Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Manscaping the pubes and advertising

MediaBistro's Agency Spy reports on a TV spot previously posted here for Europride. But after they show that spot they report on a video from Gillette Fusion razors on how to shave your pubes, because, "trimming the bush makes the tree look taller." The target here looks like a young male — teens. Yep, I clearly have the wrong copywriting work at the moment.
 

Of course, because the target is young men, and we don't want to scare them off with the idea that body shaving is queer (especially since they're suggesting shaving your groin as a strategy to deal with self esteem issues about size) you'll note when you go to the Gillette site that there is a woman on the side of every visual  to remind the dudes that they're still straight and that women will find it attractive.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Is It A Choice?

Advertising and the Mating Call

Recently, a Canadian "dating" website started running an ad campaign that is less about the romance. After all, so many dating websites are really about hookups — this site simply dispenses with any of the romantic imagery and cuts to the chase. Clearly their competition is not e-harmony. Of course, given that Craig's List is free, I'm not sure what the market for this is. I will say the campaign is equal opportunity, without shying away from queer sex. And that in itself is worth comment, even if this is a site I wouldn't want to sign up for.

Then, there was the on site marketing in straight bars....

So much for the art of seduction.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Cucumber Chronicles

I remember seeing this a few years back in the shorts program at the New Festival. It made me laugh then, and it makes me laugh now, though perhaps with more rueful awareness and compassion for all the ways we try to connect...

How to tell if it's Larry Craig...

...in the next stall. Okay, this ad is really for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and their Dinosaur exhibit. But I can't imagine what the creative team was thinking when they came up with this image to go with the campaign theme: "They're just waiting to be discovered." Well, maybe I can imagine, I just don't want to think about it anymore. Except that Joe reported today that Senator Craig (R-Tearoom) dropped his appeal of his own guilty plea. So there's no escaping the possibility that you might see feet like these in a wide stance inching into a stall near you soon.

Porn for the blind? Now I've heard everything.

Describing itself as a " not-for-profit organization dedicated to producing audio descriptions of sample movie clips from adult web sites" this bizarre little site offers an odd selection based supposedly on requests from, uh, listeners. See, uh, hear for yourself.
 

Thanks to Digicynic.wordpress.com

Gender-Free Condom Advertising & Safe Oral Sex

Rare to see condom advertising without the essential heterosexual couple looking at each other longingly. At lest in the U.S. This campaign (from Euro RSCG courtesy of adsoftheworld) from Germany features three print ads for a flavored condom. I can't find any info about the company that makes these other than a mention that in another campaign their slogan was "Get there later."  Well, this lovely ribbed chocolate bar suggests another old slogan to me: melts in your mouth, not in your hands.

Size Queens And Patriots

On the 4th of July, the NY Times reported on the peculiar phenomenon of giant American flags at sporting events. On I95 there is a huge American flag that is tattered and brown that flies over a car dealership. It is so big the wind has to be pretty strong for it to wave. The Times quoted one manufacturer:

"'People go ape when they see it,' said Jim Alexander, a retired Coast Guard commander who runs Superflag, the company that basically invented the industry and once held the world record for the largest flag, which temporarily hung on the Hoover Dam. It was 255 by 505 feet"

Go ape. That is a telling phrase. Lose one's humanity. Behave like an animal. It's no surprise many of these flags are displayed at football games or NASCAR events.

Don't get me wrong. I love this country. But I continue to be appalled at people who put more importance on the symbols and little to no importance on the ideals (or for that matter the Constitution or Bill of Rights).

All this seemed even weirder when I was visiting my old friend John in Providence the weekend they held their Pride Celebration. Knitting Nation, a group founded by a RISD prof, Liz Collins, brought together dozens of knitters to create the country's largest rainbow flag. John and I wandered down to Waterplace Park to watch the people at their machines go at it like a looking-glass version of a New England Mill.

Each colored segment was unrolled on a knoll and sewn to the others as the segments kept coming out of the machines. As this went on, different people read letters, web postings, articles and memoirs of what this symbol meant to them. Love it or hate it. Listening to all those voices was fascinating.

Of course, I don't think Jim Alexander and the NASCAR patriots would take too kindly to knowing that a queer flag was bigger than his. Then again, perhaps this is their misdirected and sublimated size queen thinking. I just want to know who's making all the flag poles.

Urinal Advertising & Male Insecurity

A search of advertising that either shows men at urinals checking each other out, or is site specific — and the site we're talking about is a urinal where the advertising that runs there speaks to male insecurity — is rather amazing. There's just lots of ads that use male insecurity about penis size. Comedy Central is one example of site specific work that pokes fun at size insecurity. While Funk sunglasses advertising is an one of many examples of a print ad that shows two men standing at a urinal with one clearly checking out the other's equipment — and making an editorial comment about size.

Yes, men are sensitive about dick size. And advertisers taking advantage of this doesn't merely extend (pardon me) to pumps and Smiling Bob (who lost his smile when the company that made Enzyte was ordered to pay millions to consumers for fraudulent claims). Even Sony got in the act, with their uncomfortably funny and justifiably famous PSP TV spot.

Now the 3M has entered the competition, with the site specific ads seen below that offer a truly terrific product demonstration while at the same time encouraging the target, who is standing at a urinal, to let his eyes wander to the urinal next to him. The product is a privacy guard for computer display screens that completely masks what is on screen from anyone who isn't looking at it head (ahem) on.

Yes, men are very sensitive indeed. Of course what a man is sensitive about won't be protected by this product. Nevertheless, the whiz-kids at Cozum the agency in Istanbul that's responsible for this work, has created work that demands to be looked at in a place where men studiously appear to be looking away. And that deserves attention indeed.   

Fetishism and the body impolitic

Perhaps the ultimate expression of alienation is the fleshlight, which reduces the most intimate human connection to an automated orifice. But reducing our desire to parts of people rather than a whole human being alive in his otherness is nothing new. Apart from the obvious example of porn, the fashion world (which sometimes appropriates and approximates porn images) uses it in all kinds of odd ways.  Here are two very peculiar examples.

First, this old promotional item for Jordache jeans — a telephone that looks like the bottom half of a manikin. Put the butt to your ear, the ankle near your mouth and start talking. Now I ask you, regardless of what your particular preferences might be with regard to butts, would you want a butt in your ear? Would you, even if you were a foot fetishist, want to speak into an ankle?

Now I understand the value of a brand, and how it can be extended, made iconic with other merchandise. But this is simply kitsch.  Of course, some companies would use kitsch intentionally. I doubt that is the case here. You may disagree, if so I’d love to hear your reasoning.

Then there is some very visually striking new advertising for 707, which appears to be a clothing brand in Indonesia:

Kind of creepy, but you can’t not look at it. Kind of like the ads you see in the back of HX or Next or online at some gay “dating” sites: just pecs, abs, or other parts. Not that these parts aren’t nice. However speaking personally, I’m looking for more. And I know I’m not alone.

Why do we sell ourselves short? Why do we believe just this part is what we have to attract someone? Certainly we believe it because we’re attracted ourselves to bits and pieces. We all notice certain things first. Advertisers and magazine publishers know this and create promotional phones, jeans ads and all kinds of material to get our attention. And in a feedback loop it creates fetishists of us all.

Don’t get the idea that I’m a puritan. Not by any means. I just think that cutting people up like this gets in the way relationship to the real, not to mention a real relationship.