Here’s the BBC’s take on the latest assault upon advertising by frightened ad numpties. People complained because a naked woman sitting under a lemon tree, advertising shower gel, looked like she could be under 16.
The ASA upheld the complaints and the advertiser, Cussons, had to either withdraw or radically alter the ad.
Stories like this give me an irrational urge to do something violent, like rip up a paper bag. I daren’t do that because, well, the paper might be the wrong colour or something and I’ll be hauled up before some new fangled tribunal for being a paperist, racist or some other -ist.
Rome’s decline was said to have been preceded by a period of decadence and I can see that happening here, where every sodding half-wit numpty has the power to prevent something or other because of a perceived wrongness. Bad English that, I know, but that’s OK in these days of moral relativism where one man’s / woman’s / transsexual’s red line is another’s green light.
So… it’s now wrong for an adult woman to look like she’s younger? Sorry but, ahem, I thought that’s the line the world’s beauty industry has been selling to women for decades. Somehow I can’t imagine that the nation’s paedophiles are crumpled before their VCRs wanking to a fucking 10-second lemon shower gel ad. If that’s the fear, then we should banish every single image of kids wearing swimsuits in clothing catalogues.
As it happens, there is something I find offensive about the woman in the ad. She sounds drunk.
In the interests of research, I dispatched a brace of scantily clad monkeygirls to find a typical ad numpty, and ask his opinion:
“Whaaa….? Feck’n shower y’say? Feck off. Dwanner feck’n shower ye cheeky feck’n fecker. Tha’ girl needs feck’n fattnin’ up. Girls today’r tae feck’n skinny. Gimme ten pined ferra feck’n sandwich ye feck’n feck.”
Other news: Tesco removes kids’ pole dancing kit from supermarket shelves