Comments on: Sex Sells

By: Sara

Sara — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:31:28 +0000

I find both ads offensive, for the reasons cited and due to my general distaste for the way Western society has made human bodies into commodities – that goes not only for the advertising industry but to MTV and its ilk as well.

But the Fox ad bothers me more, and that is because its ads in general portray bodies as commodities – especially underage bodies. Esti Ginzburg may be 17, and therefore almost of age, but has anyone seen the Fox kids catalogues? They portray not only children but toddlers in suggestive poses. Shame on them.

By: lisagoldman

lisagoldman — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 05:48:07 +0000

Nizo -

…and drooling over the lamb, too. Brilliant.

By: Nizo

Nizo — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:43:33 +0000

Lisa,

I did some research on the relatively obscure root laghlagh – (lam-ghayn-lam-ghayn) in Arabic and the primary meaning is to smother food with fat before cooking, the secondary being to embellish one’s stories… and the more common noun “laghloogh” is an excessively wobbly double chin.

If you connect the dots you can just picture two corpulent grandmothers gossiping as they rub olive oil into a leg of lamb..

By: Sam

Sam — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:02:25 +0000

Alex, you make an interesting point about Islamic fear of Western mores. I don’t think it holds water, though. Such a huge percentage of the Israeli population is Mizrachi. Can they fairly be said to have Western mores? I think there’s a lot of secular and moderate Arabs who are just pissed that the Jews took land that was lived on for so long by Palestinian Arabs. I think they have a point. Why does it need to be more complicated than that?

On a more serious note, I wonder what it says about me that when I see things like the Fox ad or the Shiri Maimon video Lisa wrote about a few months ago, I feel a great sense of Zionism. Yeah, Zionism…

All I know is that 5 minutes ago if you had mentioned the name Esther Ginzburg to me I would have thought of somebody’s grandma.

That’s not what I’m thinking about right now.

By: tsedek

tsedek — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:11:34 +0000

Well, Jameel, that is indeed one of the most dumb ads i have ever seen as well, they’ve been up now for a few months and each time I pass (in Ibn Gvirol) it strikes me again how such a stupid ad can be kept up for so long.

By: adinag

adinag — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:13:51 +0000

Given how long it took israel to develop a vibrant queer culture, it is a shame how little time it took to revert to dumb queen-ish stereotypes.
but it’s not THAT bad.
I kind of loved the jeans ad, especially the ending. Although I also hated it because it made me feel old. And too round.

By: Jameel @ The Muqata

Jameel @ The Muqata — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:14:52 +0000

It’s always eye opening for me to visit Tel-Aviv…and when I visited Heichal HaTarbut this past Friday for my daughter (and a few hundred other kids) to play violin with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra , I was blown away by the huge billboard in front of us.

http://pics.livejournal.com/shirat_hasirena/pic/0000a9ca/

Honestly? I don’t think it’s very clever. Nor will I run out and buy Crocker jeans either.

By: SnoopyTheGoon

SnoopyTheGoon — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 16:05:05 +0000

I wouldn’t mind some innuendo (reminds me some nice things long forgotten), if it is done elegantly and not as vulgar and “in your face” as that Lighting Warehouse dreck. And my opinion has nothing to do with Miki being gay. There were plenty of ads using gay motives as well.

By: Shira79

Shira79 — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 08:46:21 +0000

From what I understand, before signing the contract with Fox, Esti Ginzburg’s parents made sure it was clear that Michael Lewis would NOT touch her in an inappropriate manner since she was (and still is) underage. Fox agreed because they believed that Esti was the right person for the job. The results are actually surprisingly clever because they keep managing to “sell sex” in very creative ways which don’t actually include any real touching. As far as advertising is concerned, I think it’s brilliant. It just so happens to make all their commercials that much more sexier. ..

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:41:51 +0000

You know despite all the propaganda otherwise, about you taking the land away from the Palestinians, and all the other stuff, this is really “why they hate us”.

It is as a great American Political commenter once said:

“No, it’s not Israel per say that the Muslims really care about. It’s not territory. It’s not land. That is what the Left will tell you -that the Jews stole the land of the Muslims. That’s the simple archaic notion of the American Left.

It’s that Israel’s left wing social premise and left wing social freedoms that threaten Islam in the Middle East. They don’t want it spreading. They don’t want a homosexual parade down the streets of Damascus. They don’t want a gay rights parade in Tehran. They don’t want boys tongue kissing each other in their nations capitals. They rather die than let that happen.

So they say Death to Israel. They don’t really know what Israel is. Israel is an idea. It’s not that their grandfather’s olive grove was taken. It’s that their grandfather’s purity was stolen by the infection of the West’s social mores. And they don’t want them it in their villages. They don’t want them in their homes. They don’t want them on al Jazeera and they aren’t going to let you to do it to them.”