Either way it's no big deal, but do you really think they told the model to make a snow angel on the target symbol & she just happened to position her coochie on the bullseye?

It's not so much icky as it is stupid. Wouldn't we get the idea of a snow angel a little better if there was, oh I dunno, some snow on it? Oh but wait, they can't cover up the logo! So, maybe some "falling" snow? Who thinks up these things, anyway? o_O

It doesn't immediately strike me as a snow angel. It's a person perfectly centered on a bullseye. It just so happens that our crotches are positioned more or less in the middle of our bodies (at least mine is...).

Maybe the feminists should move pussies to a more obscure location on our bodies so they can't accidentally deem something as objectifying women b/c a certain (clothed) body part is visible.

Get over it, feminists; you're tiring me. Esp. since I just read the first letter in today's Dear Prudence over on Slate.com. Sickening http://www.slate.com/id/2182162

Keep your eye on the prize!

Way over-reacting! Geeze, it's refreshing to see a model with so much clothes on for pete's sake and they're still screaming objectfying.

Where are the complaints for my favorite commercial -- the one for the mattress that is so inducive to sleep that she's dreaming about a young hunky guy offering her massages and to draw her a bath, etc. before the salesman rudely wakes her up. Yeah, I'd be sold too. That's way more objectifying than this one. Please.

I won't call myself liberal. They're every bit as Nazi as the conservatives. Maybe more so. The PC thought police have gotten annoying as hell and seem determined to not let us so much as breathe the wrong way. Get a life and let us live ours.

I'm guessing the target was superimposed over whatever background the model was originally posed against. I'm a feminist and this one is a non-issue.

Fuck teh pussy, this is just blatant copyright infringment of my Vitruvian Man!

I won't call myself liberal. They're every bit as Nazi as the conservatives. Maybe more so.

I'll have a post on this tomorrow, I think.

a note to the feministas involved at shaping youth: "Those who ignore a shout, may strain to hear a whisper."

If you said something like: 'We noticed your 30' tall billboard on times square, and wondered if you would consider changing it. It could hardly be described as a flattering pose, and perhaps pushes the boundries of good taste. We await your consideration of this matter with respect.'

Then, in the ultimate subversion, you recruite other national women's organizations, to help you gently turn Target... and they decide to pull the ad. You give them a pat on the head for being a responsible steward of Business... and it's win/win.

When you try and break down the door, people put a stronger bar on it. Convince them to open the door? They invite you in for tea...

If you want to view a terribly effective commercial for Scruffs workwear, click on this newspaper article about a teacher who lost her job for appearing in this commercial before she became a teacher.

It's a very effective commercial. Technically, it's safe for work, but if you have to ask, then you really don't want to click on this at work.

"Either way it's no big deal, but do you really think they told the model to make a snow angel on the target symbol & she just happened to position her coochie on the bullseye?"

Where else would it go and still keep their corporate symbol in the shot?

I don't really find the ad offensive. But I do find it kindof odd to position a person (any person) at the center of a target. Personally, this is an unflattering and stupid add, and if I were target I would fire my graphic designers. Whether or not it was intended to be vagina target practice. *shrug*

Treach is right. It's graphics.

And Target's symbol IS a target. I don't think the ad's other message is that you're supposed to gun down girls in white pants.

I'm sure it's a great comfort to the women in jail in the Middle East for the "crime" of being raped that Western feminists care so deeply about the placement of a well-paid, fully dressed model on a corporate billboard.

As for that Dear Prudence letter...gah. But I would advise the young man in question to take a lot of notes and turn the whole experience into a novel. I bet it would sell like hotcakes.

I won't call myself liberal. They're every bit as Nazi as the conservatives. Maybe more so.

Jonah Goldberg, author of Liberal Fascism, would agree with you (click on my name for a link to more info about the book).

Where else would it go and still keep their corporate symbol in the shot?

Also, while this may just be a result of my shaky sense of spatial relations, I don't see how she could get into a snow angel pose on the bullseye without the center of her body being placed on the center of the graphic.

Underlying subversive message in advertisement:

"Pussy is the center of all things."

