PETA has been blocked from airing an ad during the Superbowl that seems a bit like soft porn for vegans. The ad, shown below, shows models getting intimate with vegetables of various types with the tagline “Studies Show Vegetarians Have Better Sex.” It would be obviously inappropriate for most kids who will be watching. Vegeporn, however, could prove a new sensation with every other fetish covered on the Internet.
The ad is pretty explicit and it is surprising that PETA would want to show such material to kids, though the organization seems to primarily work to shock people these days. PETA appears to strive make people care more for animals by getting them to hate PETA. I suppose when people appear so obnoxious animals appear superior in comparison. [Update: PETA has now gotten into live shows in public parks.]
My greatest concern is that broccoli and cucumbers will now be sold in paper bags from behind the counter. The question is whether the vegetable industry will take the lead from the beef industry with an add campaign proclaiming, “Vegetables: Its What’s For After Dinner.”
Even YouTube feels it is necessary to get a sign on to acknowledge a warning on the content of the ad before allowing people to see it, here. As it turns out, Arizona viewers still ended seeing 10 seconds of real porn during the game. Though no doubt many Cardinals fans considered the game to be obscene and not appropriate for viewing by the end of the fourth quarter anyway.
For the video, click here
For my part, I am disgusted . . . and I would write more but I have to run to the market.
For the ful story, click here.
Buddha,
You’re leaving out my favorite grumpy old magician.
Dear Cecil is awesome! Thanks, Patty. I’ve thought for some time that he should sue a certain TV show for aping of Cecil’s . . . “LegendBreaker”-ing shall we say. And Penn & Teller should send Cecil birthday cards too. But if we go that route, I guess they’d all be paying the estate of Houdini, famed trickster and escape artist and noted debunker. Oh the tangled web . . .
Jill writes:
‘The superbowl is incidently, one of the worst times for violence against women and shelters brace for that day.’
—-
Who says?
——–
Does violence against women rise 40% during the Super Bowl?
April 14, 2000
Dear Cecil:
In the media buildup to this year’s Super Bowl I saw a mention of the old story that there is a 40 percent increase in violence against women on Super Bowl Sunday due to testosterone-jacked men taking it out on the women in their lives. I seem to recall that this story has been debunked but couldn’t find anything definite and look to you to sunder the mists of ignorance.
— Ryan Andrews, via the Internet
Don’t expect miracles. This myth was debunked three days after it first broke in the media in 1993, but seven years later it’s still making the rounds. I don’t know who’s worse–advocates for good causes who make baseless claims or the chumps in the media who report them as fact.
The whole thing began when Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a liberal media watchdog group with a vocal feminist wing, decided to draw attention to the problem of domestic violence by persuading NBC to run an anti-wife-beating spot during the 1993 Super Bowl. To bolster its case, FAIR sent out a press release saying the day of the Super Bowl was “one of the worst days of the year for violence against women in the home.” A separate statement sent to FAIR activists said “women’s shelters report a 40 percent increase in calls for help during Super Bowl Sunday.”
FAIR and other women’s advocacy groups held a press conference a few days before the Super Bowl in Pasadena, California, the site of the game. One speaker, Sheila Kuehl of the California Women’s Law Center, cited a study by researchers at Old Dominion University in Virginia showing an increase in police reports of beatings and hospital admissions in northern Virginia following games won by the Washington Redskins during 1988 and 1989. The Associated Press subsequently reported that there was a 40 percent increase in calls for help following the Super Bowl and a similar increase after Redskins victories. The AP reporter later said he got these figures from Kuehl and from a FAIR spokesperson.
FAIR’s attempt to draw attention to domestic violence was a huge success. NBC agreed to run the anti-wife-battering spot, and a flurry of reports appeared in major media citing the 40 percent figure, giving the impression that the football/violence link was a proven fact. On ABC’s Good Morning America a Denver psychologist said she’d been collecting data for ten years and that she too had found an increase in wife battering during the Super Bowl. A press release distributed on behalf of the University of Buffalo echoed the earlier claims and warned women, “Don’t remain alone with him during the game.”
It was all baloney. Ken Ringle, a skeptical reporter for the Washington Post, called around and found that there was no evidence of increased violence against women during the Super Bowl and that claims about violence following Redskins victories had been exaggerated. Janet Katz, one of the authors of the Old Dominion study, said that emergency room admissions of women for gunshot wounds, stabbings, lacerations, and so on were slightly higher on days when the Redskins won, but not 40 percent. (Having read the study, I’d say even that claim is dubious. See below.) Ringle called several women’s shelters and found no evidence of increased violence against women on Super Bowl Sunday. Domestic violence experts said they knew of no research supporting such a claim.
On the day of the Super Bowl, Ringle’s story debunking “Abuse Bowl” claims appeared on the front page of the Post. Some newspapers subsequently backpedaled on the credulous stories they had run earlier. The Wall Street Journal published a scathing editorial, and Rush Limbaugh took the opportunity to ridicule the “feminazis” once again.
