PETA Super Bowl Ad - Sex with Vegetables

This past week, a fellow writer I follow on AC wrote an article about how PETA wanted to show an ad on television during the Super Bowl. As she described the ad, I couldn't help but comment that while I am all about treating animals well, I found the ad as described sounding pretty tasteless. I think that was part of PETA's point: they find the killing of animals for meat in bad taste, so we should put up with a tasteless ad in return.

I have not seen the ad, nor do I want to, but others have said the PETA ad shows women in skimpy and provocative clothing, licking, kissing and fondling vegetables (pumkins, asparagus, broccoli and eggplant), touching themselves while holding the vegetables in sexually provocative ways as the ad reads "Vegetarians have better sex."

I hate animal abuse, and there is much that PETA stands for that I would support, but I have to agree with another comment posted under one article: "PETA has gone so overboard that they are now a joke; and unfortunately their message has gotten lost."

NBC Memo About PETA Super Bowl Ad

NBC apparently sent PETA a memo asking PETA to edit the commercial, which "depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards," according to the NBC memo which was uploaded by PETA.

Other Media on PETA Super Bowl Ad

According to yesterday's Washington Post, NBC "nixed" the new Super Bowl ad from the animal rights activist group, "because the ad is too sexually explicit."

Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, described it like this: "...PETA Super Bowl ad that depicts what looks like the beginning of a home party striptease performance."

Super Bowl No Place for PETA Ad

The Super Bowl is often the most- watched entertainment program of the season and one that attracts millions of children. Bringing sexually charged advertising into tens of millions of American homes during the Super Bowl really is in poor taste. And unlike the Super Bowl 2004 Halftime Show "wardrobe malfunction" involving the exposure of Janet Jackson's breast, PETA's ad was deliberately planned and thirty seconds long in duration.

PETA has a long history of promoting its radical animal rights agenda in offensive, heavy-handed ways but PETA hurts its cause by doing so. I support some local animal causes, but I stopped giving money to PETA many years ago because of stunts just like this one. While PETA may get a little exposure from me, because I am writing this article, they won't get any funding from folks like me.

Few adults consider eating meat to be morally wrong in spite of PETA's efforts. However, most adults don't think children should be exposed to indecent content on TV. And like many other Americans who love animals, I have to ask: why is PETA spending money on an expensive Super Bowl ad instead of using those funds to help animals???

The broadcast TV networks have a sad history of broadcasting morally offensive programming and ads, including the prime-time family hours. This time NBC got it right when it said no to PETA's offensive Super Bowl ad.

SOURCES

Washington Post

Morality in Media

ChristianActivities.com