I won't call myself liberal. They're every bit as Nazi as the conservatives. Maybe more so. The PC thought police have gotten annoying as hell and seem determined to not let us so much as breathe the wrong way. Get a life and let us live ours.

Conservative != Nazi. Not even close. Naziism was an inherently leftist ideology, as is fascism. Jonah Goldberg just wrote a book about it. I'll be getting it this week.

I think you'll find that true conservatives (not Republicans, most of whom are just as statist as the Democrats) aren't interested in running your life. If you are thinking that Huckabee or Romney are conservatives, you are wrong.

The only thing I find odd is why the feministas were so focused on this woman's hoohaa (Yes, I'm 14). If they hadn't pointed out it was dead center on the target, I wouldn't have thought of it.

Perhaps the only ones objectifying women in this case are the complainers.

BTW, I don't normally shop at Target, but I'm going there after work and buying something to show my support.

marion: As for that Dear Prudence letter...gah. But I would advise the young man in question to take a lot of notes and turn the whole experience into a novel. I bet it would sell like hotcakes.

Sadly, he'd probably never get a publisher to touch it.

Amy: I don't think the ad's other message is that you're supposed to gun down girls in white pants.

Unless she's wearing them after Labor Day. All bets are off then.

If you are thinking that Huckabee or Romney are conservatives, you are wrong.

Thank you. And I do have to remark that I hate that it's dangerous to use the term "classically liberal" these days (which I am).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

And me, too, Conan -- PS if you have United Miles, you can get FF miles for shopping at Target.com.

I find it more offensive that someone can make a living writing about how ads offend them than someone making a living off their looks.

Technically the dead center of the bullseye is the outside of the models left hip.

As or who came up with the ad, it had to be a woman. If a man were in charge:
1 he would hae ordered a snow machine
2 he would have had the model lowered into the snow by harness
3 after making a snow angel the model would have been lifted out
4 the snow would have been painted
5 the model replaced
6 perfectly centered
7 there would b bitching about the expense as well

The model's placement is purposeful. The designers understand composition. It's not just that her crotch is in the center of the target, the lines in her body and clothing all lead the viewer's eye toward "ladytown". This kind of thing is very common in advertising and fine art.

The Target ad is clumsy and obvious but it's silly to get in a huff over it.

"Ladytown"??!

(Not at all in a huff. Just very amused, winston!)

Oh yes, we aren't supposed to objectify women, except when we overlook attractive, intelligent women whom we are supposed to objectify as much as unattractive intelligent women, but we're not to let them know we're objectifying them, because that's indecorous, yet they want us to objectify them without letting them know we objectify them, and of course they are intelligent, so we are condescending to them by not letting them know about or objectifications, which condescension is evidence of objectification, thus blowing our undercover objectification, meaning we are crypto-mysoginists....

I'm all about sexual equality, but feminism is utterly incoherent.

Men evolved to objectify women. If your ancestors didn't "objectify" women, they wouldn't want to have sex with the beautiful ones. And what we consider beauty being what reflects health and fertility.

Personally, I put a lot into looking good, and if you don't look at me, I'll be a little disappointed.

Amy, I have noticed that. I wouldn't disappoint you. But Gregg might kick my ass. ;-)

I think he'd be secretly pleased. Guys like that -- as long as there's just looking, not drooling down the girl's cleavage.

"I'm sure it's a great comfort to the women in jail in the Middle East for the "crime" of being raped "

The woman most recently in the news was jailed and sentenced for adultery,as was the man with her, not for being raped. She's had her sentence reduced due to international activism, the man she was with will still get his lashing. American feminists have done a good job of convincing everyone that she was jailed for being raped, but that is not correct. Also, the men who carjacked and raped the couple (yes, he was raped as well) are now being prosecuted.

Jeeze by all the furor it would sound like either one of two things

1. She is naked or scantily dressed on the target.

2. She is on the target and somebody is aiming a weapon at her.

The picture looks like classic advertising. Put what attracts somebody front and center. Or what the customers eye are drawn towards.

