US insurer punts 'bestiality' to wide-eyed kiddies, gasp 'mums' US insurance outfit Geico has incurred the wrath of campaigning group One Million Moms for punting a "disgusting bestiality" agenda at wide-eyed kiddies. In an advert for the Geico's mobile phone roadside assistance app, the company's porcine mascot Maxwell "and a young female are in a parked car on a lover's lane", as One …
"fed up with the filth many segments of our society, especially the entertainment media, are throwing at our children".
- Is that Fox News they're referring to, or the Hollywood studios that put out the likes of Saw?
I'd personally rather see a girl flirting with a pig than someone being tortured to death, but clearly my values are in the wrong place.
"Last time I looked Saw and it's ilk had an 18 rating, so hardly being thrown at children?
How easily children might have access to adult entertainment is another question."
Ok: So watching people get tortured for two hours is socially acceptable entertainment, so long as you're not a child.
Sounds legit!
I know of no one that views Saw as "socially acceptable entertainment" and I know some really sick f*cks.
The fact that it exists only means that it's legal to produce. Based on that, there's nothing you can really imply regarding it's level of social acceptance.
"I know of no one that views Saw as "socially acceptable entertainment" and I know some really sick f*cks.
The fact that it exists only means that it's legal to produce. Based on that, there's nothing you can really imply regarding it's level of social acceptance."
I think the fact that there was enough money to be made by a major studio to produce SEVEN films in the franchise implies an awful lot about its level of social acceptance. These aren't straight-to-DVD releases. The earlier films made a big impact at the box office. Personally I'd rather do pretty much anything else other than watch such crap, but clearly a large section of society enjoys watching people being tortured and is willing to pay for it.
As regards the sick-fuck-o-meter, Saw sadly barely registers on the scale next to the likes of A Serbian Film.
We look back with disgust at the idea of Romans crowding in to watch people stab each other with swords, but I don't think we're far from it with the likes of such films.
As overheard in GameStop...
Employee: "I'm sorry, but we can't sell you this game without a parent's permission. It's rated M for 'mature'."
Prepubescent kid: "I've got my cousin here!"
Employee: "I'm sorry, but the answer is still no."
Kid: "But my parents let me watch Saw!"
I think those one million moms should be more concerned with the other hundred million in the country than what a commercial suggests might otherwise happen with a talking pig that drives a car.
It's a front group for the America Family Association who are proactive in taking offence at everything which does not conform with their far right Christian outlook. In other countries they could be ignored, or laughed at (as they are here). For some reason in the US, these people hold views which are taken seriously.
A million moms may only be 1-2% of the moms in USA, but they are organised and that is what makes them reasonably influential. The remaning 98% who are not offended say nothing so their voice is not heard.
One of these people told me what he and his organisation does. Every month, his wife buys Penthouse, Playboy etc magazines. She then cuts out the nude girls and passes the rest of the magazine to him. He then compiles a list of all the advertisers in the magazines and sends out an email to his group of a few hundred comrades. They all then post letters to the advertisers saying that they will not buy from them because they advertise in offensive magazines.
OK, so I'll make an ungenerous assumption about why *she* cuts out all the nude girls, but that still leaves me wondering why *he* compiles the list of advertisers. (IT angle: given that he can't start compiling the list until the magazine has been made safe, the process is strictly serialised, so they can't even claim it is more efficient this way.)
"For some reason in the US, these people hold views which are taken seriously."
These people would certainly like you to believe that they are taken seriously, but they are probably responsible for the under-performance of the Republicans in recent years. I'm sure Barack Obama reckons Sarah Palin was a gift from God. Like terrorists, there are probably fewer of them than they'd like you to believe.
Having never seen the gecko adverts, I can't possibly comment on their artistic merit. However, I'm willing to bet that it's about a million times better than (not even dignifying them with a name) having an opera singer as their mascot, then trying to make up for it by repeatedly killing him.
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Even my gf sometimes jokingly uses that phrase whenever she's over and I left some laundry in my bedroom instead of the laundry basket near the washing machine, or when its really time to clean the sink while I figured I'd do that "next week"...