Furious, FAIR denounced the Post story in a long complaint to the newspaper. But the Post’s ombudsman and later the American Journalism Review did some checking of their own and found that while Ringle had made a few mistakes, his central claim was correct–there was no reliable data documenting an increase in violence against women during the Super Bowl. FAIR now says it never claimed to have hard evidence, but when you read the AJR account of the controversy it’s clear the group bears most of the blame for the misleading stories. For example, the 40 percent figure cited in the memo sent to FAIR activists, which was passed on orally to many reporters, was based on a statement in Donna Ferrato’s book Living With the Enemy (1991), the evidence for which evaporated on close examination.
The reality of violence against women is shocking enough–why make stuff up? Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the facts have been distorted in defense of women’s rights. That’s an issue I’ll return to next week.
ABOUT THAT STUDY
The folks at FAIR were kind enough to send me the Old Dominion study (“The Impact of Professional Football Games Upon Violent Assaults on Women,” G. F. White, J. Katz, and K. E. Scarborough, Violence and Victims, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 157-171, 1992). Over a two-year period 680 women were treated in emergency rooms for assaults, lacerations, etc.–an average of less than one per day. The statistical analysis is dense and difficult to follow, but a footnote contained the following:
On the day of a win the actual mean number of women admitted is 1.05, the average expected number is 0.75, one day after a win, actual 0.80; expected = 0.58; two days after a win, actual 0.70, expected 0.63.
On “win” days, therefore, violence increased 40%. But there were only 20 such days during the two-year study period. Doing the arithmetic, we find that 15 cases were expected, while the actual number was 21–a difference of six cases. You can trick this out with all the statistical jargon you like, but it seems foolish to base any grand conclusions on such trifling numbers.
— Cecil Adams
JT,
I completely agree with your analysis of PETA but I can’t agree with not airing the ad. It’s the idea that violence is O.K. and sexual degradation is not where kids are concerned. To my way of thinking neither the level of violence contained in the superbowl or the sexual degradation of the PETA ad is acceptable for younger children (and honestly I wish adults didn’t accept those things either). These men are hitting each other with such force that many of them suffer permanent brain damage and other bodily injury. This really shouldn’t be acceptable to us as a society but we don’t even give it a second thought. Football is an inherently violent sport, causing lasting injury. Likewise the degradation of women is, by and large, completely normal and acceptable to us in this society. It’s very interesting to read advertising trade information because they don’t have any illusions about what they are doing in the ads that show women with black eyes, or looking like they just had a violent death, or posed in positions of S and M etc. These images are what they appear to be. People in the industry will readily admit this. I think the degradation of women is extremely harmful, both spiritually to men and women and physically to women. The superbowl is incidently, one of the worst times for violence against women and shelters brace for that day.
So to me, I would choose other things to do with my young kids that day. Then when they are older I would watch it with them if that was their choice and I would discuss both the violence of the sport itself and the sexual degradation, not just in this ad, but the many ads children can’t help but see just about everywhere they go.
“PETA makes all animal activists look like loons.”
I was trying to avoid saying that, but there you have it.
Hi Jon:
Thanks for stopping by on our blog. I also tend to support more open and unrestricted speech, even with non-governmental actors. The links are very helpful. However, while I am no fan of McDonalds, I do believe that these commercials were too sexual for millions of kids to watch. I do believe that it would be appropriate for other programming. The Superbowl is unique in the number of kids who watch television at that time. My two oldest boys — 10 and 8 — made it through the whole game (including the incredible rally in the fourth quarter). I would not wanted to have to explain why naked women were licking and cherishing vegetables or the tagline on improving one’s sexual performance.
PETA has allowed itself to become stereotype and produces messages with the effect of graffiti. As an animal rights supporter, I constantly worry about the impact that the organization has on serious advocates. PETA makes all animal activists look like loons. I assume that PETA, again, designed the commercial to be controversial for the Super Bowl. They succeeded and certainly got millions to watch it on the Internet. However, what benefit is that controversy to animal rights?
The PETA ad got what it asked for. It got people talking about their issues and they didn’t have to even pay the network. Sometimes shocking people is the best way to get your point across.
Treating human sexuality as unnatural, somehow shameful, or even evil is part of what makes the United States unique in creating millions of immature young adults who have unbalanced, superficial relationships with the opposite gender. This ad was reasonable in my view, although I support the decision of a private network not to show it. That’s their call, not mine.
I’m pleased to see that PETA generated so much buzz without having to pay for the ad! They are doing what Abercrombie & Fitch perfected: using sex and controversy to advance their brand and message. Unremarkably, this seems to works best in repressed places like the United States. A&F also reminds us that this tactic can be an equal opportunity “exploiter”, to those here who are more outraged by the gender of those in the ad than debating the merits of PETA’s message.
why are people so damn uptight?
Hi, Jonathan-
Thanks for bringing this story to a wider audience than my several hundred daily blog visitors.