That is why a spokes model (woman) would hold a product near her face or cleavage. Or a good looking male model would be placed near a woman in a perfume ad (attraction). Advertisers learn to use our desires to sell. Looking at the picture it does draw my eyes to her crotch area but in a subconscious kind of way. But it does not get me all drooling and thinking "must hit the target", must" "hit the target".

Crella, you ignorant slut. Are you so daft as to eat the shit that's been served to you and believe that it's filet mignon?

The "adultery" that she was incarcerated for was one of two things: being out in public with a man not related to her, or having sex with a man not her husband.

Yes - when a woman in an Islamic nation is put in jail for "rape", we all know that the rationalization of the animals that put her there is that she is an adultress. The unmentioned part of it is that she's an unwilling participant in the adultery, and the prosecution is based upon her INVITING it by being female.

I'll just assume for now that you are only naive and ignorant, instead of just plain stupid.

The woman most recently in the news was jailed and sentenced for adultery,as was the man with her, not for being raped. She's had her sentence reduced due to international activism, the man she was with will still get his lashing.

I wasn't thinking about her. There are plenty of women in the Middle East who get raped and jailed and never make the news. Rape isn't classified as a crime in much of the Middle East unless there are a certain number of witnesses willing to testify that they saw someone being raped. Generally, that isn't the case. If it's found that the women in question have lost their virginity, they get jailed for the equivalent of fornication. Then there are women, such as Mukhtar Mai in Pakistan, who are sentenced to be raped as retribution for some medieval "crime," and the many, many women who die at the hands of their family members in "honor killings." If you want to focus on *one* specific case that gained attention in the West, fine, but please don't claim that it signifies that women don't face atrocities in the Middle East, because it doesn't. Go page through Reading Lolita in Tehran if you want to see what life is like in the best-case scenario for women in that part of the world.

Life in Islamic countries is one long atrocity for women, and anybody who says otherwise is either a moron or lying.

Life in Islamic countries is one long atrocity for women, and anybody who says otherwise is either a moron or lying.

Yep. And this is where I get all feministy. It's an outrage, and I mean a goddam outrage, how women are treated in Islamic countries. I also get pissed off at how Muslims defend it. I've had Muslim people tell me to my face that Islamic law "frees" women, that it's Western women who are in chains of iniquity. I've even read this in campus publications (I'm a grad student at 42, go figure.) and at Islam Online.

Now, I'm the first to complain that American men and women have forgotten the difference between liberty and license. But come one. The claim that women in Islamic countries are more free is a blatant lie. The claim that women in Islamic countries are free at all is a blatant lie.

In summary response to defenders of Islamic law: balderdash!

Yeah, Islam "frees" women -- to be slaves, to be no more than moving meat, to have the rights of dogs. Thanks, but if that's "freedom," I'll take the "enslavement" of the Enlightenment. What pathetic brainwashed people that they argue for Islam being somehow elevated, when it's a religion based on collectivism, collective low self-esteem, violence, intolerance, and the notion that women are merely property.

My friend Satoshi Kanazawa, in his book, Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, notes that the women in Iran, in their head-to-toe tents, have MORE body issues than western women.

See, Amy - this is where you've gotta get your mind right. It's all been explained by those helpful mullah guys.

Islam frees women from being objectified, by protecting them from men!

And the sun will rise in the West tomorrow.

Islam frees women from being objectified, by protecting them from men!

I guess being stoned to death could be considered a form of "freedom," in that tired poetic sense of death setting a person free.

See? You're learning!

Everything can be explained away with enough bullshit.

I think you're right Amy about men being proud of their women being beautiful and well dressed. I used to date this girl Leeann, she was six foot three in barefeet. Green eyes and a beautiful smile. She had beautiful natural red hair, a forty four inch bust, five foot long legs and wore long spiked heels with slit skirts when she wanted to dress up. When we walked into a nice restaurant, you could hear the men stop talking. AND she had a great cuddle butt!

Oh, and I don't believe in objectifying women! Thats terrible. I say, accept them for the sexpots that they are!

No Brian, I assumed that those 'eating the shit served' to them are the feminist activists who bought the whole 'jailed for being raped' line without every checking, in true knee-jerk froth-mouthed feminist fashion.

