A blurred line between Freedom of Expression and Social Conformity (LINK)
August 10th 2008 03:58
At what point do we take a stance against alleged freedom of expression where that freedom could be argued to demonstrate appallingly low self-esteem, or the blatant disregard for the self-worth of others?
If we have no point of reference for when to take that stance, then we have no firm regulation by which to guide our actions. This becomes apparent when we see all manner of expression being given liberty... until 'someone' goes 'too far'...
'someone' could be one person or a company; 'too far' is that point when enough appears to be enough and there is a burst of angry outcries against the alleged offender/s.
Let me share an example of where I see this happening.
Some of you may have seen the Nando's Peri Peri sauce advertisement on Television centred around the Pole Dancer.
This woman provides a narrative commentary about how she just can't do without her Peri Peri sauce fix.
The narrative is emphasised by the Pole Dancer's virtual nakedness, notwithstanding the presence of a pointless piece of material implying she is wearing a g-string.
She sticks her wiggling naked butt in the face of a customer... all the while knowing she has a "Peri Peri Patch" on her flesh, to help her deal with her cravings for the sauce.
The rest of the ad appears to have some degree of relevance to the product being promoted, where the same woman is seen with her 'husband' and children having a chicken dinner complete with Peri Peri.
Freedom of expression... hmmm.
Someone or many someones in an advertising agency received probably an obscene amount of money to produce that burst of creativity.
Which caused an outcry from the public to have the ad removed.
Was the public voice declaring that the ad was offensive? Irrelevant? Tasteless? Degrading?
It could certainly be considered to be all of those adjectives and more.
Another advertisement for a lingerie company showed a naked model writhing around in 'space' with only just camera angles affording her decency. Before the ad is through, she is barely clothed in boob-boosting bra and hardly covered by lacy knickers.
There was a slower outburst from the viewing public, some offended by yet another blatant show of women without clothing used for promoting products. Perhaps the slower outcry was accompanied by failing response to the ad, which was eventually pulled from the screen.
Yet another advertisement - this time for a magazine - shows a full frontal of a voluptuous woman, from the waist up, no bra, or other items of clothing, using her hands to barely cover her nipples. It alleges from the narrative that an article of some quality about sagging older boobs can be found in the magazine.
Already it is screaming "offence".
Let's not forget the "beaver" ad.
Never could I have imagined such a despicable and childishly offensive commercial to be aired for women's personal sanitary care.
Oh, sorry - I should forget calling it personal - heck, the entire population seems to need to know how we deal with our menstrual cycle. And I don't have a problem with respectful knowledge.
Thankfully I was not the only one who found the "beaver" to be sexually insulting and degrading.
What about the ads for shampoos? And for solar heating? And shave creams for women?
Naked women in shower scenes, with cameras revealing as much titilating flesh as can be dared, to see how far they can go, perhaps?
And what about the sports ad (forgive me, I am not a sports addict so I don't recall exactly the full details of this ad) for promoting an upcoming game (soccer, football??) where there were caricatures of a wife, a boss, a child/baby, and low and behold, the girlfriend referred to in the narrative as references were made to the importance of watching the game.
It was heavily implied that the typical bloke who would watch this game had a boss, a nagging wife, a baby or a child, and a girlfriend on the side.
Great message, that.
In a society where 50% of marriages end in divorce, a bloke's ad endorses the extramarital affair lifestyle.
I am not naive, I know it happens.
My point is our attitudes have become so slack and so lazy and so overexposed to all the poor treatment of people, especially women, that we just don't care and seem to think it's funny most of the time. No one says anything...
And DON'T GET ME STARTED on Sam Newman.
Censorship has a lot to answer for on Australian sporting commentary programs when they let a 'celebrity' take to the camera and INSULT, DEGRADE, HUMILIATE and OFFEND women with blatant arrogance... and it seriously highlights just how insensitive social attitudes have become. Particularly when news reporters approach the "average" citizen on the street for his and her opinion on Sam's latest verbal slur and most give him the benefit of the doubt and say "That's just Sam!".
Well, that's Just BS of the highest order.
We get nothing from insulting or degrading any person for any reason not even if it is allegedly designed to generate little more than a few laughs, OR commercial advantage ie sales.
(And don't even dare to start me on Big Brother - jobs or no jobs. There is nothing to be gained from the perverted peeping tom in the shower scenes. It is little surprise to me that the show was axed, after the "turkey slapping" episode brought it to the attention of the then Prime Minister John Howard. No wonder it lost its popularity - they had to tone down all the potential controversies they were used to creating with their Big Brother (peeping tom) spy cameras in the showers with the girls, and in the beds with the guys - and no, I never ever watched the show, not once. Didn't need to, the 'shorts' (previews) for each episode were more than enough to indicate what it was all about).
The suggestion that Freedom of expression should be allowed is not so wrong.
This desensitization within the upcoming generations to what was deemed offensive, inappropriate is becoming more and more apparent. Without touting the bible, or the ten commandments, or life under Christian morals, it is pretty clear that we have overstepped the mark when it comes to simple decency.
It is even more clearly overstepped in respect of how women LET THEMSELVES be portrayed within the media.
I am not at all pointing the finger of blame at men, waggling the finger and saying "It is all men... they are mysoginists... bla bla bla..."
NOT AT ALL.
Women need to get off their asses (the ones they apparently still ask how big it looks) and collectively take a stance.
It is TIME women acted like they want to be treated.
It starts with our own attitudes. It's about time women acted as though they were PEOPLE first, and demanded to be treated as people first - gender next.
Men need to be treated with this same attitude - they are people first, then their gender is next - because when it comes down to it, we are all people, and we need to do a lot better that what we are doing to get along...
