It’s been a while since I made a post about some bullshit news but, to be completely honest, I no longer find it worth my time to get annoyed at the news anymore, especially when it plays into the hands of our lovely media and their determination to split us into Camp Left and Camp Right before pitting both camps against each other in a fight to the death. Perhaps I NEVER should have invested ANY of my time and energy into dissecting mind-blowingly pathetic ‘news’ but hey; you live and learn.
Sometimes however, a freshly-laid, steamer of Bullshit News comes along and, because I’m only human (as The Human League once reminded us), I cannot help but analyse the shit that pops up while I’m looking at other, actual news items of importance.
Such as this advert that got certain people screeching “won’t somebody please think of the children?!?”
Before I go any further though, I will say (in the interests of being impartial and balanced) that I understand why an ad like this would irk the progressive types who see it as a throwback to ye olden days where ad agencies would drape sexy girls over cars to sell them. I get it; I really do. Furthermore, the billboard looks cheap and a bit tacky so it won’t win any awards there.
Usually I would try and write some sort of detailed analysis or debate-style piece at this point but instead, I’m just going to be lazy, quote stuff from the news article on the BBC’s website and call out the bullshit where I see it.
The air conditioning advert – described by an academic as “plain sexist” – features the line: “Your wife is hot!”
First of all, what kind of “academic” gets themselves involved in cheap journalism like this? What is their field of expertise?
It was meant to appear on seven buses in Nottingham but Adverta, which places adverts on buses and trams in the city, blocked it and said it could cause offence.
All I can say is that if you get offended by an advertising billboard like this then you clearly have little else to give a fuck about. It reminds me of those people who write into the rants section in the back of the TV guide to complain about an inaccuracy in a TV soap or the cleavage that a female host displayed at an “inappropriate” time of day. Roll your eyes and forget about it. As a man, I’m used to doing that when I see ads that make the man of the house out to be a fuck-up that can’t handle the finances without a woman’s help or is (apparently) unable to multi-task. Does it offend me though? No because I have more important shit to think about and – when it really – comes down to it? We are clueless when it comes to certain things that women are better at.
Prof Carrie Paechter, director of the Nottingham Centre for Children, Young People and Families, said the advert was “like something out of the 1950s” and called for it to be removed.
A professor now? Gee, we really are having some high-IQ intellectual types getting involved in this. I will agree with Ms. Paechter that the ad is “like something out of the 1950’s” however. Removing it though? I’m not a supporter of that. My main concern is that old chestnut of “where does it end?”. If we have certain segments of society shouting “Ban this”, “Ban that”, “Censor this” and “don’t allow that” then we end up with an environment edited by pressure groups to suit their own vision of what the world should be like. Obviously, there ARE things that should not be permitted but on the whole, free speech and humour should not be threatened because a certain section of society disagrees with something. There was no malice or sexism intended by the creator of this advert. In fact…
The advert – at the junction of Woodborough Road and Porchester Road in Mapperley – was designed by Not Just Cooling owner Mr Davies.
“I don’t mean to offend anybody,” he said.
“I saw an advert like this in America, I chuckled to myself and thought ‘why not?’. Air conditioning is a very hard thing to advertise.”
He said he ran the idea past his team of engineers, who are all men, and discussed the idea with his mother and wife, who approved too.
“My wife knows what I’m like,” he said. “She thinks it’s funny because my wife knows my sense of humour.”
I suppose the “academics” in our midsts would say that Mr Davies’ wife and mother were brainwashed or are being subjected to some sort of toxic masculinity regime. Or – back in the real world – maybe they are just normal women who can see the joke without flying into an offended rage about it? All I can say – from my own personal experience – is that I have yet to encounter any women (or men) who bang on about banning billboards or trivial things being sexist. At work, the blokes take the piss out of the women and they take the piss out of us. We might tell them that they can gossip for the country about utter crap. They tell us that we are useless, one-track-minded blokes. Nobody takes any personal offence or gets wound up about it.
“The subliminal message about society is that it’s OK to comment on women’s bodies, and comment on women’s bodies as if they are the possession of someone else – ‘your wife’.
Ah, the convenient and vague subliminal messages. First of all, it isn’t a fact – it’s a perception of one person. Second of all, it’s a crime to comment on women’s bodies? Look, I in no way condone insulting women or making derogatory remarks about their form if their body isn’t considered ‘optimal’ by society. That shit should indeed fuck right off. Nor do I condone groups of men publicly shouting at women and giving them unwanted attention – acting like slobbering dogs who have never seen an attractive female before. But appreciative talk happens. Always has done and always will do. It’s natural among men and no more “wrong” than when women get a twinkle in their eye and gush over the likes of Magic Mike XL or whatever the fuck he/it is called.
“It also gives the subliminal message that it’s the man of the house that’s responsible for getting the air conditioning fixed.”
Another subliminal message that I guess we normal people are just too stupid to see lurking in the background like a social assassin striking from the shadows. Or is it somebody reading way too deeply into a fucking billboard that was created as a joke? Honestly, I can see BOTH sides of the argument for most of this billboard drama but these two lines here are absolutely hilarious. For a crude advertisement supposedly stuck in the 50’s, it sure has some intelligent subliminal logic behind its seemingly blunt imagery.
What do you know? I guess I did end up wasting my time on a petty news item after all. Stories like this are intentionally broadcast to us to wind up the political right and reinforce the idea that the world has gone maaaaad and that feminists are out to ruin their lives. The reality is that the internet, social media and the news outlets have seriously warped our perception of the world around us. As I previously mentioned, I have yet to meet anybody who thinks like those who get offended so easily in these news reports. Of course, I may well be wrong, but to me that says that the ‘problem’ isn’t as big as some paranoid blokes believe.
Ultimately, I would just ignore the easily-offended snowflakes and dismiss their outrage. It is only because of social media and virtual echo chambers that people are able to make a noise about things that nobody would have gone to the effort of giving two fucks about back in the day.
This billboard isn’t classy and it isn’t highbrow but not everything has to be.
Unfiltered Opinion 