Comments on: Save the Animals, Exploit Women

By: Cecilie V

Cecilie V — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:08:30 +0000

By the way – I was horrified by the Steve-O seacucumber-comment. How cruel and insensitive! And to do that just for a joke – I find that totally sick. Makes me think of a passage in my favorite novel (I have to cite from memory, can’t find it in the book): “The boys kill the frogs for fun. But the frogs die in all seriousness.”

(It’s translated from Danish so maybe the point does not come across as supposed to — the ‘in all seriousness’-part. It’s a word-play that’s difficult to translate.)

By: Cecilie V

Cecilie V — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:58:16 +0000

There are other differencies between the depicting of the men and the women in the ads than those pointed out by you. Even if Steve-O loves to be naked and stuff and is the only one of the men whos whole body is shown, his posture is very much different than the naked womens’. He jumps joyfully up into the air, happy, free and strong. The homosexual couple seems to be enjoying each other in an intimate moment, and the first picture is one of a man who is giving freedom to the birds in the cage – he’s a hero, with a strong, firm gaze in his eyes. All the women are tragic, objectified, commodified, dead, helpless, in cages and so forth.

So even if there’s a kind of “equality” (since it is not SOLELY naked women in the campaign) it still does not differ one bit from the usual depiction of women. And I’m sure it would be a hell of a lot more effectfull if the roles were reversed – if it were sad men in cages, bound, dead, helpless and so forth, and free, strong, heroic women (there might even be a double message to that, since women actually ARE traded with like animals — for the sex industry ex.). People might actually notice the campaignads because it would be surprising to see men like that (free, strong, happy women are shown in commercials – usually because they’re so happy with their new lipstick/haircolouring options/face lotion that they just have to jump with glee!)

I’m so friggin tired of the so called provocative element in female nudity. It is NOT provocative – it’s tiresome and tired and shows appalling lack of imagination. I’ve largely come to detest even artists who paint nude women – try something new, for gods sake!

By: End of the Week Links — 3/1/09 «

End of the Week Links — 3/1/09 « — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:51:36 +0000

[...] I recently posted about PETA’s less-than-savory ad campaigns. Here’s a great related article at the Huffington Post. The pictures are somewhat shocking, [...]

By: marjorierodrigues

marjorierodrigues — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:41:35 +0000

When I saw that ad with Steve-O, I immediately thought: “hey, this is the guy who put a fish up his nose and then made it come out of his mouth. This is the guy who took a sea cocumber and jerked (pretending he was masturbating) until something white (who looked like sperm) came out — that white thing was the cocumber’s internal organs. And now Steve-O is trying to tell me that he cares about animal rights? WTF?”.

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:13:21 +0000

PETA is and always will be a joke.

By: Annie Spandex

Annie Spandex — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:16:40 +0000

Naked women in cages => vegetarianism. Hmm. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Sex sells, but naked women in cages? Is that even sexy??

By: Toriach

Toriach — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 09:25:55 +0000

An excellent article. Frankly I feel very strongly that PETA is more interested in publicity and advancing an uber radical agenda that has nothing to do with the reality of human/animal relationships, especially as relates to "pets", nor with anything that might be considered true animal welfare. The timing of your article is interesting, as I have an article that is just today going live. I provided a link to your article in hopes that anyone who looks at mine will also look at yours and be given a little more food for thought about this group and their in my opinion reprehensible behavior. The One About Why PETA, And Michael Vick Are Both Synonyms For Suck.

By: Dollface

Dollface — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 06:17:58 +0000

@ Roxanne — You’re definitely right — for example, the ad with the woman wrapped up in meat packaging — “edgy”, provocative…but also completely tasteless, offensive, and disturbing.

@ Jackie — I’m all for vegetarianism, being a vegan, and even animal rights. I think it’s unfortunate that these good causes are being associated with PETA.

@ Maria — I haven’t seen that documentary, but it sounds really interesting! I’ll have to look it up.

Thanks for the comments!

By: Maria

Maria — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:18:51 +0000

I can’t really take PETA seriously and I think it’s because they just plain try way to hard. Their advertisements are so exploitative and their tactics (i.e. dumping flour on Lindsay) are kind of childish. They really do need to take a different approach if they want the general public to see their point of view and not see them as some psycho radical group.

Dollface, have you seen I am an Animal? It’s a documentary HBO made about Ingrid Newkirk, the woman who founded PETA. She discusses her controversial marketing campaigns and the documentary follows her on a few of her rescue missions. It’s pretty interesting.

By: Jackie

Jackie — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:12:46 +0000

I’ve always thought their advertisements were distasteful even during the two years I was a vegetarian. I could never put into words why.

The second advertisement especially upset me for some reason.