Ad Rant

By now I'm guessing most people out there have seen Diesel's new 'Be Stupid' ad campaign. Some have claimed that the ads are not about 'dumbing down', but about living in the now, being creative, doing what your heart wants instead of what's 'best' in a rational, rigid world. Now, I would be all for that if all the ads actually expressed that sentiment, but the most prevalent ad shows a girl exposing herself to a security camera with the tagline: 'Smart has the brains, but stupid has the balls. Be stupid.'
So... I guess throwing caution to the wind and being creative has more to do with showing my breasts Girls-Gone-Wild-style than bettering myself with a career and education.
I don't mean to be one of those people who takes things too seriously, after all it's just an ad, but we also can't just sit back, shrug our shoulders, and act as if this isn't partially a reflection of society's view of women. Because the fact is that to a lot of people it's much more acceptable - and far less threatening - for a young woman to act ditzy and 'fun' than it is for her to be serious and studious. I just don't see why an ad can't be witty and empowering. Why does being 'ballsy' for a woman automatically correlate to her exposing herself or taking pictures of her crotch? Is the the only way to be spontaneous as a woman to be loose with your own body?
Of course not, but sex sells, and so does the humor of the ads - which also is what tells us not to take them so seriously. But the bottom line is that such ads reaffirm the idea that women are often respected more for their looks than their intellect, and hint that looking sexy in Diesel jeans (or out of them) is going to get you more places than dedicating yourself to enriching your mind. To me, I think it's a bit optomistic to feel that (as cheapjab.com stated): "It’s telling me not to go to law school and be a lawyer and save my money so I can eventually do what I really want to do, which is be a writer; it’s telling me to write now, even if it puts me on the poverty line." Maybe that poverty explains why the women have no clothes in most of the ads?

Everyone's free to take these ads as seriously or lightly as they like. They aren't likely to cause any girls to drop out of college to go pursue playboy, but I think we have to admit to ourselves that they definitely are there to titillate and that they do nothing to play down the Britney Spears-like mentality for women to flaunt their bodies rather than brains for attention and affection. It's disappointing that a company like Diesel, which has done some pretty creative ads in its past, would take the easy way out by using some exposed flesh to stir up buzz. The company might end up feeling what many of us did after all our crazy college days of spontaneous, 'ballsy' abandon: regret.