Effect Measure

I’ve written a couple of times here about TV commercials that drive me crazy or just perplex me (that post on what the Cialis bathtubs are all about continues to get a couple of views a week even though it was over a year ago). In general, though, I don’t get too exercised about TV ads, maybe because we have a TiVo and don’t see as many per TV hour watched (usually late at night and old TV series like Have Gun Will Travel and Maverick, or the preposterous Bones or the amusing Monk). Mrs. R. is pretty laid back about them, too, but like me she has some that drive her round the bend. At the moment the one that seems to send her blood pressure through the roof is for a nasal spray Omnaris. Every time it comes on she starts yelling, “Nose rape!” I don’t know if it is a gender issue, an idiosyncrasy of hers or the proverbial “mind of the beholder,” but she sees this as an obvious image of sexual violation. Since this isn’t obvious to me. Although I can follow her narrative, I wouldn’t have interpreted it that way on my own. “Blog it,” she said. “You’ll see. It’s obvious.”

So that’s what I’m going to do and here it is:

Is this “nose rape”?

Comments

#1 Victoria
March 27, 2010

Let’s see …….. a gaint phallic like tube is held aloft by soldiers intent on ramming it into the obviously red, inflammed and delicate part of a woman’s anatomy.

Don’t blame me here, that is exactly what you see in the advertisement.

Imagine if you will an alternative advertisement for haemorroid(sorry wrong spelling)cream.

A gaint phallic like tube is held aloft by soldiers intent on ramming it into the obviously red, inflamed and delicate part of a man’s anatomy.

Damn right it is Nose Rape.
#2 Kat
March 27, 2010

Would I have called it “nose rape” on my own? Eh…probably not. Would I have said it looks disturbing without realizing specifically why? Absolutely. And yes, that is definitely why it looks disturbing.
#3 Jason Dick
March 27, 2010

I don’t know. I just can’t see it.
#4 laurant
March 27, 2010

Mrs. R: 1
revere: 0
#5 Dr Denise
March 27, 2010

I would call it nose sex, although the military theme has aggressive implications, and has anyone noticed that the guys in the white helmets look a little like “swimmers” so to speak? A red opening that spasms with a tiny little opening upwards from there…yikes!

Obvious sexual imagery but honestly I did not see it until you pointed it out.
#6 momkat
March 27, 2010

Nose sex, perhaps, if I look at it while standing on my tiptoes and blinking twelve times. But definitely not nose rape. The target is smiling for crying out loud.
#7 Somnolent Aphid
March 27, 2010

I saw it as a spin on Woody Allen’s Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask.
#8 Shannon
March 27, 2010

It’s hard to tell whether the insertion of the device is consensual or not since we can’t see the woman’s face or reaction, but I would say that she doesn’t look exactly engaged or eager. So it could be nose rape.
#9 Erica Andersen
March 27, 2010

Disturbing. Yes, I think it could be easily interpreted as nose rape, and it is definitely nose sex.
#10 Swift Loris
March 27, 2010

Mrs. R. definitely got the message. Are you putting us on about not seeing it yourself? How could you MISS it??
#11 Gwennie
March 27, 2010

I associated this commercial with gang rape the first time I saw it. My male mate had mentioned being annoyed with the commercial, but he didn’t (consciously, at least) make the rape connection. Interesting for me to see that I’m not the only one who felt this way.
#12 becca
March 27, 2010

You should have put the video *first*, had people think about metaphors and *then* explained the backstory.
Experiment FAIL.
But yes, obviously noserape.
#13 bioephemera
March 27, 2010

I had just seen that terrible Great Sperm Race on National Geographic, and I immediately thought of sex, though I didn’t go all the way to rape. But it’s obviously sex at least.
#14 Stephen
March 27, 2010

As a psychoanalyst, I certainly see it as sex with a suggestion of force, i.e. “nose rape”. I assume that is deliberate to evoke a visceral response. Your wife will not forget it, will she?
#15 cc2
March 27, 2010

Mrs. R is correct, because women do not voluntarily participate in massively multi-partner intercourse. Most disturbing is the orgasm as this is one ‘driver’ of rape — a belief that women are frigid and rape will awaken ‘real’ desire and response.

Who are the company that makes this product? Who are the advert agency? I can just see the concept people yukking it up all over themselves at the idea of foisting this on the audience.

