A few little videos by way of the marvelous Kevin Hayden:
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Ladies, did you know that you are just like a cardboard box? We’re supposed to treat you delicately and with respect, just in case you’ve got something in your uterus. If you’ve had a hysterectomy or you’re menstruating, though, and we know the box is empty, well, we don’t have to worry about you so much.
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Guys, did you know that you are followed everywhere by a mob of enthusiastic, hyperactive sperm? I love how both sexes can be objectified by the functions of our gonads.
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I’ve shown the video for this one before, but I’m going to do it again just because I love the New York Dolls and this will put you in a happy mood for a Monday morning. Here are the New York Dolls performing “Dance Like a Monkey” live:
Now THAT’S a money shot!
The difference between the two adds is one is objectifying women and giving a horrible analogy. and the other is so hilarious that I started laughing at my desk
sorry. too aggressive for Monday morning. Do not want to wake up that way.
Sven, I would not have thought you a morning milk & toast sort of guy.
True Pharynguloids are required to jump out of bed on Monday mornings howling and leaping about on the furniture. And that’s before they’ve had their coffee.
I do think the Durex advert is effective though. It’s difficult to see how to advertise condoms without being too sentimental (fuzzy smudged camera lens panning away from a couple on a beach as the sun goes down) or too clinical (“Yah, Zis 100 micron super latex vill stop all virus and bacteria from your disease ridden partner penetrating your mucous membranes”)
When I saw that on TV I did a double take and then laughed out loud. It stuck in my mind too. What more can you ask from an advert.
nah, Coffee first and foremost. Then, uh, more coffee. Maybe some toast with that 2nd cup. Chocolate milk chaser. Some smooth music on the stereo, nothing too intrusive, maybe some Stan Getz or something (oops, channeling Tom Waits again). Miles, but not the electric stuff before noon. Afternoons, probably the Dead. The New York Dolls have to wait for…well, never, actually, but more power to ya!
So *sniff* I guess I can’t be a True
ScotsmPharynguloid.So even if you think there’s just a small chance that an unborn child will grow up to be a mass-murderer, shouldn’t you treat it as if it were, just in case?
Not if you’ve done the sensible thing and had a vasectomy!
A vasectomy won’t help you deal with the combination of raging hormones and nasty diseases.
I also wouldn’t recommend a vasectomy to someone the age that commercial was portraying. Vasectomies are for when you’ve done your duty to Darwin.
I hope everyone has seen the movie about the bassist, Arthur Kane.
New York Doll (2005)http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/new_york_doll/
Great!
Great, now I’m going to have nightmares about charging mobs of sperm cosplayers for the next week. I blame Woody Allen for this.
I don’t think the “treat a box as though it has a baby” refers to the woman or the uterus. I think it’s purely about semanantics. Does “life begin” at conception? Maybe not but if there’s a “slight chance” shouldn’t we treat fetuses as though they are babie, the ad seem to say.
It’s a little weird in that I never considered the nature of reality (Is a fetus a baby? Or is it not a baby?) to be something determined by chance or outside authority. (Maybe there’s a slight chance that a fetus is a baby… Weird way of thinking.)
Meanwhile something must be done about box factory reform. Too many babies are being left in boxes.
The sperm ad was funny. I like how the sperm tails were on the heads rather than the butt.
Why are sperm always depicted as males? I demand equal representative of women in my sperm.
“Why are sperm always depicted as males? I demand equal representative of women in my sperm.”
Because manly men only want sons, so naturally it’s the evil women’s witchcraft that turns baybeez into girls!
I’m guessing that box video got their idea from here.
Let’s see if I have the logic of the comparison right.
A box that might have a baby in it is to an empty box as a fetus is to a baby?
no…can’t be right…
A box that might have a baby in it should be treated like a fetus that might be a baby?
nah…
A fetus might actually be a baby, in which case it should be treated like a…a box? that might have a baby in it? Or a fetus in it?
I don;t think I have the logic of the comparison right.
I can’t say I see the condom ad as objectifying men at all. It’s more like Dawkins’ line about us putting one over on our genes every time we use contraceptives.
I can’t believe I just saw what I saw in that box video. The Durex commercial, on the other hand, was great.
Schrodinger’s Fetus?