I never said that being jailed for adultery was right and just, so you can prop that straw man up in the corner and forget about him. My post dealt SOLELY with the incorrect assumption fueling international activism, that the woman was jailed for being raped. They could just as easily have campaigned on the injustice of jailing people for adultery...but of course bending the facts makes it so much more dramatic.

The other point I was making, which you so obviously missed, is that the man she was seeing will still be lashed and is still in prison, even though he too was raped. Injustice for MEN means nothing to you, I see.

Assume at will, what you will.

"but please don't claim that it signifies that women don't face atrocities in the Middle East"

Did I?

After seeing recommendations for Goldberg's book twice in one comment thread, not to mention his ambush interview on The Daily Show, I just downloaded the book to my Amazon Kindle.

By the way, Islam creates new and better realities and improves conditions. Oh wait, wrong cult.

"He too was raped"? I missed that. How, and by whom? But that's off topic. Sorry.

Jim,
Goldberg's book is fantastic. The chapter on Wilson alone is worth the price. The argument he puts forth is long overdue. Statism seems to be the rage now among both Republicans and Democrats. Someone needed to remind people why this is not a good thing and Goldberg has the exposure to do it.

Feminists Don't worry! Wherever the woman is placed on the ad we men will check out possible pert-boobies, tight-ass or camel-toe sightings.

Don't the feministas remember that sex is so popular because it's centrally located?

I'm not convinced that feminists even know where their pussy is.

Just a note: what's centered on the bull is not her "coochie," "ladytown," or "cameltoe." What's actually on the bull is her anus.

Make of that what you will.

"I'm not convinced that feminists even know where their pussy is."

It's at the mall. Same as mine.

(I keed, I keed)

She looks like she has a DICK!

My reaction was: this ad would be better if the model were naked.

Anyways, enjoy the objectification while it lasts, ladies. In a couple decades when sexbots with the bodies and mannerisms of 18-year-old cheerleaders and the sexual morals of an ATM machine are widely available, men will mostly forget about you.

When it's a women they're outraged. When its a man, they can't stop laughing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD0DV2vPNEQ

Johnny Carson - Ed Ames Tomahawk Incident

Next year, same ad but she's in a burka.

Umm, last I checked on the women around here, the "crotch" seems to be in about the geographic center of the body. So I don't think I was really blown away with surprise that when they centered a model in the target logo, that the, um, center of her body would be in the center of the logo.

Next year, same ad but she's in a burka.

And it'll be for "New Freedom."

And correct me if I'm wrong, but you ever hear a guy being accused of "talking to a woman's crotch."

And PS As a woman with large hooters, I have to say, if you don't bind 'em up or wear one of those chic Islamic pup tents, men are going to look. This is a good thing.

Anyone ever think she just sat down in the middle of the bullseye and did her spread from there? No intentional placement needed. Pure coincidence.

Frankly, what's wrong with being "pussy-centric"? We all came from there, you know. Way more than 1/2 of us want to get back in there (I am including hetero/bi men and lez/bi women in that group). Or at least get a part of us back in there. At least for a little while.

In short, pussies are good. I'm all about the pussy. Three cheers for pussy. I really don't think we get to see enough pussy.

Would it be safe to say a majority of Target shopers are women? If so how, if the feminists reading of the ad is correct, would this attract more women into the store?

All I can think of is Target has so many women shoppers they are trying to appeal to men to come in and shop and find dates but that really isn't likely is it?

And besides, nobody ever used sex to sell things. If the Feminists are right this would have to be groundbreaking wouldn't it? /snark

She's trying to center herself in the overall target! It just so happens that her goonyaw falls on the center bullseye. If she had stubby legs, it would be much lower. Jeez, get a freakin' life!

