They were talking about this on the radio yesterday- link went up this afternoon. They swiped it from Good Morning America or whatever Katie’s show is. Go here to download- click on “The Controversial Breast Feeding Commercial.”
Warning: Breasts, but it’s digitized. Still may not want to download at work.
Additional warning: Offensive as fucking HELL.
Let’s get this straight, folks. Breastfeeding: good. Promoting breastfeeding: good.
Having an infant CGId into FONDLING ITS MOTHER: BAD.
WTF does this have to do with MTV?
According to the DJ who’s seen the un-digitized version, the baby is actually licking the mom’s nipple, not breastfeeding in the generally accepted way (I can’t think of a better way to phrase that- what I’m trying to get across is the baby is not suckling the way a typically breastfeeding baby does).
And the fuckhead who’s promoting this thinks it’s funny! AUUUUGGGHHHH. Words can’t describe. I literally cannot form coherent thoughts at the moment. GAH. Someone else please help me out here with a more coherent rant.
The top story on the page… I thought student loan money was intended to help people, oh I don’t know, pay their living and college related expenses so they could get an education.
When did it become a means to a government sponsored (and in the case of some loans, interest subsized) boob job?
I don’t get what the point of the ad is at all… just to show skin?
That said, I’ve seen babies do this sort of thing. They’re not “fondling” the mother, at least not in a sexual sense, but babies are extremely tactile creatures and will touch whatever happens to be in reach. And yes, I’ve seen a baby lick a mother’s nipple too, and it’s not a sexual thing at all.
Questions for bobkitty, do you know that the bacy was “CGI’d” in? And more importantly, what exactly is so offensive about it, other than the obvious play to the lowest common denominator.
Mind you, I think the ad is stupid, but it’s hard to see why it’s offensive when I’ve seen real babies do the same things. Granted, I can’t see the full extent due to the digital “fuzzing” of the image.
Oh, and I love Katie saying “It’s very graphic!” And getting a look at the inside of her colon wasn’t? :rolleyes:
Whatsit Jr., as well as most other breastfed babies, will often exhibit this “fondling” behavior, referred to generally as “twiddling”. It’s thought that this is an adaptive behavior, wherein the baby will stimulate the other breast to begin the milk let-down reflex, while nursing on the other side. It’s extremely annoying and I discourage it as much as possible.
I don’t have sound on this computer and obviously I couldn’t see the digitized-out part, so I dunno if it was offensive or not, but I will say that sometimes Whatsit Jr. will pull off the breast and kind of giggle at me before latching back on.
I can easily see how people who are not familiar with breastfeeding and haven’t done it themselves, would be shocked and offended by the apparent “fondling” behavior of the baby in the ad. Had I not breastfed my own child, I myself probably would have been horrified. It looks like the kid is feeling the mother up. This is totally normal behavior for a breastfeeding child, but I wonder at the decision to include it in the ad. I mean, jeez, people get shocked enough just seeing a woman breastfeeding in the first place. No need to add Extra Shock ‘n’ Horror just for kicks.
It’s difficult enough getting people not to see breastfeeding as a sexual activity and/or something to be ashamed of. Now there’s MTV sexualizing breastfeeding and infants, not to mention a little Incest Lite thrown into the mix.
I also don’t buy that this sort of humor is more accepted in Latin countries. My whole life I’ve lived in or near Mexico and never had the faintest hint that this would be acceptable. Breastfeeding is regarded pretty much how it is here in the US, maybe a little more matter of fact. Feeling up Mom isn’t funny 'cause you’ve crossed the border.
No comments on the breastfeeding/fondling thing – I think the song was in peccable taste (i.e., far from impeccable) but the point to the rest of it has been well addressed by people who know.
But I just have to ask – is there a DayRabbit that comes on to relieve you at end of shift?
This is purely anecdotal evidence, but when I was in Spain, at the big classical art museum in Madrid, there was a roomful of paintings of the infant Christ breastfeeding and clearly enjoying the hell out of it. There was a related theme of the Virgin Mary squirting breast milk into the mouths of various saints, usually from several feet away. I’m not up on my hagiography, but I can only guess that it’s a Catholic thing.
OMG. Most anyone who has breastfed, or in my case, is married to someone who is, clearly separates and compartmentalizes breastfeeding and sex. That sexual implication is clearly intended for MTV’s core audience, which I would presume is of the non-breastfeeding variety…
I had assumed there was some CGI involved- if you look at the movement of the hand and arm in relation to the baby’s body, as well as the smoothness of the motion (I’m having some trouble believing a several-month-old infant is capable of sliding their hand that… perfectly into the mom’s bra- from my experience, because their eyesight is still developing, they’re more grabby) it points to at least some manipulation of the image.
As for why it’s offensive, I think both MsWhatsit and Badbaby[sub]snicker[/sub], respectively, have hit it on the head:
I don’t have children, but I have a lot of neices and nephews, as well as friends’ babies who were breastfed in my presence. I was aware of the “twiddling” that MsWhatsit[sub]have I ever mentioned I LOVE your name?[/sub] referred to, but as I sort of touched on earlier, IME it’s not as… sexualized in the “real” world. Babies are grabby. Hell, toddlers are grabby… my godson managed to halfway unbutton his mom’s shirt in the middle of Home Depot when he was 3, and he wasn’t even breastfed. Babies do not have the smooth moves of freakin’ Barry White… their motor skills simply don’t allow for it (watch how the hand slides past the edge of the bra- what baby of that age wouldn’t be yanking around at the material, trying to find the opening?)
All that is adding up to my basically saying it’s the sexualization of the act of breastfeeding that I find offensive. I’ve been out with enough of my breastfeeding friends who would rather hide in a restroom or go out to the car to feed their babies than face the derogatory comments and stares of passers-by.
But seriously, I don’t think the point has been made clearly enough that this ad has not and will not run in the U.S. The guy in the video clip linked to in the OP clearly says at the very end that this ad is being used in Latin America.
I don’t know how people south of the border might feel about this, but I have two broad observations:
1 - In the several months I spent living in southern Mexico, I saw women breastfeeding in public on a regular basis. it was not considered remarkable.
2 - Foreigners, with a few exceptions, are far less squeamish about their bodies and natural functions than Americans are.
So, basically, the commercial subscribes to the traditional Freudian school of psychiatry. Cripes, so what? Is anyone in the target demographic pissed off? If not, chalk it up to cultural differences and move on.
Pixelization is baneful to creativity. Very few today is squeamish to out and out nudity. Show Schindler’s List a few times, and the conditioning towards appreciating non-grstuitous nudity will be complete.
Both adverts are supposed to be funny, but I suppose there is something pathetic about the inability of advertisers in MTVs case to see breasts in anything other than sexual terms. It’s hardly going to encourage breast-feeding.
By the standards that count to advertisers both ads have proven very successful. They’ve got people’s attention.
