The video stars Eva Amurri (Californication) and Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights), who gamely go through a parade of unfunny "solutions" to apathy about health care reform, each of which appears to be a desperate plea for relevancy, taken from someone's year-end list of what the young people are up to these days. Or maybe someone's idea of what the mythical frat boy wants.

At the end, an older idea — withholding sex to anyone who opposes health care reform — is thrown in for good measure. Updating Lysistrata to get the attention of millennials isn't original either. Back in 2004, Votergasm tried a similar trick to get young people to vote for John Kerry. Crappy video notwithstanding, let's hope the gimmick works better this time.

What Will You Do For Health Care? [Rock The Vote]

I love my Snuggie, and soon I'll probably love my necky. I'm just going to comfort myself with the fact that I'm getting it in a tasteful gray and not animal-print. Animal print is so tacky!

Also, why does almost every infomercial have to show how their item can be used "at the game"? Is there some kind of Venn diagram where the same kind of person who goes to a lot of sports games buys a lot of As Seen on TV products? At least this one makes more sense than the people wearing Snuggies at the big game.

The Necky's Official Website [Buynecky.com]

More like horrendous. And apparently, as Copyranter reports on Animal New York, no one is laughing:

The Kraft women are furious and the men embarrassed. That's understandable, especially considering that the Kraft CEO is a woman.

Okay: Chicken talk is full of ridiculous stuff — was it Frank Perdue who said "My breasts are as tender as my thighs"? But doesn't this qualifiy as sexual harassment in the workplace? Someone thought it was cheeky, or clever, or funny, but it comes off as rude and crude. It's an awkward campaign. Surely the idea was to grab people's attention, but it's been done in the worst possible way. At least they didn't incorporate the retro catchphrase, "And I helped!"

Saggy Tit Joke Right in The Kraft Headquarters Lobby [Animal New York]

On Tuesday, I went to an Accompanied Literary Society screening for Selling the Sixties,, a BBC documentary that, unfortunately, isn't scheduled to be aired in the U.S. anytime soon. But the account of how research became a tool for advertising to efficiently exploit desire, sexualizing even the most basic transactions, was so strikingly related to the conversations we have here that I begged for a DVD in order to share a relevant clip.

Whereas in the first episode of Mad Men Don throws a dour Freudian psychoanalyst's report into the garbage, it's clear from this clip that his real-life contemporaries weren't quite so dismissive. Early 60s consumers were becoming jaded and unmoved by the simple pitch. Enter Ernest Dichter, the Viennese psychoanalyst who created "motivational research," tapping into what he saw as the deepest desires of consumers.

He was also a pioneer of the focus group, including the one seen here, where a woman straightfacedly says of a salad dressing, "I think that it has a place in our American way of life."

Selling The Sixties [BBC]

The clip shows a balding middle-aged white man in the center of a circus ring. He looks nervously around, and the camera pans to show the aggressor: a black panther-woman in a gold bikini. She commands him to "dance... to the rhythm... strip!" while repeatedly calling him "baby." The cat-woman growls at him and cracks her whip while he strips down to his socks and awkwardly sways back and forth.

It's pretty clear that this man is not enjoying the experience. Melissa McEwan from Shakesville notes that the selling point is apparently that "Orangina Red will turn you into a sexually aggressive monster." She argues that there is no ambiguity to this scene of assault:

And before anyone gets it in their head to argue that this isn't a sexual assault, but instead a scene of a dominatrix and a consenting customer, I'll just note that the setting of the ad is a circus ring. She's literally treating him like a performing animal, and he appears to be utterly terrified. I am acquainted with someone who worked as a professional dominatrix for many years; men went to her to be punished, not petrified-and if someone had become visibly frightened of her, she would have stopped. Images of dominatrices thrilling in hurting scared, vulnerable men are images of sexual assault, not of anything a consent-insistent sex worker does.

However, many people will probably see this ad and think it funny, not offensive or strange. Yet try imagining it with the genders reversed: A terrified woman strips uncomfortably while a large, muscular man-animal growls at her and commands her to dance. My guess is that far fewer people would find that humorous. Once again, sexual assault committed against men is viewed as hilarious - as are violent and aggressive women.