Perhaps the feminists might feel different if she was laying on her tummy ;->

If you want a close look at how the women in Islamic countries are really treated, read "Not without my Daughter" by Betty Mahmoody. It's quite a story.

http://www.amazon.com/Not-Without-Daughter-Betty-Mahmoody/dp/0312925883/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product

Just because it is only tangentially related to this thread, I offer you The Reasons Men Objectify Women

I know I shop at Target and this isn't going to disuade and, yes, I do consider myself feminist (though that's getting as dangerous as labeling yourself liberal). I have to agree with Amy, man hating ain't liberating. Geeze, guys are fun.

What is liberating is appreciating yourself and your feminity. I don't wear makeup but I do like pretty clothes and feeling feminine and I sure as hell do not want another girl in a guy. I don't want a caveman either but I don't want another girl. A guy can be macho and strong without being caveman.

I don't think most men are caveman just as most women aren't weak and helpless. These are just stereotypes put on us and it seems to be the ones that want to make all of us gender neutral doing the worst stereotyping. What happened to viva la difference?

Seriously, the new form of male chauvinism is my pet peeve. Those are the guys who forgo the old civilities of treating women with respect but somehow still expect to be her idol. In other words the cavemen. Most men, fortunately, aren't like that.

I'm more offended that feminists apparently don't know the meaning of the word "centered squarely". It's obvious her crotch is slightly to the left (her right) of the center of the target.

Beautiful redhead in tight clothes spread-eagle...honestly I never noticed the Target

Seems like people are conflating the locus that the Target points to with the woman, who appears to be the projectile that has landed on the locus of the target.

The Target is not on the crotch, the crotch (or more precisely, the butt) is on the Target.

You're all missing the point! Think
of the disproportionate impact of
this ad on women and minorities (not to mention the children).

Perhaps they should consider not buying things from Target, instead of bothering the rest of us about the whole thing.

What were the "Vagina Monologues" and its numerous cultural and commercial offspring all about? Weren't they about appreciating, worshiping, and focusing attention on that Special Place on the feminine landscape? What, now they don't want the attention?

On a related note, around the time of the '06 elections (I think), I saw a news photo of demonstrators in New York with signs reading something like, "Vaginas for Peace!" There you have it: feminists (I presume) distilling their political identity down to their glory holes. And they complain when the more crass among us call them c***s. Personally, I think they're a bunch of boobs.

It's unusual to see a woman in an advertisment with so many clothes on. This one is showing the absolute minimum of skin. BTW, isn't Target a liberal-controlled company owned by former Senator Mark Dayton's family?

Feminsts and Radical Muslims have to gain more exposure to each other. They will negate and anhiliate each other, leaving the normal, sane people to go about our lives.

At any rate, send this side-splitingly funny, yet immensely true picture to any radical leftist. They will have to go to therapy after seeing it.

Crella: The male victim of the attack in Saudi Arabia also had his sentence commuted, along with the girl's. The attackers are stuck with their enhanced sentences.

As you note correctly, the girl and her companion were convicted of the Islamic crime/sin of khulwa: being in the presence of a member of the opposite sex who is unrelated, by blood or marriage, in a compromising situation.

No charge of rape was leveled against the attackers as both the girl and her attorney believed they could not muster sufficient evidence. They brought charges against the attackers some four months after the fact.

In re: the ad...

No big deal, except for those who seek to be offended.

"Target wisely told the nitwit bloggers who whined to them that they don't deal with "non-traditional media outlets.""...uh..that's all of *us* that they're talking about. Do we really want businesses that think it's cool to respond only to old, institutional media?

I still have a little bit of TGT stock (sold most of it) and don't view this as a positive in terms of Target's understanding the environment in which they live.

At least she isn't tied up.

http://www.bcotd.com/Superman's_Girl_Friend_Lois_Lane_No120_Mar_1972_DC.jpg

:)

Come on, everyone is giving us guys too much credit. She could be on top a steaming pile of manure wearing a burlap sack and guys would all be wondering if her crotch was shaved or not.

Amy --

It's downright difficult to talk to a woman's crotch; when you're both standing, her breasts are in the way. However, given a practical viewing angle, I for one do tend to look at a woman's crotch more than I look at her breasts.

I looked closely and I'm pretty sure that pussy is left of center.

The way I see it, the SNOW BOOTS are each positioned in about the middle of the white circle, as is her head with the SNOW HAT on it.

