Hey Everyone! I'm sure that you have all seen these PETA ads in various magazines. I personally am 100% pro PETA, I think they are amazing advocates for animals and animal-rights. However, when they started this new ad campaign that features nothing (and I mean NOTHING) but naked celebrities and cheeky quotes I couldn't help but feel disappointed.
I understand their marketing gimmick, sex OBVIOUSLY sells so lets sex up these ads as much as possible in order to attract a much larger audience and therefore hopefully find/influence more vegetarians,anti-fur wearers, etc. Here are my reasons for finding fault in these ads;
1) Many people make the decision to become vegetarians at a young age, (I would guess around the tender age range of 11-13 yrs.) and in my opinion it is just wrong for pre-teens to be bombarded by these sex ads when they are simply searching for information/reasoning behind vegetarianism.
2) It would be very hard not to notice that every single one of these ads feature a stunningly beautiful, woman with a killer body! Alike Vegetarianism, body image diseases like Bulimia and Anorexia often begin in the early stages of adulthood when bodies begin changing from puberty and there is very good chance that young girls viewing these images may consciously or even unconsciously feel instantly self-conscious about their own bodies (I know I sure did!).
3) Are only women vegetarians? Where are the male ads?! I guess the idea is that men will enjoy seeing these gorgeous women naked and women will viewing the ads will be thinking "Hmm maybe I could look that way if I stopped eating meat?!?".
4) Most people that are vegetarians choose to live their life that way first-and-foremost because of their love and respect for animals therefore why are their hardly any animals in the pictures?
Vegetarians come in every age, shape and gender yet PETA chooses (for this particular campaign) to ignore all those factors and focus on drawing people into the sight of beautiful naked girls. I think they should of at the very least, scripted the ads with the terrible truths that animals suffer for the use of their fur and meat.
*Please leave your feedback I'd love to hear what everyone thinks about the PETA ads.
XOXO Silver.
Photo citing: http://images.google.ca/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=sexy+PETA+ads&sa=N&start=18&ndsp=18
Woah! I have never seen these ads before. I too am a big fan of PETA, but after seeing these I may have to re-asses my thoughts. It looks like they are trying to fight one form of oppression (animal cruelty) with another one (hyper-sexualization/objectification of women). This worries me because PETA has a very good reputation for being an activist organization, and if this is what people are turning to for alternatives, it troubles me that these are the images that they will see. If you were to take out all of the words in the ads...what would you be left with? I would not take vegetarianism out of it...I would most likely take nothing from it but naked woman. What if the viewer/audience can't read or doesn't speak English? Not very hopeful that the message will get across.
ReplyDeleteGreat find, Silver!
***Looie***
I really enjoyed your post. I thought since you spoke about young girls being subjected to these images, and it influencing their thoughts on their body image that you might find this post on Feministing interesting...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.feministing.com/archives/019795.html
ShadowsDreaming
This is an amazing find and such controversial images! On the one hand I agree that the objectification of women is countering Peta's fundamental purpose....protecting animals, but objectifying women. BUT could these be purposely controversial in the representations of women to bring up this point of objectification and how it is clearly a problem when done with humans......but somehow much of out society revolves around the idea of animals as objects and market........
ReplyDeleteMiss Frizz
I thought about these images for a long time after seeing them and tried to figure out why they would do this. I could not come up with any good reason. And to the point about there not being any animals in the ad, sadly that made me realize that PETA could very well be using the women to represent the animals in a way to make people see animals as more of humans, but in my opinion that would only put women on the level on an animal (does that make sense or do I just ramble lol) either way, I am disgusted with PETAs new ads
ReplyDelete-princess consuela banana hammock
Well there was one ad with the girl stradelling the baby lamb haha- why a lamb? Is the lamb being compared to the same as a woman? Why couldn't they use a more disruptive animal like a grizzly bear or even a donkey haha i think it would be funny if they did that, also they could put some clothes on the women as well. Its sad to see that naked woman are used to grab peoples attention.
ReplyDeleteabove
ReplyDelete-VitaminC-
My issue with these ads is that PETA seem to think that the mertis of vegetarianism and animal rights don't stand on their own. This makes me think of the culture jam that said "If your product was any good you wouldn't need sexism to sell it."
ReplyDeleteWhen I read these ads, I think of who they are marketted to--men. It's almost this "well if you go vegetarian you'll get a hot vegetarian girl like me" message. The message should be: "If you go vegetarian you'll save the lives of countless animals, better the environment, and feel healthier." (I'm just guessing this is their pitch)
I know PETA likes to use shock messages, but I think animal cruelty is shocking enough. Using women's bodies to sell their cause relies on sexism and over-objectification, which isn't cool with me.
Macho Muffin
i have never seen a PETA add before, and i have honestly never heard of it before..these ads are rather interesting though. I totally agree with your link with young girls being self-conscious and these images of 'perfect' women advertising the glamor of being a vegetarian and animal lover...good question 'where is the men ads?'..
ReplyDeletemy opinion on the sheep cuddling: lamb=passive, quiet, tender, INNOCENT....to me this particular add is really saying "save me, help me, i'm JUST a woman"...advertising can really erk me..
thanks for posting this!! i think i may look into PETA now :)
~beautiful bombshell~
I just spent many minutes fuming over Dora's makeover...
ReplyDelete...and PETA's advertising campaign
The Doctor
Looking at these photos, i am thinking to myself... Wow, the control and leverage of what people can put into a good campaigin now is whatever they wish. Advertisers have a crazy idea, like putting celebrities naked into the media and see this as a okay thing....
ReplyDeleteBut really it gives the message to viewers that they have to look this way and they have to comform to the message, being a vegaterian for example.
This past summer, I read the book 'Skinny Bitch'and this book was written by models about the industry and how not to be a skinny bitch. They talked about the requirments to being a model, how to eat properly, how to not dress slutty, where our food comes from and much more. It was a book that people who of never expected from the title, 'Skinny Bitch'. But this book has a influence to tell its readers that it is okay not to be model perfect, that you dont have to starve yourself, that you can help animals againest slaughter etc...
I think that this book is a really inspiring book that helped me understand the life of a model and the s*** they have to go through. But I think this is related to the post because the book has the opposite message of what these ads are trying to portay.
RDS