My blog entry last Friday on this issue is here: http://katzjustice.com/underdog/permalink/JusticeForAnimals.html .
All kidding aside, why is it that a huge percentage of Americans over the decades have put less emphasis on shielding their childrens’ eyes from violence than from sexuality? Clearly, as a free expression fanatic, I favor expansive interpretation of the First Amendment when the government tries limiting advertising content. Here, PETA has no First Amendment rights in the matter, seeing that NBC, which rejected the ad, is a non-governmental entity.
Commercials for McDonalds and other meat purveyors seem more quesionable for children than the PETA commercial. McDonald’s gets away with having clown Ronald McDonald and Mayor McCheez sell its hamburgers, which is a whitewash of the cruelty of raising meat animals in captivity — often in overly close, uncomfortable quarters — during a short lifespan, and then inflicting suffering on them not only upon slaughter, but during the terror of hearing and seeing their brother and sister animals slaughtered as they soon are to be next.
Human executions are excruciatingly painful, despite litigation geared to reduce the pain. No similar efforts are made to minimize the physical and psychological suffering of animals, as they are led to slaughter first seeing and hearing their brother and sister animals slaughtered before their very eyes. Unlike humans executed in American death chambers, food animals are methodically beheaded, stabbed, and killed through many other methods. See PETA’s gruesome video giving a brief meeting of your meat at http://tinyurl.com/GrossMeatGross.
In any event, PETA has posted NBC’s emailed explanation (here http://blog.peta.org/archives/veggie_love.pdf ) of the items that would need to be sanitized in the ad, to have a chance of being shown on Super Bowl Sunda. PETA references the email from NBC here http://blog.peta.org/archives/2009/01/veggie_love.php as authentic.
February 1, 2009Obama: “Let Them Eat Steak”
Is Barack Obama an insensitive lout who serves $100 per pound steaks to his elite guests and turns up the heat in the White House high enough to grow orchids while a million of his countrymen are without power and dozens are freezing to death?
Many on the web–but no one in the mainstream media–have commented on the fact that Obama has not even pretended to do anything about the massive ice storm that has disabled much of Kentucky and neighboring states. It took days for FEMA to swing into action. Why is that not a scandal? Days went by before Kentucky’s governor called out the National Guard. Why did no one blame Obama for failing to call out the Guard sooner? Probably because he lacks the constitutional power to do so; but the Constitution hasn’t changed since 2005.
What Katrina taught the media was that they could hurt Bush by lying. What 2008 taught them was that they could help Obama by not reporting at all. What will 2009 teach them? I shudder to think.
A basic reality of our time is that our mass media are monolithic, and what they choose to report (or not report) depends on what fits the narrative they are pushing on the public. If our reporters and editors wanted to portray Obama as clueless and out of touch with ordinary Americans, he has given them ample opportunity to do so. But because they are Democrats and he is a Democrat, they have no desire to tell that story. So “let them eat steak” is not a theme you’ll be seeing on the evening news.
Hold on. I was just back near the computer using the restroom. That’s so funny I have to go get everyone from the kitchen!
JT! I didn’t recognize you with the sex change and the pre-frontal lobotomy!
roflmao
Buddah, you write “Any other ways you want to try to tread on my 1st Amendment rights?”
This is a private blog, you have no 1st Amendment rights here moron.
GET OUT.
Knock yourself out, L.
JT is fully aware of my presence. I’m hard to miss or so I’ve been told. When he has asked me to play nice, I comply.
If you think THAT wasn’t playing nice, lol, I guess you haven’t read many of my posts.
Any other ways you want to try to tread on my 1st Amendment rights? Because trying to shame me for wanting a criminal to be brought to justice by telling the teacher?
Not. going. to work. (best read in the cadence of William Shatner)
It’s time to start the pre-cook!
Go Cards!
How about if that ad featured men getting hot & sexy with their veggies?
I have made it a point to make sure Mr. Turley is aware of your disgusting posting.
CCD,
One lives to be of service. You are most welcome.
I see ads on television all the time that show women wearing lingerie, women in suggestive poses with men – while wearing lingerie, women kneeling on the floor while a man drinks a bottle of scotch.. I see them almost everyday. The SuperBowl ads will mostly be partially nude women. Now, women wear lingerie and instead of kneeling at a bare chested man’s feet -she kisses vegetables. Why is that supposed to be wrong but the millions of other ads with half naked women trying to please men considered to be appropriate? And what would you explain to kids? Every day they see ads of women in lingerie – kowtowing to men. Yet, you think their eyes should be censored if she is NOT kowtowing to a male? There is something wrong with that way of thinking. You didn’t bother explaining to them why its OK for women to alwasy be shown semi-nude, yet you;re now offended…by vegetables.
I love the ad. It was damn sexy. And I’m not offended because the women aren’t worshipping my ego laden penis. If you want to have that ad removed, in all fairness, the millions of similar, heterosexual porn ads should be removed as well.
Jeez…men and their pee-pee egos. 🙁
BIL
Please keep serving up the truth, thanks.