Let's start with getting angry enough to take a stance, and stop the "Sex Sells" mindlessness.
If we have no point of reference for when to take that stance, then we have no firm regulation by which to guide our actions. This becomes apparent when we see all manner of expression being given liberty... until 'someone' goes 'too far'...
'someone' could be one person or a company; 'too far' is that point when enough appears to be enough and there is a burst of angry outcries against the alleged offender/s.
Let me share an example of where I see this happening.
Some of you may have seen the Nando's Peri Peri sauce advertisement on Television centred around the Pole Dancer.
This woman provides a narrative commentary about how she just can't do without her Peri Peri sauce fix.
The narrative is emphasised by the Pole Dancer's virtual nakedness, notwithstanding the presence of a pointless piece of material implying she is wearing a g-string.
She sticks her wiggling naked butt in the face of a customer... all the while knowing she has a "Peri Peri Patch" on her flesh, to help her deal with her cravings for the sauce.
The rest of the ad appears to have some degree of relevance to the product being promoted, where the same woman is seen with her 'husband' and children having a chicken dinner complete with Peri Peri.
Freedom of expression... hmmm.
Someone or many someones in an advertising agency received probably an obscene amount of money to produce that burst of creativity.
Which caused an outcry from the public to have the ad removed.
Was the public voice declaring that the ad was offensive? Irrelevant? Tasteless? Degrading?
It could certainly be considered to be all of those adjectives and more.
Another advertisement for a lingerie company showed a naked model writhing around in 'space' with only just camera angles affording her decency. Before the ad is through, she is barely clothed in boob-boosting bra and hardly covered by lacy knickers.
There was a slower outburst from the viewing public, some offended by yet another blatant show of women without clothing used for promoting products. Perhaps the slower outcry was accompanied by failing response to the ad, which was eventually pulled from the screen.
Yet another advertisement - this time for a magazine - shows a full frontal of a voluptuous woman, from the waist up, no bra, or other items of clothing, using her hands to barely cover her nipples. It alleges from the narrative that an article of some quality about sagging older boobs can be found in the magazine.
Already it is screaming "offence".
Let's not forget the "beaver" ad.
Never could I have imagined such a despicable and childishly offensive commercial to be aired for women's personal sanitary care.
Oh, sorry - I should forget calling it personal - heck, the entire population seems to need to know how we deal with our menstrual cycle. And I don't have a problem with respectful knowledge.
Thankfully I was not the only one who found the "beaver" to be sexually insulting and degrading.
What about the ads for shampoos? And for solar heating? And shave creams for women?
Naked women in shower scenes, with cameras revealing as much titilating flesh as can be dared, to see how far they can go, perhaps?
And what about the sports ad (forgive me, I am not a sports addict so I don't recall exactly the full details of this ad) for promoting an upcoming game (soccer, football??) where there were caricatures of a wife, a boss, a child/baby, and low and behold, the girlfriend referred to in the narrative as references were made to the importance of watching the game.
It was heavily implied that the typical bloke who would watch this game had a boss, a nagging wife, a baby or a child, and a girlfriend on the side.
Great message, that.
In a society where 50% of marriages end in divorce, a bloke's ad endorses the extramarital affair lifestyle.
I am not naive, I know it happens.
My point is our attitudes have become so slack and so lazy and so overexposed to all the poor treatment of people, especially women, that we just don't care and seem to think it's funny most of the time. No one says anything...
And DON'T GET ME STARTED on Sam Newman.
Censorship has a lot to answer for on Australian sporting commentary programs when they let a 'celebrity' take to the camera and INSULT, DEGRADE, HUMILIATE and OFFEND women with blatant arrogance... and it seriously highlights just how insensitive social attitudes have become. Particularly when news reporters approach the "average" citizen on the street for his and her opinion on Sam's latest verbal slur and most give him the benefit of the doubt and say "That's just Sam!".
Well, that's Just BS of the highest order.
We get nothing from insulting or degrading any person for any reason not even if it is allegedly designed to generate little more than a few laughs, OR commercial advantage ie sales.
(And don't even dare to start me on Big Brother - jobs or no jobs. There is nothing to be gained from the perverted peeping tom in the shower scenes. It is little surprise to me that the show was axed, after the "turkey slapping" episode brought it to the attention of the then Prime Minister John Howard. No wonder it lost its popularity - they had to tone down all the potential controversies they were used to creating with their Big Brother (peeping tom) spy cameras in the showers with the girls, and in the beds with the guys - and no, I never ever watched the show, not once. Didn't need to, the 'shorts' (previews) for each episode were more than enough to indicate what it was all about).
The suggestion that Freedom of expression should be allowed is not so wrong.
This desensitization within the upcoming generations to what was deemed offensive, inappropriate is becoming more and more apparent. Without touting the bible, or the ten commandments, or life under Christian morals, it is pretty clear that we have overstepped the mark when it comes to simple decency.
It is even more clearly overstepped in respect of how women LET THEMSELVES be portrayed within the media.
I am not at all pointing the finger of blame at men, waggling the finger and saying "It is all men... they are mysoginists... bla bla bla..."
NOT AT ALL.
Women need to get off their asses (the ones they apparently still ask how big it looks) and collectively take a stance.
It is TIME women acted like they want to be treated.
It starts with our own attitudes. It's about time women acted as though they were PEOPLE first, and demanded to be treated as people first - gender next.
Men need to be treated with this same attitude - they are people first, then their gender is next - because when it comes down to it, we are all people, and we need to do a lot better that what we are doing to get along...
Let's start with getting angry enough to take a stance, and stop the "Sex Sells" mindlessness.
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