I dunno, though. I agree that American TV censorship is prudish, and while I personally would not be offended by such a commercial (I have not actually seen it, FYI).
However, I do think that if a commercial shows a pair of shapely female buttocks with “the naughty bits” peeking through, there is no question that it is meant to be tittilating. I don’t mean that it is meant to get anyone really hot and bothered, but it’s got to be intended to be somewhat erotic, right?
It’s great that Europeans are so much more matter-of-fact about showing nudity, but a pair of naked tits on a magazine cover is still a pair of naked tits: it’s supposed to turn you on.
Can’t say the bog-roll ads bother me much, but then I never noticed any naughty bits. It’s odd, because as I rule I’m pretty quick to spot those things!
OTOH, I would like to spend five minutes with a chainsaw on the team of overpaid ad execs who think it’s oh-so big and clever to say “FCUK” anywhere and everywhere.
Was there anything more calculated to lower the human spirit than this sorry excuse for a campaign appearing everywhere you look? It’s just as well they don’t let us Brits have guns.
To get an idea as to how some Americans feel about naughty bits and especially vocabulary relating to them, see this editorial in the Fort Myers, Florida News-Press: F-word on T.V. is next step toward barbarity
And people wondered why I moved out of state to go to college.
Nudity is something that’s still rather taboo here, so I’m pretty damn sure that this would cause quite a stirr here in the US. Nudity on television shows like NYPD Blue is a lot different than nudity in a commercial run during prime time. The fact Blue comes on after 10 p.m. (well, 9 where I live) is one little bonus for the show because most television execs and censors feel little impressionable children are in bed by then, and the shows always have little warnings before the show and after commercial breaks warning parents that the show contains “scenes that may not be suitable for children.” It’s an adult show, so it gets some special treatment. So in some sense, we’re getting a little bit more liberal.
But they never show genitals. That’s what our country reserves for pornography. It could be tastefully done, but there are enough people out there in power that it would offend, and that would cause a huge shit stain on the spots. Showing a butt? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen something on MTV or Comedy Central with that before, and it wasn’t tastefully done, but because these stations are cable and for more mature audiences, they get a bit more slack. I’m pretty sure they couldn’t get away with a labia shot though, no matter how late they played it.
We’ve got advertisements that come on late at night with the word “crap” used in them, so I feel advertisers are getting more and more daring where they can, I just feel Americans are a long way off before we can start accepting cooters on our television screens.
Could somebody tell me what product the advert is for? (I don’t want to install quicktime) - I recall seeing one for some brand of toilet tissue that showed some closeup footage (in B/W) of a pair of buttocks, but I don’t recall it showing more than just the cheeks.
Incidentally, I filed a complaint with the ITC yesterday over a different advert - this one was for Foster’s Lager - featuring a stereotypical Australian naturalist, walking by the side of a body of water, speculating on what dangers may lurk beneath the surface, when he is abruptly decapitated by a pelican that appears from off-camera. Unlike the previous advert for this product, which featured the decapitation of a bungee jumper, this one was in relative closeup and although the severed neck was by no means realistic, the camera lingered on the headless body for a while - the advert played out early on Sunday afternoon on the UK terrestrial Channel 4 - my four-year-old son was quite distressed by it.
It’s Velvet toilet tissue and the version in the above link is pretty much the same ad as the one you recollect (except that it shows a series of different bottoms rather than just one).
No genitalia is visible in the linked version and I don’t recall seeing any in the solo version either. Maybe I just didn’t look hard enough? I don’t see how either version could be categorised as soft pornography, and whether they’d get shown in the USA or not there is certainly no nudity used to sell beer etc. in this country that I’m aware of.
BTW, Mangetout, I was about to scold you for complaining about the Fosters ad until I got to the end of your post – I can certainly see how a little kid would be upset by that, and by the bungee jumper one too. They can do some clever stuff with CGI these days*, but they ought to show a little more sensitivity about airing times.
*That building society (?) ad where the same woman appears numerous times while walking along the High Street and interacts with other shoppers in “impossible” combinations is miraculous.
Anybody else remember the first Lever 2000 “For all your 2000 parts” commercial? Seems that the only bare butts that get shown on TV here are babies’ butts.
I only found out this morning that apparently, the ITC dismissed the complaint (not mine) about the bungee jumper advertisement on the grounds that it wasn’t really in closeup and the camera doesn’t linger on the headless body - interesting that this should turn out to be exactly my objection to the new ad.
This American would like to see softcore porn used to sell automotive insurance, stereo equipment, credit counseling services, microwave popcorn, video games, non-alcoholic beer, and kitchen appliances, among other things.
Buttocks. You know, like what’s already in commercials for diapers and such, belonging to people whose age is measured in months. I’m pretty sure a view of nude buttocks isn’t going to send the entire country into a cesspool of hardcore pornography.
The silhouetted “bits” aren’t softcore porn either. To be pornographic, it has to be blatantly presented and designed for titillation. Present it like Playboy and it’s softcore porn. Present it as a vague silhouette of something everyone knows is there anyway, and it’s not pornographic.
Regardless of whether or not they should run the ad in the US, or allow nudity, the fact is that, to answer the OP, such an ad would cause an unholy furor over here. Even though there have been bare buttocks on national TV, it’s only been for very few shows, still very rarely, and only after 9 ot 10 PM (depending on where you live). AFAIK, they’ve never shown bare adult buttocks in an ad at any time of day, even on Basic Cable (TNT, TBS, ESPN, etc.)
I tend to turn off the ad in question when it comes on as I don’t really find looking at people’s naked asses particularly appealing, especially if I’m eating dinner at the time. As such, I couldn’t say whether one can see a silhouette of genitalia or not.
The British TV ad I’m convinced would cause rioting in the streets of America is the KFC one. There’s a group of people in a sparsely furnished apartment, dancing to soul music and eating fried chicken. The group is predominantly black. The tagline: “KFC. Soul Food.” All they need to complete the stereotype is to include a watermelon.
