Laterally Brutal #2 - Still on the Nose

I'm pleased to report that Brut still stinks.

As a product, it seems to possess no redeeming features of any kind, and the puerile promotions that continue to be concocted in a pathetic attempt to sell it are actually worse than the product itself. Ponder that, if you will. I mean, the fact that it's flammable is the best thing about it.

I posted my contempt for a Brut advertisement some months ago. More recently, they've come up with another advertisement that surprisingly suggests to me that some attempt have been made to redress the overt and offensively sexist stylings of the older advertisement. I mean, they no longer manufacture a woman from a child's doll. How progressive!

That they have a lousy product is not the issue. Emu Export is a lousy product, despite its iconic status. The difference between Emu Export and Brut however, is that the former is not endlessly promoted in questionable ways. I'd have no problem with Brut continuing to exist if its makers would just stop creating and broadcasting such inane advertisements. I wouldn't buy it, but I could happily ignore it.

The gist of the advertisement is quite simple; a scantily-clad young woman, suddenly appears. She's not actually manufactured, but she just appears. She seems delighted. Whilst she walks through a beach car park, she is noticed - and subsequently oggled by one of three male friends. (Not her friends.) He points her out to his mates, who then enjoy the bonding experience of oggling her together. It's nice they can share in their gawking, as it makes them all feel good about it. Not that they question it; I mean, why would they?

To further validate their actions, a strange young man suddenly appears, and sings a song about the joys of oggling, and the moral imperative amongst men to share any oggling opportunities. He accompanies himself on a ukelele, which gives the whole scene a playful, cheeky, but ultimately harmless feel. To give the sound some heft, another (rather dodgy-looking) man climbs out of a car boot to walk alongside our voyeurism-sanctioning minstrel, sounding percussive bursts with burst of Brut. I reckon it'd have sounded - and smelled - considerably better it he'd just farted repeatedly.

That the creators of this advertisement either cannot see or do not care that they are overtly sanctioning the sexual objectification of women is quite troubling. The trouble they've gone to in their quest to make an advertisement so similar to the previous one, but which such a different style is incredible. Harsh music - the embodiment of testosterone-fuelled machismo has been replaced with warm acoustics. A CGI fanstasy-of-one has become a pastoral, natural fantasy-of-three, designed to legitimise the notion that women there to be viewed as sex objects, and that the women are happy about it.

Within the context of the advertisement itself, their logic is faultless. A women wearing insufficient material from which to make a handkerchief, with a attractive body, walks by a group of groaning men with a smile on her face. Obviously, she is flattered. I'm tempted to say, if only reality was this simple, but it would do my argument a disservice. I'm glad reality isn't this simple, I'm just disappointed that those who make advertisements are content to trawl along the bottom of culture in their attempts to ensnare a few luddites into purchasing their crappy product.

There is nothing wrong with beauty. I like beauty. But I resent having a camera pan across the body of a near-naked women in a manner Michael Bay would consider crass whilst I'm trying to watch telly. Why? Because it treats her like an object, and me like an idiot.

To those men who are reading this and who think I've lost my mind, I can assure you I haven't, and I offer this; if you like advertisements that physically or stereotypically reduce men to the level of salivating simpletons, then you're a more forgiving man than I. Personally, I don't like the idea that one of the fundamental tenets of mateship is the need for collective perving. And I don't like the idea that some blond-haired git's strumming of a tiny guitar might render such objectification harmless, or mellow, in a way that anyone - especially young males and young females might consider acceptable.

It irks me no end, because it'll cause many individuals (from both genders) no end of harm. If I had a teenage daughter, I'd hate her to aspire to being little more than a masturbatory fantasy, or even worse, despising herself for not being one. And if I had a teenage son, I'd want him to think long and hard about the behaviours he allows himself to consider acceptable. It's a shame that parents, in their quest to teach their children right from wrong, have to teach them to disregard so many prevailing and entrenched attitudes in our society.

I think, honestly, such simplistic sexualisation of people should dissipate once a male passes through puberty. I'm aware it doesn't, but I wish to God men - and the men and women who make advertisements - would take a bit of responsibility for the basal sexualisation of our species that they so readily exploit in the name of making a few bucks from flogging a shite product. To be honest, I sincerely doubt there is enough sex in the world to make Brut a product worth buying, or for that matter, a product worth selling.

Brut - it stinks. But not quite as much as the advertisements that promote it.

Stop and share? Try stop and think instead.