Wednesday, December 18, 2013
The high price is right
So what did the psychologists discover? It seems that women dislike sexual imagery in advertising unless the goods being promoted are very expensive, when they view the imagery as erotic rather than vulgar. I was so surprised by these findings that I rushed to the safari camp and interrupted the manager and his wife during tiffin.
“Oh GB, you big naïve gorilla!” exclaimed the manager’s wife after I told them about the study. “Of course it’s true! If a man offered me a hundred dollars for sex I would slap his face. But if he offered me a million dollars, I would giggle and poke his ribs.”
Far from being disgruntled by his wife’s confession, the manager nodded sagely. “I’d feel exactly the same way if a woman offered to pay me for sex,” he said.
“You wish and as if,” scoffed his wife.
On my way back to the jungle, I considered the matter logically. If a hundred dollars is an insult and a million dollars is a compliment, there must be an intermediate sum at which the issue is finely balanced. What would it be? Ten thousand dollars? Fifty thousand dollars? I suppose every woman has her own crossover price. How fascinating it would be to watch a woman waver between slapping the face and poking the ribs of a man who had offered her that price. The tension would be electric.
Some insults leave no room for ambiguity, of course. A man in Detroit was so angry with his ex-wife that he moved into the next door house and placed a sculpture of an erect middle finger on his patio. Heaven knows what the woman did to provoke such rancour. Maybe she let her lover wear his masonic apron when he was away on business. No end of bad blood can arise from symbolic acts of desecration.
I can’t say I approve of the sculpture, though. What are his other neighbours supposed to say when guests arrive for a dinner party? If you’re going to insult someone, make sure the target is clear to avoid aggravating third parties. If I saw something like that in the jungle, I would hire the chimpanzees to piss all over it.
Let me end with heart-warming news from China, where a lad called Qin Yu was hired to stand in a public square and pay 16 dollars to any woman who would kiss him. Far from taking umbrage at the small sum on offer, passing young ladies were quick to accept his proposition, and a few even gave him their phone number. It just goes to show that some women will be nice without it costing an arm and a leg.
Labels: advertising, flipping the bird, money, selling kisses, sexual imagery, women
Friday, September 03, 2010
The moving finger writes
Hats off to the BBC weatherman who flipped the bird on live TV. The raised middle finger of Mr Tomasz Schafernaker appeared on-screen after the news anchorman had made a snide remark about the accuracy of his forecasts. The camera then moved back to the newsreader, who squirmed in his chair like a man with a boil on his arse.
There is no media functionary more deserving of a defiant gesture than the TV news anchorman. A pompous upstart who thinks that reading an autocue and pulling smug faces entitles him to esteem needs to feel the scorn of the masses. An erect digit sets the perfect tone for further affronts and aspersions. The weather presenter, by contrast, is an honourable and morally courageous actor. Those who make forecasts for a living, thereby running the risk of getting it wrong and looking like a pillock, deserve the respect of the righteous.
When I mentioned this uplifting story to the manager of the safari camp, he missed the point entirely.
“I don’t approve of men giving the weather forecast,” he remarked irrelevantly. “That’s a job for tasty girls in skimpy dresses. After watching the news, you need something soft and visually appealing.”
“Would you like me to buy you a Teddy Bear?” I asked facetiously.
He responded to my quip by raising his middle finger, which I interpreted as a laboured attempt at irony. He then ambled off to sit at his desk and play with his balls.
I should mention, in passing, that I have nothing against female weather presenters. Back in my circus days, I remember a young lady called Ulrika Jonsson who delivered weather bulletins on a commercial TV station. She did her job competently enough, but I instinctively knew that it was merely a stepping stone for greater things. She later proved me right by having an affair with England’s football coach and saying the word “scrotum” on daytime TV. I believe she now has four children, each sired by a different father. It is a reproductive strategy that would make a female gorilla envious.
Engaging though Ulrika was, I don’t recall her doing anything interesting with her finger on TV. Flipping the bird may have been too confrontational for a Swedish coquette, but there were other more feminine options. She could have appeared on a cookery program, sticking her finger into appetising dishes and sucking it clean, possibly while making ecstatic noises with her eyes shut. It’s little touches like this that persuade viewers to jot down recipes and look for the right ingredients in the supermarket.
As for Mr Schafernaker, his intrepid finger has nothing more to prove. The cowardly executives at the BBC may banish him from the live studio, but a man of his calibre is bound to find another outlet for his talents. I would put him charge of the switchboard dealing with complaints from viewers about nudity and bad language. I’m sure he’d find novel ways of responding to their concerns in a sensitive and understanding manner.
Labels: cookery show, flipping the bird, Ulrika Jonsson, weather bulletins
