Exactly how much fuss can one naked man in a jeans ad cause? Plenty, reports MARIA McCLOY
TWO adverts for Sissy Boy Jeans in the March editions of Cosmopolitan and Elle magazines have resulted in a widespread media furore and caused several leading local chain stores to remove the magazines from their shelves.
”What, can you see dick?” asked one person when I mentioned the saga. Yes, the black and silver ad for Sissy Boy in Elle does feature a naked man – and yes, you can ”see dick”, which has offended Checkers, Woolworths, OK and Pick ‘n Pay. This, and the Kama Sutra graphics in the Cosmo ad. Several of the stores said they had received customer complaints.
The ad in Elle is a three-page spread paper – the one page is folded over and has a disclaimer in the corner warning: ”Do not turn this page if you find explicit material offensive.” The sales line reads: ”In South Africa there are over 30 men’s magazines, allowing males to pore over sexually explicit pictures of females.” Open the page and you see the naked model Philip McDonald, and the slogan: ”Well, two can play at that game.”
Shona Bagley, Elle editor, believes it’s each shop’s right to remove the magazines, ”but I’d prefer it if they gave their purchasers freedom of choice”. She’s disappointed by the shops’ actions as she’s had only three complaints among ”dozens” of compliments from people who have said it was about time such an ad appeared.
Bagley had thought South African attitudes had evolved beyond this and says she accepted the ad because: ”Elle has a worldly, enlightened readership that I believed would accept the ad in the spirit in which it was intended.”
Many have argued that the ads are not fit for children to see. Bagley stresses there was a disclaimer and a plastic band around the cover. ”Is it not time for a bit of gender quid pro quo? What makes a naked female model more socially acceptable than her naked male counterpart? Who are the gatekeepers of supermarkets and chainstores protecting here – women, children or male vulnerabilities?”
Terry Brewis, marketing executive at Woolworths, was one of the chainstore folk who describes theirs as a ”family store”. He says Woolworths had received a number of public complaints. Cobie van Dort, OK group promotions manager, says that pictures of people in sexual positions would be seen by customers as ”objectionable”. OK is also planning to remove Directions magazine from its shelves because of a feature on body- piercing showing a picture of a pierced penis – but, as a number of people pointed out, this picture hasn’t caused nearly as much of a furore as the unviolated item.
Art director for the ad was Jupiter Drawing Room’s Joanne Thomas and copywriter was Noel Cottrel. Thomas says the campaigns are intended to be tongue-in-cheek and depict women of the Nineties ”as in control of what ever situation they may find themselves in”. She says the people who refused to stock the magazines are ”closed- minded”.
Jupiter Drawing Room MD Kevan Aspoas says he is thrilled with the impact the ad has made. He dismissed the notion that the ads are pornographic, saying the model didn’t have an erection and that the beautifully done ads are ”tastefully executed”. He said calling these ads porn was akin to calling naked Roman statues porn.
Last week The Star ran a story on the incident on its front page, along with the naked picture. By the time the late edition had come out the picture was gone. In an article the next day editor Peter Sullivan said: ”The reaction it provoked suggested that the decision to use it on the front page was inappropriate and we bowed to public indignation by pulling the picture from our later editions … ”
Like everyone involved in the campaign, Cosmopolitan editor Vanessa Raphaely was surprised by reactions to the ad. She says she’s had both positive and negative feedback and that ”the last thing we wanted was to offend people”. She adds that the Kama Sutra has been a cultural icon for hundreds of years and is readily available in bookstores – and pointed out the irony that this document was written by celibate monks. Though she did not personally see it as pornographic, ”I have to accept that what I think is not necessarily what other people think.”
Last year Cosmo ran a feature of naked male celebrities – but their penises were covered – and she felt it would be hypocritical to allow the nude ad to run when in that instance she’d not allowed full frontal naked males.
Johanna Pestana of The Advertising Standards Authority says they’ve not received complaints about the naked man, but have registered seven written complaints about the Kama Sutra ad. And there have been people calling in with concerns that children are being exposed and that the ad was insensitive to rape victims and could spur potential rapists. There has to be a fair proportion of complaints (25% of readership) to have an agency withdraw a campaign. In terms of the letters written they’ve asked the ad agency to respond to the accusations.
One person who definitely doesn’t agree that the ads are harmful or pornographic is the naked model. McDonald says:, ”I don’t see why society should be embarrassed by a naked body.” He’s had an ”extremely good” reaction to the work, besides he wasn’t concerned by what reaction he’d get.
He describes the concept as excellent, and has strong opinions on a moralistic, closed-minded society, commenting that if it were a naked woman there wouldn’t have been a hullabaloo – in a sense proving the ad’s point. ”It’d be ‘wow, check the chick out … ‘ Men would have been 100% happy.”
So, what about the argument that the ad harms kids? Thomas says the ad was done in such a way that if a child was to see it, it would be no different to seeing their father or brother naked. Besides, adds McDonald, people’s attitudes have been borne out by the dogma pumped into children that sex is bad and naughty – which he thinks is what ends up giving people complexes.
Freedom of Expression Institute chief Raymond Louw says retailers have the right to take such action when they think their customers may be offended, but adds that the reaction has been unsophisticated because of the bans and puritanical approach to art and pictures imposed by NP rule. ”People are too easily shocked by what could be regarded as reasonably normal elsewhere … Every time they see a naked person they collapse.”