Clearasil ads sprak outrage with parents!

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Well, it's just an example of the whole American puritan movement attacking a chosen media. Happens all the time. Still is fucking idiotic, but not unusual.

Clearasil ads are a Frackin' outrage aboard the Galactica!

They came far too late for Admiral Adama.

Galanos' reaction to the ad is chest-puffing, overstated ridiculousness, but the ads are a little questionable. They're informed by the same societal impulse that has little kids buying dolls that look like hookers and young teens dressing like sluts. There's something kind of inappropriate and weird about a teenage girl overtly sexually propositioning her date in front of her mother (which I think is less obviously over-the-top than the kid propositioning his friend's mom, thus less humorous and more uncomfortable), even if it's meant in humor. I think it can certainly be played for laughs, as can just about anything, but it's perhaps not the best thing to be seen by young teens. Clearasil maybe could have used better judgment.

Incidentally, the reaction and the ads themselves both probably owe big-time to the puritan ethics in the U.S. We never learned how to do anything in half-measures, so we're twice as reactionary when it comes to rebelling against those ethics, and twice as reactionary to those rebellions.

I agree that the second ad is a bit awkward and not really funny, but the first one is good. The fact is that even in Canada there is more leniency toward such content, and the reactions will come more from the violent nature of a subject than the sexual content. And we're still behind Europe. Here's a German example. (a bit NSFW - no nude however )

The U.S are at the opposite spectrum of morals compared to the Europeans.

Now this classic from Canada shows how to do risque adds the right way.

I don't know if you can even quite say that, since our moral consistency is all fucked up. I'd be willing to bet there's just as much sexualized imagery here, but the limits are poorly thought out, and the reactions are overly politicized and stupid. In other words, it's not such a big deal that a junior high student can wear a miniskirt that comes up to her crotch and wear sexually suggestive t-shirts, but it's a fucking national tragedy - 9/11 all over again!!! - if a grown woman happens to show a half-inch of areola or someone uses "screw" in a sexual sense on network TV.

And, yeah, we've got little shame when it comes to violence.

There's a tradition of ads containing sexuality marketed to teens dating from Gap jeans and beyond. Why are these commercials any different (though it may be dialing it up a little bit)? Honestly, when I watched these commercials the only thing I thought was that they were somewhat funny (for a Clearasil commercial). All this bluster and outrage is ridiculous.

I don't see why joking about sex is bad for teens. I think bringing some levity to sex and not making it a taboo is a very good thing.

I think the ironic thing here is that the big problem as seen by this guy is that he's now 'forced' to talk about sex with his 15 year old son. Why is this a bad thing? Parents should be trumpeting anything that gives them reason to do so. And, frankly, if he hasn't talked to his 15 year old son about sex yet, he's missed the boat and isn't being a very good father.

I think the difference is that clearasil is a product targeted at 15 year olds, while Tag is for college-agers, and beer is definitely not intended for the kids.

Boy was that one pulled fast. Canada is a bit more lenient, even more so in Quebec, but the major broadcasters often take their cues from the US. And West/Central Canada is more religious than the rest, so the religious morals are also present here.

You're right that the reaction in the United States is ridiculous, but I'd say that because sex and nudity is less reprimanded and is viewed as natural in Europe in general, it's more present in their media and can go much further before causing a ruckus.

Here's Sisley's (Benneton Group -Italy) 2007 ad campaign:

WATCH OUT !!! NEAR NUDITY!





And one a bit more rauchy

The last one is the only one being controversial at all.

Hate to pull out the anecdotal card, but people that I've met that wear Axe are usually in High School and usually under 17. I think it is conceivably being targeted to that market (you want pretty women to swarm on you, wear this over-powering product). But that's beside the point. What's the harm in poking fun at the over-sexualized state that are our teenage years?

EDIT: Martin, that last picture, WHAT THE FUCK.

I miss the Clearisil ads from my youth:

You're stating something that's true. In a society that is already over-sexualized, from fashion to what's on television, this ad campaign is outrageous because it implies that teenagers have sex before they're 18? Really? If you feel the pressure to talk about sex to your teen, you failed somewhere as a parent. And beside, unless you live in a remote place with 15 Eskimos (and even then...), the said teen most likely already knows about sex.


It's called fashion.

You could be right. Maybe it's the tonal difference between the second ad and something like Superbad, where sex among teens is shown to be funny in an entirely different way (complicated, embarassing, etc.). I think this is achieved in the first ad, since it's pretty clear that the kid's got no shot - there'll be no sex between him and his friend's mom after the commercial ends. There's a sexual confidence and experience in the girl's behavior in the second commercial that disturbs a little, possibly due to the presence of her mom and also due to the fact that these two kids are very likely going to have sex (and soon, it seems). It strikes me as more alike in spirit to the overly sexualized little girls I mentioned earlier.