So what do those "One Million Moms" think about that ? Have they never called us men pigs, ever ?
But to join in on the stereotyping a bit; I wonder how many of those moms are blond. Because for all we know this insurance company took their own insurance on this project and were actually hoping that they'd stir the pot. Because thanks to them, and "One Million Moms" of course, now One Million Reg Readers have also taken notice of this commercial.
Mission accomplished!
(because ask yourself this: what would be the sole purpose of a controversial commercial ?)
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So one million mothers are all up in arms with the prospect that the pig might pork the young lady but they're absolutely fine with him owning his own car and driving it. When it comes down to it the pigs intentions were, if a little naive, nothing but honorable. He's driven her up there for a romantic night in his classic VW cabriolet to do nothing more than look at the stars. We could probably conclude that he has a pretty good job to own such a car and is an upright pillar of the community. It's no wonder the young lady was seeking some corkscrew action, our truffle finding protagonist is obviously quite a catch in todays society. One million mothers need to realise that america needs more VW owning, nice guy pigs, they should be celebrated not condemed for they are the future!
The stupid complaining about the silly.
The Yanks really haven't got a clue. They're steeped in stupid religions, teach crap like creationism to their children and insist on the "right" of everyone to carry sidearms.They're just another version of the Middle Eastern bigots.
Just stupid.
How's that secular, gun-free utopia that is Britain working out for you?
Actually Britain is a statistical anomaly. Low gun ownership rates usually correlates to high murder rates at the national level, but somehow they manage a low murder rate in spite of their low gun ownership rate. I'm not sure I'd call it a utopia, but they're doing SOMETHING (that likely has nothing to do with guns) right. I strongly suspect the 'something right' is more social than legal.
"Actually Britain is a statistical anomaly. Low gun ownership rates usually correlates to high murder rates at the national level, but somehow they manage a low murder rate in spite of their low gun ownership rate. I'm not sure I'd call it a utopia, but they're doing SOMETHING (that likely has nothing to do with guns) right. I strongly suspect the 'something right' is more social than legal."
Maybe it's the police not routinely having firearms either that does it. After all: We're nearly unique in that factor.
*stands back and waits for explosion*
Maybe it's the police not routinely having firearms either that does it. After all: We're nearly unique in that factor.
I doubt that, but I'll admit it's a possibility. Maybe when I get the time I'll look at some of the other anomalies in that particular set of statistics (like Sweden) and see if they have that in common with you. However I still think that the largest contributing factors to your low murder rate are going to be social, or possibly economic (I think, but I'm not sure, that you also have an extremely low poverty rate over there), and have absolutely nothing to do with guns or the lack thereof.
"I doubt that, but I'll admit it's a possibility. Maybe when I get the time I'll look at some of the other anomalies in that particular set of statistics (like Sweden) and see if they have that in common with you. However I still think that the largest contributing factors to your low murder rate are going to be social, or possibly economic (I think, but I'm not sure, that you also have an extremely low poverty rate over there), and have absolutely nothing to do with guns or the lack thereof."
Define 'poverty rate'. We have plenty of 'poor' people, but ultimately there are safety nets there to stop most people being so poor that violent crime is the only alternative. We have a healthcare system that doesn't let mentally ill people go uncared for, or charges them more than they can afford for medication. We have a higher education system and social aid for youths that doesn't simply turn them out on the streets at 18. And we have a criminal justice system that is sufficiently 'soft' on non-violent crime to ensure that no burglar or petty criminal in their right mind would consider trying to get hold of a firearm or resort to lethal force in order to avoid arrest.
Say what you like about left-leaning social policies, but they do at least stop most of the people at the bottom of the pile from turning to lethal force. Take away those last-chances for the poor and deranged and you're left with desperate people with nothing to lose.
I'm pretty sure that the lack of easily accessible point-and-click corpse-making devices has a fair bit to do with it too though. A lot of causes are socio-economic and cultural, but the UK is probably socially closer to the US than 90% of nations on this planet.
