Sony this time, with a Playstation 3 ad featuring full-frontal *male* nudity. Rumour has it that lots of men are uncomfortable with the ad. I wonder if those men ever notice how much female flesh is displayed on billboards and magazine covers per urban block. While I'm not sure that matching female exploitation with male exploitation is the *best* solution to the current situation, it *is* somewhat enlightening that an ad that's just, "Naked guy. Playstation 3." seems so absurd while thousands of products are marketed that way featuring women every day.
ETA: You know, I didn't even notice the element that serenejournal noted in the comments!
Also, I'm ecstatic both that California has greenlighted same-sex marriage and that Ontario is set to cover sex change surgery under our health plan! (Links available pretty much everywhere.)
I think so. But still -- that is totally bizarre. But perhaps that is the connection with the Playstation 3 -- some sort of implication that having a well-developed control of the game system is related to virility, or...?
The thing is that while I see a fair number of penises over time, I didn't actually look at the ad photo for long because I was looking at the weird playboy-esque logo (and was having dinner at the time). But yeah, it's sort of odd.
What a tease! It kind of implies that you could play the console with your dick.... and if they sold a game controller that took its input from a penis, I'd probably buy it and the game they'd make for it. I'll leave the rest to you imagoination, thank me later.
As for California, I wonder how long until someone seriously proposes we ammend Article IV of the constitution, so that the other states can exclude California marriages from their recognition.
It's not exactly a slavery-level hot button, but the church and state separation is long overdue for some serious evaluation. I won't be happy until federal offices are run 7 days a week.
As for California, I wonder how long until someone seriously proposes we ammend Article IV of the constitution, so that the other states can exclude California marriages from their recognition.
I believe the (revoltingly named) Defense of Marriage Act already did this, and numerous states have already passed their own laws saying that they refuse to recognize same-sex marriages that happened legally in other states.
The relisting of genital reconstruction surgery for transsexual people is a microscopic step forward. They will only approve of 8 to 10 people per year. This means that the average person needing surgical treatment will have to wait for decades and decades for their turn!
Yeah, that's definitely a bad thing. :( It still seems like a step forward, but I guess the criteria by which one qualifies is the big thing to be seen in practice.
The ad is fascinating in all the ways you mention, but I guess I'm left trying to figure out if they're trying to sell more playstations to gay men or to (heterosexual and bi) women. And which market is bigger. The thumb makes it more gay, I think.
I wasn't sure what the target market was either, but it could be both. I do know that all the video game console makers seem to recently be hell-bent on capturing the female market. I think that in general there's a perception that video gaming is coming into the mainstream and thus there are a lot of untapped markets that the various makers are trying to figure out how to reach. Nintendo seems to be doing really well with their, "Family fun, anyone can play," sort of approach. I'm not sure what Sony's gambit on this one is.
Homoerotic straight Jackass fanboys. You'd be surprised how large of a market that is -- straight boys who get stinking drunk and strip naked and do "body-5's!"
I really don't know what's wrong with Sony's marketing folks.
I have nothing against nudity (damn, wish my chest/stomach looked like that), but this doesn't scream "PS3!!!" to me or make me think I need to run out and get one ASAP...
I have to admit that a lot of their ads for the PS3 have been at best confusing. Like, even the ones that featured the console. They had that one with a baby-like doll and the PS3 in a white room and the PS3 started to levitate and all these terrible war / explosion images flashed on the doll's eyes and the doll started to cry. What the hell was that about and how does it make me think I should buy your product? Nintendo *completely* swept the "effective marketing" game for the current generation of consoles with their whole, "Your friends will come over, your whole family will want to play, everyone will have a ton of fun," concept.
The photoshopped body mod actually does make me a bit uncomfortable - not sure why.
But yes, it's fairly interesting to notice the reactions to displays of male nudity (and our cultural blindness to female same). I remember the reactions when we had the first series of such adverts maybe 10 years ago - and we've just had another round of media debate.
We have various legislation about exploitative marketing, so once in a while we have an injunction against an advert or campaign. It's become sort-of trendy for the marketing agency to then replace whatever female models by male models and rerun it. So far that has not led to another injunction - and since there's been a couple of cases of marketing agencies making a point of it, this has resulted in some highly erotic and/or sexual public imagery with make bodies.
And, no - I can't make up my mind if this is a good thing or not.
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