Even without the violence, this ad is full of problems. There is the woman-reduced-to-a-cat theme, which by this point is just getting kind of tired. Call me when we start seeing some sexy rhinos (although there is a hot M&M, so I suppose even this is possible). Copyranter, posting on Animal New York, also suggests that there is an element of racial tension underlying the exchange:

It's the latest spot in Orangina's animated anthropomorphized nympho animal campaign, where we previously witnessed a giraffe-girl sniffing a rollerblading guy's ass. Now, a buff busty melanistic big cat (I'm envisioning Naomi Campbell) dominates a stereotypical White Man in a big tent setting. Is that a penis peek I spy? The spot sizzles with sexual and racial tension, RAWWRR!

That panther-thing reminds him of Naomi Campbell? This may say more about the author's views than the agency's. Either way, we can probably all agree Orangina has unleashed something that is all-around disturbing, and not at all appetizing.

Today In Rape Culture [Shakesville]
Orangina's Black Panther Dominatrix [Animal New York]

The interactive aspect of the campaign, which basically entails watching "our shower babe shake her bits to the hits at 9.30am every morning" is that you can vote on the song and the bikini. (So maybe it's not just for 18-25 year-old boys. Because it involves fashion! I vote fried egg bra.)

But okay, we know we're not the demographic for this campaign. As I recently learned, YouTube is the ultimate arbiter of the viral video sensibility (especially when it literally involves bathroom humor!), and the rest of us are a gaggle of idiots who have nothing better to do than to suck the last drop of humor out of life." So what's the word from the people on the audition outtakes the agency calculatedly loaded to YouTube?

Oh. Okay. So it's unanimous.

Singing In The Shower [Burger King UK]
Singing In The Shower Auditions [YouTube]

Related: The Last Word On Method's Horny Shiny Suds [AdRants]

Earlier: Ladyblog Commenters Ruin Everything

You'll note that the word "manifesto" is separated into two parts, so that men, who apparently need to be reminded how to be men, will be able to identify that this is a very manly ad campaign. The word "man" is right there! And just in case men didn't get the memo that Dockers were some hardcore ass-kickin' gender-defining threads, the man-ifesto itself is filled with sexist, homophobic, patronizing bullshit that speaks, in Campbell's Chunky Soup badass font, to what is apparently a target demo of 17 year old douchebags in order to promote the notion that wearing Dockers is akin to be a true grown up. Because there's nothing as adult as being marketed to by the same type of people who used sassy fonts and bad-ass lingo in your youth to try convince both you and your parents that "when pizza is on a bagel, you can eat pizza anytime," right?

Let's break this pants-ifesto down, shall we?

Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that's what they did.

Ladies, were you aware that men took charge in the olden days because "that's what they did?" Or were you too busy in the kitchen, where you belong?

But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny.

Translation: if you don't wear khakis, you're totally gay.

But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for.

Oh man, ladies. If we had a quarter for every time someone in our genderless society asked a question that had no answer, we'd, well, we'd be making an equal wage with our male counterparts.

The world sits by idly as cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes.

The whole bloody world is falling apart because YOU didn't buy your father his Dockers for Christmas! Now is a time for heroes! The first time since...bad guys, whatever the hell that means.

We need grownups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It's time to get your hands dirty. It's time to answer the call of manhood. It's time to wear the pants.

Amen, am I right? Thank the lord that men in khakis will finally swoop in to "untie the world from the tracks of complacency." And what kind of bro eats salad!? Whatever! You need to get in line with the anti-khaki disco crowd, bro! Salad! Lattes! East Coast elitism! Men in khakis will finally save us from the world of...other men in khakis!

Can I tell you something about Dockers? My father loves them. Wears them when he's golfing or on a casual business day. They are stain resistant and wrinkle free. They look nice with a sweater or a golf shirt. They are sturdy and reliable and reasonably-priced and my mother has been buying them at the mall for approximately 20 years.

Now let me tell you something about my father: he's helped to raise three daughters, he takes his job very seriously, helps neighbors and friends whenever he can, and has been happily married to my mother for over 35 years. My father is a grownup. This ad campaign is not aimed at my dad. It is aimed at men who have absolutely NO intention of growing up, but every intention of claiming every stereotypical "man" role as a means to act as if they've crossed some great developmental threshold. If anyone has to grow up, it's the advertisers who keep pushing this sexist, backwards bro culture down everyone's throats.

