The FOX Network, America's arbiter of taste and expert Zeitgeist rider, recently ran a special featuring TV ads hitherto considered too sexually explicit to be run in the United States. This get-ready-for-sweeps special was essentially the advertising equivalent of the network's perennial favorite When Animals Attack. In any event, the ads — most of which came from Uruguay, Australia, or the UK — were surprisingly funny (unlike the show host's material). If the program proved anything, it confirmed the notion that Americans are the most sexually hung-up wretches in the world. The American consumer lives in a sexually repressed wasteland, often devoid of humor. Hence the need for acting out, irrationally and excessively. How else to explain the antics of Bill Clinton, Jerry Springer, or Trent Lott's assertion that homosexuals can be "converted"? This uniquely American brand of sublimated sexual tension has now polluted our advertising seas.

Normal, healthy sexual expression has somehow become boring to Americans. Too much "Baywatch" has left Joe and Jane Sixpack wanting more of what is exciting and frightening to them, but they feel afraid to ask for it. Agencies have smelled Joe and Jane's pheromones from a mile away and are now presenting the forbidden fringe. And they're masking it in ways unseen since the Cold War. Sex in advertising is actually edgier and more unhealthily subversive than ever. The sex we're talking about is so uncomfortable to mainstream America that it is enshrouded in jargon, free-associative images, inside jokes, or figureheaded by inappropriate spokespersons. This isn't exactly the old subliminal ad trick , but instead a use of selective omission and complex subtext. Ads today provide inside references to give audiences what they're afraid to admit they need. And no group — not youths, gays, nor the elderly — are spared in these ads, much less neglected in the audience.

ON THE DOLE: VIAGRA
Viagra, the miraculous erection-inducing potency drug has been the topic of way too many late night talk show monologues to be funny anymore. Yes, like incontinence, erectile dysfunction is eternal water cooler/e-mail distribution-list bad joke fodder.

And as the drug is in demand, and so is a salient marketing strategy. I doubt anyone saw it coming, so to speak. Here is an agency cognitive model for an agency brainstorming session (Figure A).

Of course! Why didn't we see it all along? Who needs a handsome, silver haired movie star to peddle a boner drug? Let's give it to a one-armed war vet whose dignity is only beginning to regenerate after his failed presidential campaign culminated in an inadvertent stage dive, all before getting shellacked by the most libidinous man in America. And now, ladies and gentleman, a few words from Bob Dole on not being able to get it up. (Is it because the word "Dole" is synonymous with "banana" in American consumerville?)

This ploy is revolting, regardless of which side of the political or sexual fence one stands. We know, theoretically at least, how Bob Dole would test the drug: our "nude mouse" (to borrow a phrase from the scientific community) is none other than another Presidential hopeful: no, not George Bush's son, but Elizabeth Dole. We think we speak on behalf of all our countrymen when we say that we'd rather envision our own parents knocking boots than suffer through the image of Mr. and Mrs. Dole fumbling through the act. Good Lord! Elizabeth Dole, insecure enough as to chastise Leslie Stahl for calling her "Liddy" on 60 Minutes, is cool with this? It kind of makes you feel like crying. For heaven's sake, the elderly should enjoy sexual relations on their own terms. Bob knows advertising!

I GUESS I WON'T GET THIS SMOKED ANYTIME SOON
The hollow posturing of Philip Morris doing an antismoking campaign targeting youths is shameless enough. Just as P.R. is often advertising disguised as news, Philip Morris is doing advertising disguised as P.R. In other words, they are pretending to illustrate an unfavorable outcome by using a cause and effect scenario, while keeping a hidden agenda. (See Figure B)

Specifically, there's one television spot in particular. It's the one where a young boy in a soda a shop roughly fourteen years old trades come-hither glances with a girl of the same age. After a few back and forths, the girl leaves her group and walks toward the boy. As she approaches, he takes out a cigarette. She gives a look implying less gross-out than a condescending "Oh, you foolish boy."

The problem is, it isn't the cigarette, or even the failed come-hither stare that will stick with teens. Folks, the girl is wearing a skin-tight T-shirt with a decal positioned directly over her compelling breasts. The camera accentuates this as blatantly as a movie poster's positioning of Jennifer Love Hewitt's bosom. Be you man or woman, boy or girl, you aren't watching the girl's face (for a while, you can't see it), nor are you wondering about the dynamic between the two kids. You are looking at that girl's chest, whether in clinical assessment, Humbert Humbertian longing or Jesse Helmsian bible-thumping disgust.

Well, fine. The problem is, the viewer can't help but wonder if the girl's revulsion comes from the cigarette or the poor youth's greasy complexion. They didn't cast a young Jason Priestley for this one. A teen is unlikely to think, "Put the cigs away, man! You're losing her!" The voice of his thoughts is more likely to sound something like "Why's this loser flirting with her? Dude! Look at those tits!" One wonders what set of emotions the male adolescent viewer is left with at the ad's conclusion. Does he sit in pensive silence, mulling over the thwarted attempt at love, or does he decide instead to flick off the TV and lock himself in the bathroom for a while? But we digress. The point is that the viewer can't blame the girl from walking away from this geek. It's unlikely that Philip Morris' attempt at assuaging parental cig fears will dissuade any teen from smoking— especially since the poor lad in the commercial is so homely that it seems unthinkable that she wouldn't walk away, even before he had a chance to whip out his package. (Of cigarettes.) Our modified subtextual equation then, is as follows (Figure C).

The cigarettes don't make the kid any uglier or more handsome, and Philip Morris' sales are unlikely to suffer. Thanks for looking out for our kids, Big Tobacco.

