As a twenty-three year old male having been raised through a time of Shock Jocks, RealityTV, news cameras attached to tanks during war time, and Girls Gone Wild, I should not be shocked by anything. As I studied Advertising and Visual Rhetoric one of the most thrown around terms is “sex sells.” Certainly my demographic is most likely to be guilty of falling for this, but as a steak-loving capitalist, I never thought that I would find myself sitting through a 6-minute PETA video voluntarily. The catch? A cute PETA brunette giving the organization’s annual speech while getting completely naked—all while mocking the State of the Union Address by cross-edited clips of Congress into the speech.
Shameless? Does this dilute PETA’s image? Or is that out-weighed by people like me that sat through the entire video that never would have before.
Because of it’s graphic nature, I won’t provide the actual video, but you can view it here: http://www.peta.org/feat/stateoftheunion/f-stateoftheunion.asp
Would you rather see a man’s arm being blown off his body by a hailstorm of bullets or a woman dancing topless? Would you rather watch obnoxious, self-absorbed, block-headed, spiritually deprived—but extremely attractive—20-somethings live an entitled life of hot tubs, hook ups and blackout bar nights, or, shoestring-budget local cable outreach programming? So we can watch live high speed police chases, live action gunfights with live ammo, watch frenzied crowds tear each other limb from limb; but God forbid we see a naked person.
Censorship shapes our boundaries of culture, taste, sexuality and individuality. We separate the church and state; can we include the human body, in all of its intense beauty and sexuality? Isn’t the soul contained in the body? Would that make the body part of the soul? Can we teach how to celebrate the human form free of guilt, shame and confusion? But put a flag behind a naked body and we are given permission to watch. A naked woman is just a naked woman. If political affairs, hot bed topics and issues concerning a nation is given more depth and weight by a naked body, than good for that naked body.
January 28th, 2007 at 9:24 pmOkay Luke,
Sex sells? Is that news? The pertnient question is this: What does sex sell and to whom?
January 31st, 2007 at 7:13 pmI’d like tobelieve that only the simple-minded will continue to fall prey to this complete and total bow to an obvious embrace of a philosophy that decries creativity, true dialogue and the dissemination of actual benefits.
As for PETA, they belong with all extremists.
I won’t mention where that domain is but it usually is portrayed as being inhabited by demons, surrounded by fire, tormenting the damned.