THE commercial manipulation of sex is everywhere. Reporter Matt Spec tor of ABCNews.com recently underlined how the hypersexualization of teens in advertising is intensifying. A Greek print ad for preowned BMWs features a clearly teenage-looking girl shot from her naked shoulders up, her blond hair splayed around her head across the page. The ad’s come-hither sentence: “You know you’re not the first.”
Ads for American Apparel underwear are so suggestive they seem “homage to pornography.” They’ve actually used porn actresses in their print ads. Spector reports that in one ad, a girl wearing only American Apparel underwear can be seen crawling between a man’s legs. In the next shot, the model is licking the crotch of the man’s underwear, glancing seductively at the camera.
Liz Perle, editor-in-chief of the group Common Sense Media, said advertisers are marketing a complete sexual lifestyle. “Kids are exposed at younger and younger ages to more and more sexually graphic material. When you show an ad that showcases shortcuts to those things, you’re not just selling underwear or T-shirts, you’re selling whole ways of being.”
Spector also focused on the new print ads for the teen drama “Gossip Girl” on the CW network. They drew attention by using the disapproving words of TV critics to sell the show. One features a teen girl character with her eyes closed and her mouth open as a man nuzzles her neck, with the Boston Herald’s verdict: “Every Parent’s Nightmare.”
Another ad features a topless girl in a pool passionately kissing a boy with his back to the camera. The critical words came from The Post: “A Nasty Piece of Work.”
And Ad Week revealed a new trick: The ad is racier than the show. In the actual scene from the show, the girl’s wearing a bikini.
Marketing consultant Tina Wells took on this campaign in The Huffington Post with an interesting twist. To what degree are the show promoters really just perpetuating their own kinky stereotypes of teens, instead of reflecting the real attitudes of their target audience? Advertisers see young people as nothing but sex-hungry bags of hormones. “It’s what they want kids to be, but I bet when they’re sitting in that room coming up with the show’s concept, there isn’t a person under 20 anywhere in the vicinity.”
Wells goes to the numbers. “Gossip Girl” has been hailed as a hot place where teens go to watch the pretty young things display the latest fashions (at least before they take them off). Not true: The show “averaged 2.6 million viewers per new episode, and only about 500,000 are teens, the show’s supposed target market.” By comparison, MTV’s “The Hills” blew “Gossip Girl” out of the water in terms of popularity among teens, and it’s a reality show produced on a fraction of their budget.
CW’s problem? Their teen scenes aren’t seen as realistic.
In the final analysis, the irony of all this advertising is that it’s actually the opposite of boldness or daring to try and exploit sex to sell goods. It’s become the most hackneyed trick in a yellowed old book. Those executives signing off on this garbage are little more than dirty old men. And women.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center.