I'm pretty sure that the lack of easily accessible point-and-click corpse-making devices has a fair bit to do with it too though
As I mentioned before, there's a very strong correlation between high gun ownership rates and low murder rates on the national level. That's why I don't thank your gun policy has much to do with it. Even here, where there's a gun and a half for everyone in the nation, guns are only the 3rd most common murder weapon (knives and blunt objects are numbers one and two). If you count drunk drivers who kill someone as murderers (the law does in some states) then guns drop to number 4.
But I think you might have nailed it there. Here, and in most other parts of the world, it's not difficult for someone to become so poor that they have to steal their next meal. Also we have the rather annoying habit of tossing teens who got caught shoplifting a CD into the same juvenile detention facility as hardened gangbangers. That probably doesn't help matters. And, frankly, our foster care system is a freaking nightmare. The stories my wife can tell from having grown up in foster care are truly horrifying (but then her stories from before the foster care system are even worse).
As for healthcare, hell I'm comfortably in the middle class and medical bills can be a burden for me here. Even just having a baby is prohibitively expensive here. I'm not talking about feeding and caring for them. I'm talking about the $5k that it costs to have a doctor there to play catch. I can't imagine trying to pay medical bills on half of what I make (or less!).
The UK and the US are pretty close, both socially and politically, but the few differences between us are massive ones.
"How's that secular, gun-free utopia that is Britain working out for you?"
Also great for me too..
But here's another thing about many Americans. If you dare criticise anything to do with America, they automatically assume that we are saying that Britain is "best". It's that jingoistic attitude they are brought up with, such as their sickenly over-patriotic allegiance to the flag crap they do everyday in school.
I think life in Britain is much better than life in America for many different reasons (I have many close American friends). Do I think Britain is the best place to live?
No - I am ready to admit and confront our problems, and not bury my head in the sand,. Secondly, I'm not arrogant to make such a statement when I know very little about the vast majority of countries in the world.
Hey!
Not all of us!
Some of us have lived to other countries, read and listen to media other than CNN, FOX or the local "Top 40" station, and are a tad embarassed about our country's behaviour on the world stage. But we're outnumberd...by a million moms who spend their time worrying about the quality of our TV commercials (which, I admit, are not up to the quality of those shown in the rest of the world). Some of the best commercials I've seen would cause rioting in the streets if shown on US TV.
We're trying, but it's an Sisyphean task...
But we're outnumberd...
We're not THAT outnumbered. At least not as outnumbered as it seems. The volume with which an American spews their rant is inversely proportional to their intelligence, so the dumb ones are a lot louder than those of us with more than rocks between our ears.
>Sisyphean task...
Hey, who are you calling a sissy here?
But, agree with Peter Simpson here... I was watching the start of the Oscar ceremony, when the 'I saw your boobs' song started. A distressed 'mom' quickly changed the channel until the song was over.
Sigh.
Dunno what icon to use here: sad face, thumb down, get my coat... Probably the 'won't someone think of the children!'.
On their home page - "There has been some confusion recently in the media and on the Internet concerning One Million Moms, a conservative, Christian group affiliated with American Family Association since 2001. We, One Million Moms, are not affiliated with the group One Million Moms for Gun Control. "
It's good to see they're focussing on the hard hitting issues like pigs in car insurance commercials instead of that other group of wasters and their "please stop killing our kids with guns" agenda. I'm glad they've cleared up the confusion.
It sounds more like the squabbling between the Judeans People's Front and the People's Front of Judea.
(Yes, I went there with the Monty Python reference. (Where's the Graham Chapman icon when you need it?))
Sorry but having seen the ad too many times, I never once thought about beastie love.
Actually pedophilia did cross my mind because this pig seems to act like a kid in most of the commercials where he's featured. (Remember the one where he's in the back seat of the car on a ride home from school? )
Yeah, its a dumb commercial. Just as bad as the overacting Gecko. However the fact that we know this means that they are effective ads.
But lets boycott their products not because of the Million Mommies who do enough damage to their childrens' mental health but because they make silly commercials.
