Why would the advertisers for New Zealand’s Next Top Model show think it wise to conjure up crush video images to appeal to a youth market? Among other things, the ad features a model in a sexy red high heeled shoe stepping on a white bleating lamb. Notwithstanding that the lamb is a toy and that I would defend to the death the protections of the right of free speech, I have to wonder what it means, and why hurting an animal is the new image of choice to suggest beauty and power.
A Program Aimed at Ending the Cycle of Violence spcaLA has become nationally and internationally renowned for its Teaching Love and Compassion (TLC) program, a violence-prevention program that works with at-risk youth. The TLC program is taught in California, Oregon, New York, Arizona, Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, Canada, England and Australia.
Why do advertisers think that this is sexy, that young people will like it, and that women will respond to it? Is the allure of modeling commensurate with animal cruelty and obscenity? Does that make more women want to be models? Are the images of the woman whose scantily clad leg, at the end of which is a gorgeous stiletto squeezing the life out of a small creature, and the one that is dressed in combat fatigues sporting an assault rifle (as is the garb on my Sarah Palin bobble head (a gift)) two sides of the same psyche? Does the recent parade of gun toting, mean talking high profile political females suggest that the conflation of sexy and cute with violence and weaponry define a new ideal for young women? If men find it so – will women make it so?
Is this new notion of “strong” woman replacing the one who is tireless, wise and able to balance the challenges of job, mom and wife?
If this is what the “ad-men” think we respond to – what does it say about us?
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