BEST OVERALL: Dove Men+Care’s “The Journey to Comfort”
At last, a commercial that celebrates manhood without being sexist, stupid or beer-related! It’s basically a mini-movie crammed into 45-seconds (seriously, try counting the number of scenes they had to shoot) that follows one Everyman’s life from birth to adulthood by highlighting the big moments as well as the mundane ones: puberty, love, marriage, jar-opening, parenthood. The message is “You’re mature and comfortable enough in your own skin that you don’t have to worry about seeming like a pussy if you want to moisturize your skin.” And it avoids all the divisive or offensive gender stereotypes often found in Super Bowl ads. BUT — and it’s a big “but” — the title of “best ad” only applies to the 45-second version that aired during the Super Bowl last night. If you search online for it (and on the Dove site), the version that will probably come up first is the ONE minute version, which sadly DOES include a bunch of tired gender stereotypes, like fighting at parties, never showing your sensitive side and never showing fear — ugh! Like with good film making, good commercial making is all about editing, editing, editing.
45-Second Version (Yay!):
One-Minute Version (Boo!):
See the winners for “Most Romantic,” “Most Sexist” and “Funniest” after the jump:
To kick off your Superbowl weekend, check out these 3 bits that you won’t (but should!) see during the game this Sunday — all are in response to the anti-choice, anti-equality, anti-gay Christian group Focus on the Family’s 2.5-million-dollar spot (that we mentioned the other day) featuring football star Tim Tebow and his mom talking about how she refused to have an abortion after doctors advised her to. Hey, good for Mrs. Tebow, who had the right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health! Guess we can now hold our breath until CBS runs an equally “appropriate” ad about preserving that right to choose:
Jump is a Brazilian ad agency–one that’s been around for fifteen years. And like any fifteen year old, they’re just bursting with boiling hormones…
So to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary, they created this ad spread of a lingerie-clad woman. The two pages come glued together, so that when the reader pries them apart, they’re covered with a sticky white residue, just as if…well, you get the idea.
The one flaw with their ad? No self-respecting teenager pleasures himself to a lingerie magazine. Not anymore, anyway.
The things that once so defined him — shag carpeting, Room & Board sofas, monogamy — now suffocated him. — via UnhappyHipsters.com
If you’ve ever browsed the pages of, say, Dwell magazine and wondered how the hell anyone could even fart in such an antiseptic environment, let alone have an orgasm, then you’ll love UnhappyHipsters.com as much as we do. The site is genius in its simplicity: photos from the pages of Dwell magazine and, okay, mostly just Dwell, with one-liner captions guessing at the inner life of the dwellers in question. Sure, we’ve always been proponents of clearing clutter — especially in your bedroom — in order to focus on the task at hand, whether that task is dinner, email, romance, or an orgasm. But there’s lack of clutter and then there’s austere design and architecture that seems to scream, “I DARE you to have fun in here!” A sampling from a world in which “wet spot” is a dirty word after the jump.
We used to look forward to Superbowl Sunday for the ads (that, and the excuse to over-indulge in junk food). But it looks like CBS is determined to ruin the one sports-related joy in our lives. First of all they went and accepted an anti-choice ad from conservative Christian group Focus on the Family — apparently CBS no longer bans advocacy submissions or controversial ads, as they have claimed in the past. Of course, Focus on the Family claims the ad is not controversial at all, and is simply about “the issue of life.” Riiiight. The ad — which has not yet been released — is expected to feature Pam Tebow (mother of college football star Tim) and her decision to carry Tim to term despite a recommendation from doctors that she have an abortion. Sorry: despite a recommendation from doctors regarding the issue of life.
Unfortunately CBS’s policy on “controversial” ads still holds firm if the ad happens to come from a gay men’s dating site.
Australia: a land where prostitution is (mostly) legal, cursing on TV is par for the course…and a byzantine structure of censorship renders most XXX material illegal to own, sell, or both. Newly added to the list of banned acts: small breasts and female ejaculation.
Why small breasts? Well, the ban is specifically focused on women who’s breasts give them the appearance of being underage (unlike America, Australia frowns on “barely legal” porn, as well as anything meant to make adult actresses look like they’re youthful or underage). Of course, declaring that one very common body type is unwelcome in erotic material does have more than a few unpleasant implications, as Jezebel outlines.
When we read the horrifying news that there’s a John Edwards sex tape out there, we wondered, yet again, when celebrities will realize that the only way to guarantee your sex tape won’t leak is not to make it. But we guess that as long as egotistic, power-drunk celebs continue to think they can get away with cheating on their spouses, they’ll also think they can get away with making private sex tapes. However, we’d like to speak up in defense of all the poor innocent citizens (like, um, us) who will have trouble sleeping tonight, just at the thought that we might someday accidentally click on a link that shows us John Edwards’ O-face. For the love of god, please let us be spared that. In fact, while we’re making our plea, here are the top 10 sex tapes — whether real or imaginary — that we really, really, really don’t want to see.
John Edwards and his kooky toe-ring-wearing mistress Rielle Hunter.
Anything involving Hugh Hefner that was shot in the last four decades. Actually, anything starring Hef, ever.
You might have seen the headlines this week that read “Rise in Teen Pregnancy Rates.” Of course what’s missing from that title is the fact that these are not real-time figures they’re talking about. The 3% rise in teen pregnancies among 15-to-19-year-olds increased between 2005 and 2006 — the first jump since 1990. We’re sure there are multiple causes for the jump, but you cannot discount the impact of 1.5 billion dollars worth of abstinence-only programs pushed over the past 10 years, especially during the two Bush terms — programs that have been proven time and again not to work.
In the wake of rumors that Tiger Woods’ is seeking help at an addiction center, sex therapists, professors, and psychologists are left pondering whether sex addiction really exists.
OkCupid.com is a free online dating site (with, btw, a weirdly all-male staff, save for the one woman on their about page whose title is, even more disturbingly, “office chick”). They cataloged over 7000 photographs (with average attraction ratings and aged 18 to 32) on their site, analyzing 1) facial attitude (Is the person smiling? Staring straight ahead? Doing that flirty lip-pursing thing?), 2) photo context (Is there alcohol? Is there a pet? Is the photo outdoors? Is it in a bedroom?) and 3) skin (How much skin is the person showing? How much face? How much breasts? How much ripped abs?) — and they found some interesting, myth-busting things. It’s actually a fascinating article with cool charts and graphs that’s worth a look, but here’s the quick gist of the data:
Women with photos flirting directly at the camera get more messages than those smiling
But flirting away from the camera is the worst thing a woman can do for generating responses (same goes for men)