IN THE GAY OLD NAVY
Old Navy ads are arguable the trippiest TV experience to be had in the late 1990s. They are the most wonderfully campy ads of the decade, period. And folks, lest anyone wonder, they are brazenly gay, gay, gay. These pieces feature the Chelsea/West Village ideal of white picket fence gay America brought alive in a hallucinogenic splendor. A dog hero. A New Yorky garment industry hag. Morgan Fairchild in a sexless role. Inside references to bad musicals. And it is raining men. In one, a handsome man is daydreaming. The hag inquires as to his thoughts. His answer? "Cargo Shorts!"

What does Middle America say to such an ad? A kid is likely to say "Look, Mommy! He's just like my art teacher!" It is unlikely that the discussion, or thought, goes any further than that. Don't ask, don't tell. But make no mistake: these ads are layered — we have bad choreography, bad dialogue, butt-ugly lighting, and freaky blocking. The ads, scored by the late genius Tom Pomposello (who, after years of Nick at Nite work, knew his camp), are a collective parody of broadway bombs — and the (Old) Navy has launched them right into the heartland.

The largely homophobic population of Middle America wouldn't take too well to an ad saying "Affordable, stylish preppy apparel — just like the gay guys in New York City wear." So this presents a viable alternative. We have the ad equivalent of the film Waiting for Guffman — middle America is so confused, it doesn't recognize gay culture when it sees it. And Old Navy stuff is selling like hotcakes. Good.

DOES SHE OR DOESN'T SHE TODAY?
We admit it. There are exceptions to our rule. Happily, we've tied them in with our repressed sex premise. In 1956, Clairol's hair dye catchphrase "Does she or doesn't she?" made copywriter Shirley Polykoff of Foote, Cone, and Belding an industry legend. The ingenious innuendo of this campaign required the storyboards to include shots of "She" with her children, acting essentially as a Donna Reed with a secret or two. Donna Reed as Doris Day, as it were. But Clairol's tactics have changed with the times. Today, Herbal Essence shampoo, which in the seventies was given Beach Boys-ripoff jingles, now features the "Totally Organic Experience" line. (Organic! Orgasmic! I get it?) In the ad, a woman stays home just as proper girls did once upon a time to forego dating to "wash her hair." And, unremarkably, we see a woman massaging the white froth in her hair while screaming "Yes! Yes! Yes". The pun is obvious, it's not even original (everyone is sick to death of Meg Ryan's faked climax in "When Harry Met Sally"), but if the truth be told, the line can in fact stand on its own: A totally organic experience. Without the overkill of froth-induced masturbatory overtones, the phrase is pretty good, although the sexual aspect kind of shoots its load (pardon the phrase) with the over-the-top acting and direction. Duh.

There are other blatant ads. They fall into three categories:

1) dumb
2) smart
3) faustian

For "dumb," we've got to hand it to 3COM, who is placing artfully-shot naked women in fetal positions, ostensibly trying to hide, behind thier tiny Palm Pilot device. Please. Does this demonstrate to computer geeks that there's something else they can hold in their palms?

For "smart," we've got Victoria's Secret. Before they came along, lingerie was tacky, wear-trenchcoat-when-buying stuff. Lingerie is now respectable. But Victoria's Secret has set another precedent. They have made the world safe for Larry Flynt's budding porn warehouses. If Rudy Giuliani is going to make America's former porn capital, Times Square, into a clean, family-friendly environment, Larry Flynt is going to try to make porn outlets as clean as, well, Times Square. His HUSTLER sex megastore in Los Angeles is as squeaky clean as The Gap, with a coffee bar as nice as what you'd find at Barnes & Noble. Is this healthy? We say yes. It's not targeted at kids, it fosters an open, comparatively healthy attitude toward sexuality and the farther away we can get from the aforementioned Philip Morris and Viagra stuff, the better.

As for "Faustian," the number one shameless soul-selling entity is still Calvin Klein. To think: audiences were once shocked when Brooke Shields declared that "Nothing gets between me and my Calvins." Calvin Klein tries sexual ambiguity, with unisex fragrances. It dresses anorexic models up to look like heroin addicts (not too hard a feat). It gets it trouble for that, so chooses instead to grease them down and shoot them in a light that makes them look malnourished, dirty, and jaundiced.

We really shouldn't forget the Bally's gym ads either. But they're not really dumb. More fake orgasms, yes, but a person working out does sound something like a person having sex (and hey, a lot of gym-goers go to the gym to make themselves more salable in the sexual marketplace).

Do today's ads appeal to the prurient interest? Hard to say. It seems at times as though they're trying to. The Philip Morris PSA certainly does. The fake orgasm ads try to. The Bob Dole ads? Well, we'd rather not say. But if it's sex that you're selling, why not just sell it? All the dirty ads that FOX recently aired really weren't very dirty at all. And if they were, so what? We do exist in a sexualized society, but we're uncomfortable with it. The repression will continue for a while, and we're just going to have to weather it. Until then, maybe we can visualize Pamela and Tommy Lee instead of Bob and Liddy.

*  *  *

As the VP,Creative Director at Nick at Nite Online, David Vogler knows a thing or two about classic TV and campy commercials. His favorite Brady Bunch episodes are the ones that feature Marcia dancing in provocative skin-tight spandex bellbottoms.

Jack Krause is a New York agency man whose writing has appeared in HotWired. His television credits include fX and Romance Classics. Jack first collaborated with David Vogler as a Nickelodeon Staff Writer in 1995.

From Sex Appeal: the Art of Allure in Graphic and Advertising Design
Originally published by Allworth Press; Summer 2003

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