Thursday, January 31, 2008
Ryanair's Schoolgirl
The Ryanair schoolgirl ad is roughly similar to the Britney Spears schoolgirl vid. Ryanair likes to use shock to get publicity, a tedious, infantile but probably effective strategy. Toying with paedophilia is the game this time round. This is a publicity sure thing - nothing fires up the slavering hacks and the prig 'spokespersons' like paedophilia. Of course, using children for sex is an evil, but there are other evils. It's just that the contemporary imagination seems to be stuck like an old record player on the image of the paedophile as the incarnation of all that is vile. Genocides and serial killers, these days, can barely get arrested, publicitywise. In that context, Ryanair knew exactly what it was doing. It also judged its little dash of child love perfectly. If the ad really offended, nobody would be showing it, but, in fact, it's everywhere. I think the truth is the schoolgirl uniform, though it clearly signifies childhood, is an acceptably naughty, almost a traditional fetish. We have St Trinian's after all. The clever little marketing runts at Ryanair have, therefore, targeted the culture at just the right spot - mid way between the evil and the cosy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Good one,Bryan.
ReplyDeleteAll that was needed for a grand slam, a churchman dipping his oar in the water.
Why marketing 'runts', for I suspect that that dept' at Ryanair is a very long way from a hind teat.
Midway between evil and cosy - good one. The sexualisation of children is commonplace now. Oddly, its rise and general acceptance has coincided with the rise in hysteria about paedophilia. What's going on? Is this just another example of the double-standards, twisted logic and moral ambivalance inherent in consumer-driven, market capitalism?
ReplyDeleteThe question is, what is a child? A 13-year old boy is a child, i suppose, but by my recollection when i was 13 i & most of the other boys in my school year would have looked on the possibilty of sex as a great good. Had a particularly hot Biology teacher (a redhead with black leather slut boots) seduced one of us the lucky pupil would have been deeply grateful and would have spurned with indignation accusations of paedophilia and abuse.
ReplyDeletei often have difficulty gauging the ages of girls these days, as they dress like whores from a disturbingly early age. They all look like luridly-painted Barbie dolls, no soul, no brains, plastic through & through.
In many other cultures sex began pretty early. i think what i find noisome in the Ryanair ads isn't the thought of teenage girls having sex, it's the calculated vulgarity, the knowing wink, 'yes, you'd like to screw underage girls, admit it', which is particularly intrusive and disgusting.
You would love "Notes on a Scandal," Elberry. The pubescent boy's dream comes true with a teacher -- Cate Blanchett, no less!
ReplyDeletei suspect at least some of my adoration of MILF (women between about 35-50) comes from attending an all-boys' school in which the only bootie in sight was in the form of the Miss Xs and Mrs Ys, usually hot & stocking-wearing babes in their 30s and 40s. It was either go for MILF or go gay, i guess.
ReplyDelete