze some advertisements for sex toys. After watching the
“Enjoying your vibe” video from the Good For Her website, I remembered coming
across an advertisement for a UK company called Lovehoney that ran in to problems
when trying to air their own television commercial. I was surprised when I
viewed both their daytime and late-night advertisements that they ran in to so
many censorship problems. What I viewed as extremely tame and subtle
advertisements took months of re-editing and censoring before it was deemed
suitable for British telivison.
When observing the differences
between the day and late-night advertisements, the differences are extreme. It's hard to believe that despite "The
Kiss" being the UK's first daytime ad for sex toys, Lovehoney isn't even
permitted to openly name the product they're advertising! These tight
restrictions were somewhat loosened in the late-night ad, in which they use the
phrase "sex toy" exactly once. While this advertisement is groundbreaking
in the sense of being for a company that sells sex toys, it’s mind-blowing that
this fairly conservative commercial is subjected to harsher censorship than
Hardy’s commercials that feature nude women seductively eating cheese burgers
(who knew that was possible?).
When I say conservative, I mean that aside from the subject matter, the
commercial reinforces many traditional values. For example, each couple in both
the day and late-night ad are modestly dressed and are part of heterosexual
relationships. In fact, in the daytime clip they flash the couple’s wedding
bands in almost every-other frame (I’m not exaggerating). Anyone who would
stumble across this commercial would encounter more sexually explicit material
in a PG-rated movie. Ultimately these advertisements reflect western society’s
warped view of sexuality when objectifying and hyper-sexualizing women in
advertisements causes less of an uproar than an ad featuring monogamous couples
exploring their sexuality.
Daytime Advertisement:
Late-night Advertisement:
No comments:
Post a Comment