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The V Word Banned For Television... By Men, Of Course
By Brian FairbanksMarch 16th, 2010, 3:24 pmComments (8)
A television commercial mocking all the whiny people who are freaked out about tampons has basically been banned for network television for saying "vagina" and even "down there."
A U By Kotex campaign has been meeting with controversy for weeks, especially since it's deliberately calling out the sexist idiocy of the broadcasting industry.
Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT, said that after being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying "down there," which was rejected by two of the three networks. (Both Ms. Harris and representatives from the brand declined to specify the networks.) [NY Times]
We'll tell you: CBS, ABC and NBC, almost certainly. At least two of those three.
Check out some of the ads here.
Commentarium (8 Comments)
This reminds me of how tampon ads are about that "not so fresh feeling," rather than just saying, "for when you're on your period." Yeah, just let them say it's a tampon, for use down there. Come on NBC.
Really?? I thought we were more evolved than this?! So we are all birthed from 'down there', all men want to return to 'down there', but we don't dare say the word because it makes some uncomfortable??? Maybe if we said it more eventually people would become less sensitive to the word! Wait, don't we say penis on tv???
I think it's that these dudes can't get their wives off by intercourse alone(I can't either), are embarrassed by it (not me), and don't want to spend the time going "down there" to make it happen (I, on the other hand, am an enthusiastic carpet muncher, and tell my wife that every time I go "down there)." Therefore, they just sort of want to pretend that "down there" doesn't really exist.
I don't see how it was specifically men who banned the V word... are you assuming that if it wasn't for men, the world would basically be the Vagina Monologues?
That "not so fresh feeling" is a tagline for a douche not a tampon. (I just snickered when I typed "douche" = maturity.)
It's so completely weird to me that some perfectly normal scientific words are "too dirty" for television. Hints, implications and euphemisms, just fine. It's just really weird. But yes, I clearly remember Peggy Hill saying "penis" about 80 times in an episode of "King of the Hill."
And yet, they allow us to see commercials featuring bears with toilet paper hanging off their asses...
yet they have commercials detailing erections that last more than 4 hours and having sex when the time is right... we can sell tampons on tv and you figure people don't know they go "down there"
Now you say something