And on the note of using fake animals in commercials, lets start a petition to bring back Gilbert Godfrey as the voice of the AFLAC duck! I think he learned his lesson ....
Must be a voice activated app. Although if the pig has worked out how to drive a car and pick up young women, dealing with screen capacitance should be a doddle for it. I'm pretty sure I read that the South Koreans use little pork sausages on their mobile screens in winter when they are wearing gloves, so a pig would have that built in!
I don't see a problem broadcasting the advert but it doesn't actually make sense to me unless you assume that a girl wants to "make out with" a pig, which is a little odd surely?
Mind you we have adverts where cups want things dunking in them, firemen squirt their hoses in a woman's throat and all manner of other illogical crud so I suppose it's normal for advertising.
"I don't see a problem broadcasting the advert but it doesn't actually make sense to me unless you assume that a girl wants to "make out with" a pig, which is a little odd surely?"
Not as odd as our one where the mobbed-up panda makes a thinly disguised reference to disposing of a corpse, and discusses what kind of biscuit he enjoys in the wake of such activity.
"The panda advert makes perfect sense. If pandas realised they were omnivores and just ate people they'd not be in the mess they are now, instead they're stuck eating biscuits and looking cute."
A species whose only source of nutrition does not provide them with sufficient calories to fuck has painted itself in a evolutionary corner.
Some things are extinct for a reason.
Like most American lobbying groups, you have to assume that they are the opposite of what the name implies. There aren't a million of them, and they mostly aren't "moms".
As for their affiliated organization, the American Family Organization is in favor of families... so long as they comprise a churchgoing working father, an obedient stay-at-home mother, and a gaggle of well-scrubbed kids that were conceived by pleasure-free sex within marriage. Anything else is not a "real" family.
If the first thought that comes into your head is bestiality, then I have to wonder about how your mind works. Hell, I've seen prim-and-proper people slobber all over their dogs and let them "kiss" them, not to mention the whole rubbing-the-belly thing. Just quite where do you set the bar so that you don't throw them in prison too?
Minnie Mouse and Goofy are always flirting. Jessica Rabbit was sleeping with a rabbit (and she was a cartoon in herself, who flirted with a human). God-knows what Bert and Ernie are but they are hardly innocent themselves. Just what level of nonsense would you like to extend this complaint to?
Are children going to rush out to sleep with pigs after seeing that advert? No more than usual. Are they going to rush out and blow someone's head off because they saw Bond do it? No more than usual.
If you have to draw a line, and say "this is okay" and "this is not", it can't be a wiggly one. It has to be a straight line. And that would mean that cartoons I grew up with would all be banned (everything from Scooby through to Tom & Jerry), you wouldn't be able to rub a dog on its belly (and certainly not in public!), and you wouldn't be able to own any weapon whatsoever, or any Hollywood title since its inception (everything from smoking to murder to gore to sex!).
Of all the things in the world to worry about, I think this advert is the last thing on my mind. And if I did ever get round to worrying about it, I'd quickly snap out of it and tell people to get on with their lives.
when all he was saying was WEEEEEEEE! now they are just plain creepy
I think the joke is meant to be the fact nobody notices he is a pig..
The bloody gecko is just as annoying and gives ex pats a real bad reputation
if progressive and geico merge will we have lipstick on a pig? (there is not much discernible difference between flo and the pig anyway)
Perhaps, instead of fussing over something that only exists in their own depraved minds, they should cast their attention to the disgusting ritual of child beauty pageants.
Dolling 5 year old girls up to like like low class prostitutes is little short of paedophilia.
F*ck the pig (metaphorically, of course)
It's a good job those 'moms' haven't seen the 1980s Cadbury's Caramel adverts.
Half the animal kingdom seems to have the hots for a rabbit (sexily voiced by a lesbian, no less).
In one of them you even get to see a naked beaver while in another the rabbit indulges in a bit of face-sitting on a mole.
If the moms saw all that, their heads would probably explode!
* well, by a loose definition of chocolate anyway.
"Million" moms - for sufficiently small values of "million".
Like many other organizations, they try to make their numbers sound bigger than they are.
