Now, that said, I will add this ad is MINUTIAE in the big picture of global context of sexualization imagery & objectification…so I agree, we should not give it too much weight.

I’d prefer to take the dialog in a different direction so that ‘mainstream media’ can grok the problem and the issue if it is that hard to discern. (otherwise it will continue to be trivialized via the ‘over-reaction’ arena which is where it’s living now…)

Here’s what I wrote on one of the new Mn. blogs linking to us, where we’ve been ‘under fire’ disrupting our operations over the last 48 hours as a nonprofit do-gooder trying to accentuate the positive.

“Hello, it’s Amy Jussel with Shaping Youth, of the S.F. Bay area here…(thank gawd I don’t live in the Twin Cities w/this absurd brouhaha; poor Lisa Ray in Mn., judging from the wacko-factor backlash I’m getting out here!) Guess this is getting the microlens because of the mildness of the ad in comparative context, but hey, they never offered ‘context’ because they wouldn’t return the freakin’ call to comment!

Frankly this is a ‘non-story’ for the positive social change work we’re doing here at ShapingYouth…we’ve covered blatant instances of ‘sexualized ad slop’ (media loves that line for some reason) so this one pales by comparison.

The only ‘news’ here is the normalization of objectification via a family firm, mega-retailer who then dissed ‘non-traditional media’ when I called to fact-check their motivation, and see if they were playing the ‘feign cluelessness but be as crass/clever as you can’ advertising card.

I wish the ‘mainstream media’ & blogosphere would either elevate the dialog to a much larger context of objectification/ambient advertising and the impact on pop culture, or bury it in the circular file of corporate idiocy and customer service blunders to learn from.

As it is, ‘tarzshay’ could easily inspire copycat corps to mirror the tactics of free press controversy as an ad strategy.

Out of thousands of our posted topics (using the power of media for positive change, Twitter fundraising to send orphans to college in 24 hours, Age of Conversation global social media raising $11K for children’s charity) worthy media literacy, ecology, nutrition, and global counter-marketing programs for kids, THIS is the blog post that’s pulled for ‘mainstream media’ attention?

What a shame. What a loss. What a lousy target. sigh.”

–Amy Jussel, Founder, Shaping Youth

You are completely reaching here, and searching for something (anything!) to be offended by. This kind of stuff does real damage to the credibility of any SERIOUS critique of sexism in the media.