Adverts and cartoons have a long history of edging toward porn. Benneton’s sheep & wolf poster/print ad had an erect penis cleverly hidden in full sight, Betty Boop had fire, smoke and a tail twitching from underneith the backside of her skirt as she minced toward a man (probably 1933′s BB’s Big Boss), and one of the Marlborough men stuffed socks in his crotch to catch the eye — it did.
#16 Liz
March 27, 2010

totally see it. Then again, I walked out of Avatar and said “so they create lifetime bonds with the fliers by finding the one most hostile to them and then ponytail-mind-raping it. In fact, that’s what they do to their horse analogues, too!” And then I went around bringing up tail rape (in a silly tone of voice) every time someone said they liked that movie.
#17 Lenn
March 27, 2010

I did not see it as sexual at first, though I found it quite disturbing. Upon consideration, I would have to say that the idea of sexual force is why I found it that way. Though, without your wife’s insight, I probably would never have realized it.
#18 Paula
March 28, 2010

Oh yes, and the little “swimmers” are so aggressively, mindlessly military, with those smooth TMacveigh expressions. Plus when they’re all pushin’ it toward her, it looked like. . .well, one flashes on the “nuclear porn” segment of the Nuke Pop website and also on some painful, must-be-endured procedure while flat on one’s back. Pretty heavy, altogether; I wouldn’t call it “sex” in any pleasant form. But Mrs. R–can’t we let her have her pre-marriage name?–is right; in some sense, it’s sex. Just not the happiest sense.
#19 Marc
March 28, 2010

2 interesting things:

1) Mrs. R reads too much Sigmund Freud. I personally didn’t have any “special” feelings when I saw this (but then again I’m very tired at the moment so…).

2) Revere’s posts usually get 3-4 comments, like the previous one. However, there are 18 here, excluding mine. But then again, Revere’s posts usually aren’t titled “Nose Rape” or anything as juicy. =)
#20 Molly, NYC
March 28, 2010

I hate this commercial too, although “nose rape” hadn’t occurred to me. The concept itself is just creepy (military maneuvers in your nose could be funny, but this commercial’s completely humor-free), and the execution looks chintzy. Every time I see it, I think:

1. What tasteless jackass at the Omnaris company approved this commercial? and

2. If Omnaris’s management doesn’t have the judgment to put out a decent ad campaign (or hire someone who can), what else are they incompetent at? Making nose-spray, perhaps?

The whole idea of consumer ads for prescription drugs is ethically skeevy, but I’m sure the company did it while congratulating themselves on what piss-whiz businessmen they were to do so–

–following which, they further established their business chops by apparently selecting an ad campaign on the basis of what was the cheapest means available (“Writers? Art directors? Hey, Phil in Marketing’s nephew just got a degree in animation, and he’ll do a 30-second work-for-hire for a grand!”).

They have now spent $ millions broadcasting ads that make their company look tacky and clueless (and nose-rapey) in at least a hundred designated markets. ‘Coz they’re such brilliant businessmen.
#21 cc2
March 28, 2010

Paula:
Please, he was McVeigh, not MacVeigh. We Scots have enough going on without being held accountable for Tim McVeigh. Wasn’t ours.
#22 Paula
March 28, 2010

Sorry, cc2. It wasn’t intended, clearly. Unfortunately, once one focuses on things like Mac/Mc? (or righthanded/ lefthanded? etc.), chances of remembering it correctly don’t necessarily increase. And then there was the Bisson story; we don’t want to ruin that.
#23 cc2
March 28, 2010

Paula: Yes, I am sure ‘Macs’ was Bisson’s righteous indictment for foisting Dolly on our mammalsphere. And it was a culture-driven decision – an assumption that moral restraints will trump temptations. They’ve taken some appropriate heat.

That’s the issue in this nose rape discussion — Who draws the line where?
#24 Mike @ CRT
March 29, 2010

I can see what you mean. At not point does the nose consent to the act…
#25 Jack O Weights
March 29, 2010

Take a look at this commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S3C4AC908w
#26 revere
March 29, 2010

Jack: OMG and LOL and blush (well, not really, but I should be blushing). I think Jon Stewart uses clips from commercials like this but only in brief snippets. It’s really something.
#27 lilorphant
March 30, 2010

I saw this commercial and was disturbed by the “attack” on the female. The problem with the disturbing quality was the same I am sure of many rape scenarios. Many actual rape victims, depending on circumstances or emotional complexity of the situation, don’t have the language to call it rape, even when they know “something wrong has happened”.

Imagine if you will, a group of little men actually doing this in real life to your child, or wife. It would still be a violation. Much sexual assault includes aggressive acts that do not include penetration. Would have been much better if consent had been gotten by the woman in the first few seconds of the commercial, the fact that she smiles at the end nears obscene. (message=rape victims like it)
#28 Frank
April 6, 2010

The ad has a reference to educational French cartoon from 80-ties, Once upone a time…Life, which I absolutely loved being a kid; but this one is poorly executed, looks too porn pinky and is definitely sexually “inspired”, although still not as strong as “nose rape”