Bad news for the box-commercial makers:
1.) Nope, I don’t think there’s even a chance a fertilized egg or fetus is the same as a baby. Otherwise I might be paralyzed with guilt every time I start menstruating despite being sexually active. My precious non-implanted babies!
2.) I don’t actually base my life around miniscule chances anyway, or I’d stay locked up in my basement all day, lest I go outside and get hit by a car, or if the upstairs floors should be removed by a stray meteorite. Or if the act of rising up from the couch caused me to miscarry a tiny as-yet-unimplanted egg-slash-toddler.
3.) I have a box, but I am not a box. Crucial difference there.
Baby in the box = Pascal’s Wager in sophistry’s box.
How lame.
Let’s see, if there’s a small chance that a fetus is a baby, then treat the box as though it has a baby in it. That’s Pascal’s wager.
The sophistry lies in the use of the word “baby”. A fetus is a baby when we define the word baby to include fetus. But, that’s not where the commercial is going. The real argument is that a fetus is a baby when god says it is. Since god won’t tell us the answer, we’re back to Pascal’s Wager.
Enough of the critiques. Enjoy the music.
Love the Dolls too. The video that goes with the song is great. Nice little jab at creationists.
Good way to start the week. Maybe we need music Mondays.
OEJ
Being over 50, I have Chronic Empty Box Syndrome. Or CEBS.
I think the box video pretty well sums up my view of treatment of creationists here:
So even if you think there’s just a small chance that a creationist is an idiot, shouldn’t you treat it as if it were, just in case? Something to think about.
Incidentally, I think the chance is much greater than small.
That’s precisely my take on it and I think that’s their intent. It’s kind of weird to me because … well, it’s a weird way of looking at ontology (.. there’s that word again…). It’s as though there’s a external platonian ideal that decides whether or not something is a member of the word and not up to us. Is this a horse? The cosmic plane says yes. Is this a DVD? cosmic plane says no. Is this a baby? Gosh, at first I thought it was a fetus, but then I found out it was an unborn child. Now I don’t think its a baby, but, gosh, there’s a chance it might be so I’d better treat it as though it is until I hear back from the cosmic plane.
Of course, true catholics believe wine and crackers become the body of christ, so maybe the makers of the ad simply assumed everybody assumes things are only things when god decides they are so they don’t realize what a strange concept this is to most. Um, it is a strange concept to most, isn’t it? I mean, I live in what I think is a house but maybe God wants it to be a donkey and I actually live in a donkey… I mean, that is strange, isn’t it?
If I thought that if there was a chance of a baby being in a box I was handling, I would open up the box to make sure. And if there was a baby in the box, I would take the baby out of it. A box is hardly a place where a baby should be. I am afraid I have listened to The Velvet Underground song, “The Gift” too many times.
So should a fetus be taken out of a woman’s uterus because it is not a place where a fetus should be?
That silly PSA sounds way too close to the idea that all premenopausal women being in a pre pregnant stage.
After a bit of brain-twisting, I finally found a way to look at that box/fetus ad’s message in a way that made sense to me.
Person hands me a box containing a baby. My reaction? “wtf is this??? I don’t want it! Get it out, get it out!”
Person hands me an ultrasound picture of my uterus containing a fetus containing a baby. My reaction? “wtf is this??? I don’t want it! Get it out, get it out!”
I guess from now on, I’ll treat every box as if it contained a baby, and give it a good hard shake before accepting it, just to be on the safe side… after all, one never knows when random people are going to give you a baby in a box, as opposed to, oh, the books I ordered.
(Disclaimer for the humoristically challenged: DM does not approve of the shaking of real babies, just like she doesn’t approve of the sending of fetuses via FedEx)
She doesn’t? Then what service does she suggest we use to send fetuses instead?
Wait, I’m a box! Oh, my god! Might I have a baby in me? I know I’ve nipped at the honey bees now and then, but babies?
Why, pneumatic tube, of course!
The New York Dolls videos was great! I’ve never heard them before. What little I do know about them can be summed up thus:
– It’s hard to believe that’s Buster Poindexter. :-)
– Funky But! Funky But! Alright-alright-alright! (My dad’s band does this one!)
Darwin’s Minion: DM does not approve of … the sending of fetuses via FedEx
woozy: She doesn’t? Then what service does she suggest we use to send fetuses instead?
Darwin’s Minion: Why, pneumatic tube, of course!
woozy: No, that’s what I use for sending my sperm.