Home
In this issue
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review June 6, 2008 / 3 Sivan, 5768

The Name of the Game — Vulgarity

By Greg Crosby


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | What could be nicer than sitting down to the breakfast table, turning on the morning radio and listening to a commercial about vaginal discharge? Or watching a little TV in the evening with the kids when the erectile dysfunction ad comes on. Welcome to American radio and television commercials in the year 2008, where truly, anything goes and everything is said out loud in the basest, most explicit and crudest ways.


Regular readers of this column have heard my rant on this before. I've written about the ever expanding vulgarity of our culture many times, but just when I think there's nothing more to say about it, it gets worse. It really does. The downward spiral in civility hasn't reached bottom yet — not by a long shot. We're living smack dab in the middle of the era of ugly, and things are only going to get uglier. You can't turn on a television without getting ugly pictures, ugly words, and ugly music — it's been going in that direction for a long time.


Like wild dogs rolling in their own dirt, the creative advertising geniuses are rolling in bodily function terms that not all that long ago were considered déclassé and vulgar. It seems to work like this — one company will try a word, and if no tsunami wave of moral outrage by the public is detected, then all the other companies jump right in and use the term too.


One of their current favorites is the word mucus. It started with those commercials which showed ugly animated monsters doing the cha-cha in your chest and now all the decongestant products are happily using the word in their advertising. Robitussin actually uses the word four or five times in a single 30 second spot. They really enjoy saying it.


Used to be a time, however, when advertisers went out of their way not to offend their audience. They looked for words to convey the general idea without being crude about it. For instance, you don't have to say "mucus," the word "congestion" will work nicely without conjuring up repulsive images. The only reason to use words like "mucus" and "pus" and "phlegm" is to shock.


Another word that once was avoided in commercials but is now commonplace is "diarrhea." Of course it is used all the time now, as is the word, "constipation." Remember when the common euphemism for "constipation" in ads was "irregularity?" When they told us that Ex-lax, or whatever the product happened to be, would treat our irregularity we all got the idea just fine. We didn't need the 8x10 picture in living color.


Deodorant commercials would never have used the word "sweat" years ago, preferring the kinder, gentler approach, the word of choice back then was "perspiration."


But it isn't only the words that have become more vivid, it's the images. We are shown a woman bouncing up and down, biting her lip, rolling her eyes, and crossing her legs in that all too familiar "Oooo…I gotta go, but I'm trying to hold it in" pose. Funny stuff, eh? Boy, it must have been a riot in the agency meeting room.


TV Ads not only show it all, they rub your face in it. So not only are we told a certain product will prevent "smelly feet," we actually get see the smelly feet up close and personal, right in the camera. Lucky us.


I'm not even going to get into all the feminine personal products which are advertised so descriptively on TV. Personal is the key word here. These things USED TO BE considered personal and private, but no more. Not the way they're hawked on TV. Twelve year-old kids watching TV today know more about women's internal workings than the average gynecologist knew 25 years ago.


Every now and then you get a commercial which is not only offensive, but incomprehensible. Like the following: There's an ad for a men's sexual enhancement drug that is run on TV all the time where the last scene shows a guy sitting in a claw foot bathtub with his back to the camera. Next to him is another claw foot bathtub with a woman in it, also with her back to the camera. Both of these tubs are freestanding outside overlooking the setting sun. Get it? Me either.


The only thing I can say is thank goodness TV remote controls have mute buttons. As soon as the show goes to commercial we mute it. And turn our heads away.


Oh, what I wouldn't give to go back to the time of those innocent, insipid, dumb commercials that used to drive us nuts. "Brylcreem, a little dab'll do ya." "Mama mia! That's a spicy meat-a ball!" "Please don't squeeze the Charmin." "You'll wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent." "Good 'til the last drop." "Helps build strong bodies twelve ways." "Sugar Pops are tops!" "Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat." "See the USA in your Chevrolet." "Betcha can't eat just one!" "I'd rather fight than switch!"


Once upon a time commercial ads were annoying. Now they're insulting, rude, vulgar, low, and repulsive. And oh yes, they're still annoying.


However, there may be a way for them to actually have a positive effect on our society …if our governmental interrogators are looking for something to replace waterboarding with. Just strap down all the Khalid Sheik Mohammeds to chairs, crank up "Viva Viagra" and they'll get more information than they'll know what to do with.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Greg Crosby, former creative head for Walt Disney publications, has written thousands of comics, hundreds of children's books, dozens of essays, and a letter to his congressman. A freelance writer in Southern California, you may contact him by clicking here.

Greg Crosby Archives

© 2006, Greg Crosby

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works