SHe's pretending to BE IN THE SNOW.

And she's centered on the TARGET. How clever of them, to use a target in their ads.

But the crotch bit is a lucky accident. :-) If she had shorter or longer legs, that wouldn't have happened.

I agree with all the above statements, that women should totally have sex with me.

You find the billboard "kicky"? Or did you mean kinky?

In any case, one nice thing about NYC, which I haven't seen in other cities I've lived in, is billboards containing women who are basically nekkid (there used to be one on Crosby, half a block north of Houston.) It's a good thing, I declare.

In NYC it was last decade established, based on equal rights that women may legally walk around outside topless, in the city.

My question is, why isn't she naked with target symbols painted on her boobs, with a man with a bare erection standing above her? That would "objectify" both sexes.

For centuries, women were property, so she should have a Target Sales tag on her big toe too that says $50.

Has anyone seen Japanese TV gameshows?! There's a law that says they have to blur labia, but no law against a school girl getting shat upon by six other girls, after sticking her head into a bowl with on the bottom, a hole.

Did you know that a good % of the modeling photography done in NYC shows breasts? Why? They are for European magazines, where that's been the norm for decades, and besides the Victorian era perhaps, even centuries.

I went to the Vatican in the 80s and all the nude statues had modern marble maple leaves glued to the naughty bits of the male statues.

Has anybody heard of PornoTube, the volunteer video site equivalent to YouTube, only with less clothes? The first e-sale was a pot deal on DARPANET between hippie computer programmers. But the first development of credit card payments, en mass was done by porn peddlers back when only about 40% of companies has web sites, most of them at the time a single page with tacky blinking star backgrounds and spinning animate "e-mail" link icons that looked like a letter flying into an envelope.

Why do they still call a curvy girl a "booty girl"? Since (in the pirate sense), "booty" was raids for half gold, half pussy. This is one reason women initiate 85% of divorces (the current rate being way over 50%) are initiated by women. They have evolved an instinct to switch sides, lest they, uh, die? And there's also the ancient rule that females usually left their home towns to join other towns (or caravans) to find a mate. That avoided mating with cousins.

Why do men objectify women? Gimme a break. Look at the glittery variety of their fashion and accessories compared to the UNIFORMS us men have to wear to not look silly! We are objectified in the assembly-line manner, the current or future thickness of our wallets as well as HEIGHT being completely fine to talk about in a family restaurant. But if us men want to talk about breast size or sexual enthusiasm, it's "cheap."

Women can and very much do search for online dates using income and especially height as criteria, but wait a minute, hey gals, where's the bra size search box and waist measurement to filter out the morbidly obese women most men don't really prefer?

I aint no feminist, but thats a vagina in a bullseye. Duh...

Snow angel??? Pshaaw.
What are you, eight years old, lady? And you give advice to people???

Hey!! Turns out the feminists later said they were very sorry and no problems - when they were told Bill Clinton designed the advertisement.

Unfortunately, this is what happens when women start wearing mens clothing, ie, pants. It naturally draws attention to the crotch. The feminists have only themselves to blame.

You guys should go to Europe sometime. Saw poster ad on the street in Birminghan in the UK for Starburst that went "Starburst really gets you juices flowing" The model was a tennis player in a short skirt, from behind in mid serve, showing her panties, which were strategically wet.

Another reason why the Fem movement will be totally changed by younger fems in the near future.

Instead of raising pure heck about why Egypt leads the world in American aid and horrific gender apartheid - they wanna worry about the wrong thing.

Femmes should insist on printing 1000's of these billboards and lobbying ME nations to display them.

"The male victim of the attack in Saudi Arabia also had his sentence commuted, along with the girl's."

Thank you, John...at first only hers was announced, I had been looking at various news sources for news on his sentence, and could not find it.

Well, they took it down.

http://clinky.blogspot.com/2008/01/people-have-right-to-know.html

Amy, for the record, I never even FILED a complaint about this ad, I AM a Target shopper, and I simply called them for a comment in "what are you thinking folks, this could be mega-misconstrued"...