[Dockers]

Last week, household cleaning company Method apologized for and withdrew a web video it had created as part of a campaign for more stringent labeling of household products. The video, made by Droga5, depicted catcalling chemical bubbles ganging up on a naked woman in a shower.

The Ad Age story all but comes out and blames the harridans for ruining the creative fun:

Household cleaner marketer Method has pulled down a viral video roundly applauded by marketers at the Association of National Advertisers annual conference last month and by most viewers who've seen it because of heated complaints from some women who view it as sexist and even condoning rape....

The video got more than 700,000 views in a week on YouTube and a five-star rating from viewers before Method pulled the plug. Method competitor Unilever seemed to like it, too....Little did attendees at the ANA or most commenters on YouTube and Twitter know, however, that the Shiny Suds were really about degrading women and promoting rape, at least in the opinion of commenters on one blog, Shakesville, which posted the video in its "Today in Rape Culture" section.

Feminist blog commenters (yes, on Shakesville, but also on Feministing, and on Feminist Law Professors and right here on Jezebel, and on uncounted emails to us and to Method) must be bigger bullies than... chemical soap bubbles? Fellow officers of the P.C. police, let us use our powers responsibly. Or maybe, just maybe, a commercial that visibly alienates your ostensible core consumer simply isn't good business.

Method Pulls 'Shiny Suds' Ad After Sexism Complaints [Advertising Age]

Earlier: Cleaning Company Pulls Shiny Suds Video, Apologizes For Any Offense We Caused

The video was part of a campaign the natural cleaning products company launched to support the Household Products Labeling Acts, which would require full disclosure of harmful chemicals in cleaning products. Method hired Droga5, an agency known for its successful use of digital and viral video campaigns. It went viral, all right, but probably not in the way the company hoped.

We've been getting emails all week from disgusted consumers, who were put off by the image of a woman cowering naked in the shower, victimized by her use of chemical-based products. As Hortense put it when she posted the video last weekend,

I'm really tired of the "advocacy" that relies upon humiliating women to push a point (see also: PETA). Why couldn't the dirty bubbles get drunk on their own chemicals and trash the bathroom? Why couldn't they leave graffiti all over the shower walls? Why couldn't they "move in" and start stinking up the place? Why does a woman have to get in the shower and get naked in front of a bunch of pervy bubbles, who essentially tell her she deserves it for putting them there in the first place (sound familiar?) so that Method soap can scare us all into switching over from Scrubbing Bubbles? The woman is seriously humiliated by the bubbles, who compliment her on her "core" and scream "Loofah! Loofah!" over and over again as they watch her wash up. It's supposed to be funny. So why does it make me feel so gross?

To its credit, Method appears to be responding to each of the complaints in detail, and on Wednesday, representatives informed emailers that the video had been taken down. (It's still available on some blogs, and we grabbed it just in case). We also contacted Droga5's CEO, Andrew Essex, for comment, but he said he would be unable to comment on the record. Here's a statement Method's spokeswoman just sent us:

"Thank you for your sincere feedback about our "Shiny Suds" video. It was not at all our intent to offend or promote any form of harassment. We understand the concerns associated with our video and are removing it from YouTube and all other controlled sources.

We heard and understood all of the feedback and concerns we received about the Shiny Suds video. We have removed the video from YouTube and other controlled sources, and we have reached out to every person who contacted us to let them know that we removed the video. We also apologized for any offense we caused.

Our intent in this campaign was to raise awareness for transparency in cleaning product labeling, and we will continue to push for that. I'm not sure if you recall, but at the end of the video, there was a link to a page where people could learn more about the Household Products Labeling Acts and submit letters to their representatives in support of the proposed legislation. Shortly after the video was released, more than 600 people had sent letters.

Method is a brand that is constantly growing and striving to improve. We've learned a great deal from this experience, and those learnings will certainly help us as we work on future projects."

So what do you think? Those of you who vowed to switch to Seventh Generation, is this good enough?

Earlier: Ladies, It's Your Fault That The Perverted Bubbles In Your Shower Exist