In the alternative....
Apr. 12th, 2008 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogOne of the cheap and simple pleasures of life around here is finding a spot on my weekend erranding that carries the local alternative weekly paper, then bringing it home to enjoy with a cuppa or a glassa (depending on the hour). My cities of the past 30 years have all had them, coming out on different days. Ithaca had as many as three early on (New Times and the Good Times Gazette merging into the still-out-there Ithaca Times, the competing Grapevine having been clipped down a few years back), while Rochester carries on a battle between the true alternative City weekly and the Gannett-owned attempt to smoosh it out of existence called the Insider. Here, Buffalo has some specialties and oddities, but the only true alternative weekly is Artvoice, a ritual for me to pick up sometime between Thursday night and Saturday afternoon to enjoy my News of the Weird fix, the latest Tom Tomorrow cartoon, and usually a collection of news pieces ranging from the thoughtful-analytical to the just-plain-Marxist-ranty.
AV, as it abbreviates itself, caters to the artsy (but not the fartsy, as one of its own ad campaigns once trumpeted), focusing on historic preservation and public participation in government and daring to break stories the local institutional media often won't touch. Yay for all that.
Not so yay for the way they make their money. They still accept ciggie ads, although lately they seem limited to Seneca Nation house brands, as if our centuries of Native American oppression justify giving them a chance to give Whitey cancer in return.
Even stranger, though, are the sex ads. I don't mean the ones in the back for the various 900-numbers and thinly-veiled brothels. Rather, at least two recent issues have included professionally produced display ads for high-end businesses that treat women as something a few steps down from where I think they'd expect to be seen in such a publication.
One, a few weeks ago, was for a local plastic surgeon. It depicted a well-endowed babe wearing nothing but a pair of bib overalls, with a power drill in each hand, and the tag line read something on the order of:
GET SOME NEW TOOLS FOR THE SUMMER.
I know, this sort of thing has been the staple (so to speak) of Makita power tool catalogs since long before I was born, but it just struck me as something a left-leaning audience would consider, um, sexist, maybe?
Then there was today's issue, which advertised a drink special at a bar-restaurant within walking distance of our home. It's a classy place, and we've enjoyed one or two special dinners there since the current owners took over from the longtime Irish pub that had been there. Here's their ad from this week's issue:
I'm no prude, mind; the "F" in "MILF" is not a word unheard of in these pages. But who, exactly, thought this was an appropriate ad campaign for an audience, much less a medium, that prides itself on valuing women for their brains and hearts rather than what goes into, or comes out of, their private parts?
Am I overreacting? Behind the times? Or is this something the better half (more like three-quarters) of this group of Friends finds troubling, too?
AV, as it abbreviates itself, caters to the artsy (but not the fartsy, as one of its own ad campaigns once trumpeted), focusing on historic preservation and public participation in government and daring to break stories the local institutional media often won't touch. Yay for all that.
Not so yay for the way they make their money. They still accept ciggie ads, although lately they seem limited to Seneca Nation house brands, as if our centuries of Native American oppression justify giving them a chance to give Whitey cancer in return.
Even stranger, though, are the sex ads. I don't mean the ones in the back for the various 900-numbers and thinly-veiled brothels. Rather, at least two recent issues have included professionally produced display ads for high-end businesses that treat women as something a few steps down from where I think they'd expect to be seen in such a publication.
One, a few weeks ago, was for a local plastic surgeon. It depicted a well-endowed babe wearing nothing but a pair of bib overalls, with a power drill in each hand, and the tag line read something on the order of:
GET SOME NEW TOOLS FOR THE SUMMER.
I know, this sort of thing has been the staple (so to speak) of Makita power tool catalogs since long before I was born, but it just struck me as something a left-leaning audience would consider, um, sexist, maybe?
Then there was today's issue, which advertised a drink special at a bar-restaurant within walking distance of our home. It's a classy place, and we've enjoyed one or two special dinners there since the current owners took over from the longtime Irish pub that had been there. Here's their ad from this week's issue:
I'm no prude, mind; the "F" in "MILF" is not a word unheard of in these pages. But who, exactly, thought this was an appropriate ad campaign for an audience, much less a medium, that prides itself on valuing women for their brains and hearts rather than what goes into, or comes out of, their private parts?
Am I overreacting? Behind the times? Or is this something the better half (more like three-quarters) of this group of Friends finds troubling, too?
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 10:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 10:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 11:10 pm (UTC)I am fairly sure this is not the angle you were addressing, though.
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Date: 2008-04-13 01:08 am (UTC)(PS-some friends of mine write the Puck Stops column for AV - Andy Kulik and Peter Farrell.)
no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 06:20 am (UTC)