I NEVER made a brouhaha, never called the press, never even engaged w/Target beyond reporting the dismissive/poor customer service response (they have had ZERO contact w/me, since I never 'formally complained!' but I hear others are receiving a 'pat-pat' e-mail...

It's amazing how facts are distorted.

Instead, Shaping Youth has been a 'target' for incivility beyond belief, since no one seems to be concerned with the FACTS here...plus, our org (which, btw, is a fledgling nonprofit, all about using the power of media for POSITIVE change, and for which I'm unpaid, not 'making a living') has had its focus hijacked/reframed and dragged through the media muck attempting to label in knee-jerk reaction sans facts as 'flaming feministas, prudes, ultra-liberal-PC OR ultra-conservative, and a gazillion unprintables and personal attacks lobbed into the mix with immense and intense cyberbullying in 'Kathy Sierra style'...

Now isn't that just ducky?

I'm amazed that this ONE "mild, mild, mild by comparison ad" is being taken DOWN without regard to the main context of what we were blogging about in the first place...just think if we had PURPOSELY TRIED to create a stir. egad.

And, btw, thank you for trying to reframe the bigger context on Warner's blog...I recognize your name there...(even if it didn't happen and ended up in the superficial idiocy of a 'one ad' context)

Not sure if you saw it or not, but at least he posted my 'final shot across the bow' comment which was this:

"Question: Has anyone bothered to read our ENTIRE blog post?---The blogosphere banter is becoming misinformed minutiae, like one of those bad games of ‘telephone’ as a kid where the message keeps getting further tweaked out of context to become ‘parenting crazies over-reacting’ in a diluted dialog of one-off ad focus.

The larger issue of normalizing objectification via mass market retail and Web 2.0 being dissed is instead being skewed into a thumbs up/thumbs down UGC opinion-style vote for ‘snowangel vs. spreadeagle.’

Objectification is a worthy discussion, but NOT this one ad alone, by ANY stretch of the imagination. Fergawdsakes, stop trivializing the part that’s newsworthy!

If you’d actually READ the rest of my piece, (toddler tees that say "Hooter Girl in Training" and "Playground Pimp" in ‘aren't we clever & amusing to use our babies as human billboards’ style) you’d see that I was REALLY railing about the fact that 'tarzhsay,' a purported 'family firm' drank the Koolaid and joined the ranks of all the other wink-n-nod hipster-wannabes that like to flirt on the edge of crass innuendo by normalizing’ objectification…and how the impact of that act relates to the APA research on adolescents.

As for the facts, (skewed again) I simply called to fact-check Target’s motivation & campaign context to try to be ‘fair’ and was dissed as ‘non-tradi

Being a VERY “core” customer, I was pondering how I should best send a nastygram to corporate, with a slap on the wrist for their short-sighted stupidity, when Lisa Ray, one of our loyal readers, picked it up in Target HQ central, and was called in for a CBS interview. From there, the viral spiral began…Senseless personal attacks sans issue focus, and media-mamas fanning the flames w/their outrage.

It’s been quite an education for us both. Two outspoken moms running two diff. orgs in two diff. parts of the country suddenly media morphed into ‘one,’ referenced interchangeably, and slammed with inaccuracy and incivility.

A brilliant lesson in media literacy to point out how discourse can devolve into sensationalized, superfluous slapfests when conversations get hijacked…

So there you have it...'for the record'...

Apologies.

This: "Target wisely told the nitwit bloggers who whined to them "

Should have read like so: "Target wisely told the nitwit blog commenter who whined to them..."

Amy: How can you make light of this terrible display?! Time has shown such ads to be completely destructive of reputations and a person's dignity. For example, check out this poster of Mel Brooks: http://www.impawards.com/1977/posters/high_anxiety.jpg I think we can all agree that this poster advertising Brooks' movie High Anxiety bears a striking ressemblance to the Target ad. Personally, I don't think Mel Brooks ever recovered from the objectivisation he experienced in this poster. As a result, Brooks has led a reclusive life ever since, and his career has completely fizzled. Frankly, I don't think anyone ever takes him seriously anymore.