“Knocked The Bottom Out of Me”? Knock it off, PETA.
Oh, PETA…
(via SigKate)
Can’t you folks create any campaigns that don’t hinge on some form of insipid, othering, sexist objectification? It shouldn’t be that difficult, considering your stated aims. Here’s an idea: rather than euthanizing a vast majority of your rescues, how about hiring ’em to come up with some new marketing and promotional material for ya? Argh… I’m halfway serious. It’s entirely possible that a golden retriever could provide something more palatable than the dehumanizing dreck you keep churning out like, well, sausage.
Seattle Stranger commenter CrankyBacon puts it well: “This isn’t a sex-positive vs. prude situation. Women can be engaged in policy issues, make coherent arguments, be persuasive, protest, etc. They have more to offer than standing naked outside a butcher shop, or pretending to give a blow job to a cucumber and titty fuck a carrot.” Female activists have more to offer than going nude to titillate for the cause. Women can aid your agenda in ways that don’t require them to be depicted as battered, pantsless-in-public, grocery-buying/fanny-flaunting fuckholes for ubersexed males. (Sure, naked men sometimes feature in your campaigns, but not nearly as often, and never presented in a remotely similar context.)
“Chicks Agree”? No, actually. Not this “chick”. Not with the persistent, lazy, women-as-meat misogyny, anyway. C’mon, PETA, don’t you owe it to human beings and animals alike to try to encourage more responsible and respectful discourse?
February 15th, 2012 at 5:56 pm
[…] Thinking About Why PETA Hates On Women In Its Ads mnsfw […]
February 15th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
These ads are such shit. I was actually kind of shocked by the first one, the “blinded by vegan boyfriend semen” one.
And while I think being vegan is fine, I really find it odd that they’re trying to create this idea of vegan dudes as ultra-virile.
February 15th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
This ad repulsed me. Whoever is signing off on this shit is either a moron or thinks their throng of vegan supporters is.
February 15th, 2012 at 6:23 pm
I didn’t think it was possible, but PETA seems to have leveled up at sexism. Bleh.
February 15th, 2012 at 6:27 pm
Anti-PETA vegan, reporting for duty. Ugh, fuck this creepy sexist noise.
February 15th, 2012 at 6:34 pm
Total aside, but holy hell do you do lovely work, Mz. O’Brien.
February 16th, 2012 at 12:07 am
Wow… they managed to top the Axe Body Gel campaigns in terms of sexism. That is no small feat.
February 16th, 2012 at 2:39 am
Another calculated move to get people talking about them, even if it’s with disgust. So many layers of manipulation and f*ckery.
February 16th, 2012 at 11:05 am
I keep wondering the same thing here. PETA employs so many dubious methods, it is difficult to relate with them.
February 16th, 2012 at 11:10 am
Agreed.
On a related note, did you catch PETA being totally schooled on the Daily Show last night?
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-february-15-2012/seaworld-of-pain
February 19th, 2012 at 3:56 am
Thank you for articulating it like this. The only tiny glimmer of positivity I can make from this, is it’s a tiny push back against the image of veganism as a pathetic, feeble lifestyle in all this idiotic, pandering MANvertising that’s popped up in the last couple of years (albeit a revolting and harmful push). There are few things more irritating to me than fuckwads who buy all their meat from factory farms acting like they’re so tough for it, as if they went out and hunted it with a bowie knife in the dark, and that veg*ns are weak-natured pussies, when most of the time it’s the opposite.
February 19th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
As a woman who really enjoys getting beaten up as a regular part of her sex life, I thought this ad was pretty good. She has a really great little smirk at the very end.
Actually, I found out last week which illicit drugs make for the best rough sex. I’d probably be out procuring some in my underwear, too, if it weren’t so damn cold outside.
It’s too bad y’all couldn’t give the female character in the ad the benefit of the doubt in terms of knowing what she likes.
Man, why does no one ever bitch about how, when sex is used in ads, it’s always hetero, or the people are always skinny? Isn’t that just as baseless a complaint?
February 20th, 2012 at 5:18 am
@GL I gave the woman the benefit of that doubt but I am wondering why sche doesn t looke more happy throughout the whole clip if she just got what she really wanted… the smirk at the end is not a strog enough marking in comparison to all the implicit and explicit massages(text/picutres) of the clip pointing into abusive direction. I agree that the smirk in the end portrays her as beeing satified with his perfomance but think this only points back to the overall message of vegan makes us guys so potent we can bang out the shit of our girlsfriends which pisses me off in the first place… does vegan food really make you better in bed or do only healthy people have good sex? I think, nobody bitches about this ad being heterocentric or standartazing bodies (which would also be true) because there are other more striking issues here…
February 20th, 2012 at 10:20 am
GL- No one cares that the fictional girl in question likes getting railed so hard her head puts a hole in the plaster.
What people object to is the idea that PETA is selling veganism in this series of ads with the idea of “Hey dudes, be a vegan, and then you’ll totally be able to fuck the shit out of your girlfriend!”
As if (a) being vegan has anything to do with sexual performance, and (b) the principles and ideals of a vegan lifestyle aren’t good enough to promote it, to the point that appealing to the base desires of dudes is a better tactic.
People object to the use of women (and their bodies and sexual desires) as a marketing tool. And in this case, an extremely bluntly applied marketing tool.
February 20th, 2012 at 10:41 pm
Oh, so, sexism ISN’T the big issue, then. It’s that they’re tainting the alt-purity of veganism with mainstream marketing strategies. And not just via boobs, but humour too! Those bastards!
It just seems like everyone’s knee-jerk hatred of this is coming from a different angle, and I can only see one point that would be genuinely objectionable: they manipulated you via the domestic-abuse-PSA trope, which is supposed to be untouchable or something, because it’s a Serious Social Issue. But calling that objectionable would be like saying none of us have ever laughed at a racist joke.
Look, they used parody and hyperbole and sex, and yeah, I enjoyed their use of those things, far more than I was shocked at how they betrayed their fellow social-good-fighters. But I don’t think smart people are going to talk about veganism nearly as much as about how it’s time for a new approach to domestic-abuse-PSAa, and in THAT regard PETA’s done us a solid.
February 21st, 2012 at 12:54 pm
Er, GL, not sure who you’re replying to there, but if it’s me then I didn’t express myself well, or something.
Because yes, most of the problem is that these ads are really sexist.
As I pointed out in my last ‘graph. I mean, I object to them because they’re stupid, too. And in my experience, most vegan dudes I’ve met have been too skinny and pale to be a tiger in the sack.
Also, the one about the gay couple is equally offensive in drawing on stereotypes of what gay sex is like.