EDITED: There's a line between having a society that's not so hung up on sex and willing to talk about it in the open and having a society that's selectively permissive to the point that it results in scores of age-of-consent-challenging Lolitas running around, vaguely unaware of the guys they're unwittingly arousing and essentially clueless about how sex really works. Actually, I'd think more frankness would probably cut down on that sort of thing, since the meaning behind dressing in such a way might be clearer to those girls.

Agreed on that.

I'd say our society definitely stands on an awkward line when it comes to this - the folks who are up in arms about this are probably the same ones who have no problem allowing their young daughters to parade around in their bathing suits to attract customers for fundraising car washes (something I used to see every summer where I used to live). But hey, that's for a good cause, right?

Nothing in those ads I didn't see in your average teen comedy back in the 80s. Hell, American Pie anybody?

And Galanos, please, your 15-year old son knows exactly what's going on in these commercials, unless he's being kept in the basement.

Not a single one of you has thought of the children yet. For shame.

Seriously, that Clearasil ad was considered worthy of outrage? These people need to choose their battles.

I hate watching people with sticks up their asses gang up on intelligent people. That was in no way a fair fight, hell, it wasn't even a fight, it was a fucking massacre. The anti-censorship lady was just there so Galanos could have someone to yell hysterically at.

I really don't think these ads are that big a deal. Teens do have sex, and as previously stated any parent who sees a raunchy ad with their kid should be overjoyed to have the opportunity to have a talk about pregnancy and STD's.

Censoring ads like this and keeping kids in the dark about their sexuality is a great way to spread orphans and diseases throughout the land. Parents like Galanos are under the mistaken impression that they can protect their children's innocence and purity by keeping all sexual content off the air, but if they're going to public school you can guarantee that they know all about it anyway, and if you hide access to information from them and act like it's some secret bad thing they are just going to run off and develop CSS (Catholic Schoolgirl Syndrome) and start fucking like bunnies.

So, my message to parents like Galanos is to stop insulting your kids intelligence. Sit down with them and have a talk about safe sex, and teach them to use some critical thinking skills when watching TV. And for the love of god, stop wasting your time trying to ban acne cream commercials! You look like a giant douche.

It's a classic move for these guys to hide away from things that scare them. I wonder how long these stupid standards are going to keep people from having open and clear conversations, and it's funny that it's advertising campaigns that (accidentally) push the subjects out in the open, where the parents quickly shove it back into the closet again.

Where are some of you getting the idea that sexuality is somehow taboo in the U.S.? Do you even watch TV? If you think it's a taboo, turn on MTV and watch an episode of the Real World for five minutes. Sexuality, in the way it's presented in these commercials (shallow, inconsequential, giggle-worthy), is practically unavoidable, in fact. This context doesn't necessarily lend itself to heavy conversations on the topic between kids and parents.

So I'm not sure the problem is people like Galanos, because they're largely ineffectual. They get the morality police riled up, but the public typically wants more sex on TV, not less, and the media usually deliver on this. But, then, there are those silly limits I mentioned above. Deck a teenager out in a tiny bikini clearly meant to titillate, and you're in the clear. Show an adult's actual nipple or backside on TV in the context of a realistic love scene, and there's apparently cause for alarm.

That's it? That's all it takes to sprak outrage in parents?

I'm guessing this ad didn't air in the States, then?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkdWg3qpL54

I'm sure I would've heard the Focus on the Family headquarters explode from here if it had. And what about those ads for perfume for boys?

This is amazingly accurate in how I (and probably many Europeans) see the general American populace's view on sex.

P.S. I know you are not all like that.

Luca

A lot of us are like that. When you become middle-aged, they have you take continuing education classes in "Knee-Jerk Reactionism". It's really quite eye-opening.

The commercials shown were lame. I liked the Canadian breast exam one, though. That was just the right balance of message and humor.

As the father of two teen gilrs, I can tell you that if I saw one of those dumb clearisil commercials with my daughters in the room, there would be no discussion of sex and stds and whatnot. Because of my knee-jerk reactionism? NO, camel-jockey breath. It's because the thought of discussing sex with their parents made both of my daughters shrivel up like worms in hot ashes. It took months to break down the "creepy" factor enough to actually have reasonable conversations. Television commercials and teen-sex movies were not part of the process.

"Camel-jockey breath"?

So the theoretical person to whom teledork has addressed his post has breath that smells like a person of Arabic descent? I wonder what that means?

Teledork seems to assume that Luca is either from the Middle-East or that they ride camels in Belgium. Either way, his post is cryptically intriguing. Still is "Knee-Jerk Reactionism" though.

You're right! That is directed at Luca. I really need to read more closely...

Perhaps he assumes that Luca rides camels in Belgium because his avatar is a picture of a person with brown skin. Seems like an appropriate level of deductive reasoning for someone who would deploy "camel-jockey breath" as an insult.

or, perhaps, it was a faint and pathetic attempt at channelling the great Carnac.

Wait...they ride Llamas in Belgium, right? Or large dogs?