And why aren't they bitching about Family Guy? - not only have they frequently had the dog date human women, he has even sired progeny by them.
Be reassured, my fine Brits, we Americans pay as much heed to these wastes of baryonic matter as they deserve - roughly as much attention as the damage a small yellow bulldozer would suffer running over a man in a bathrobe laying in front of it.
Joe Jervis regularly features the latest insanity from OMM on his gay-oriented blog, Joe. My. God. (findable via Google). I forget the exact figure, but someone checked Facebook and found that OMM had about forty thousand "likes". The suspicion is often voiced that OMM is just one person with a very dirty mind who sees filth everywhere.
Regular readers of El Reg are likely to get a kick out of Joe. My. God.'s regular features of homophobic nuts, if only for the comedy value. Particularly recommended is a dude who styles himself "Third Eagle of the Apocalypse and Co-prophet of the End Times."
Meanwhile in the UK, we get Rebecca Loos wanking a pig. Yes, really.
Caution: Contains corkscrew dong. And bloody hell, that little bugger's productive.
Tiny, unrepresentative group in UK advocates stupidity
<US Reg Readers> What a stupid group.
<UK Reg Readers> What a bloody stupid group.
Tiny, unrepresentative group in the US advocates stupidity
<US Reg Readers> What a stupid group.
<UK Reg Readers> ARGH AMERICANS ARE STUPID AND FAT AND BLOODY FAT STUPID CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS PEOPLE WITH STUPID RELIGIONS AND FAT STUPIDITY! FUCK THE FUCKING FAT STUPID AMERICAN WORLD POLICEMEN GUN TOTING REDNECK RELIGIOUS STUPID FAT PEOPLE!!! AARRGH STUPID BLOODY FAT PEOPLE! AND ALL THEY THINK ABOUT IS AMERICA AMERICA AMERICA!!! THEY'RE FUCKING OBSESSED WITH AMERICA! FUCKING AMERICANS! USELESS GITS! FAT FAT FAT TOURISTS AMERICANS GUNS RELIGION AMERICANS!!!!!
Seriously - I really don't get it. I live in the rural US, in a place where you see truck nuts and every trailer has an American flag, and I have yet to speak to anyone so utterly obsessed with America as UK Reg readers seem to be. What's going on, guys? I hadn't even heard of these jokers before - god knows nobody in the US pays any attention to them.
If you want to take a country to task for its policies, fine, but why to Reg readers obsess over the social conservatism of the US, where gay marriage is only a matter of time, and a significant majority of the population supports it - but never criticize France, that bastion of European enlightenment, where they had weeks of huge, enraged protests from their own religious right over the same thing?
Despite being an American, I don't consider this 'the best country', despite some other posters in this thread seeming to think it's a universal trait.
But I don't think it's "jingoistic" to take exception to, as a response to an article about some religious windbags, be the target of:
"How sex with a beast is different to sex with an American?"
"The Yanks really haven't got a clue. They're steeped in stupid religions... and insist on the "right" of everyone to carry sidearms.They're just another version of the Middle Eastern bigots."
"Bloody Americans..."
"...in the US, these people hold views which are taken seriously."
Is it just me, or is it a bit ironic for a forum full of guys to go on a collective nationalistic rant which judges a country of 280 million people by the actions of a few thousand, while simultaneously attacking those people as being ignorant of other countries?
Here's a hint, guys: Most people in the US favor gun control. Most people favor gay marriage. We have gays in the military and will soon have women in combat. And for a nation supposedly consisting only of obsessively celibate, sex-hating religious freaks, we have an awfully big porn industry, and do not, as a matter of fact, have a broad and ill-defined 'extreme porn law' that prevents adults from looking at pictures of adults, nor do we have an organization which acts on its own and without supervision or oversight but can exert enough pressure to ban web sites at will.
Yeah, the US has a lot fat people and a lot of gun nuts and a lot of religious freaks. I get it. But you guys are tarring an entire nation based on the wild opinions of a tiny, tiny minority.
Remember that the US is only a bit smaller than Europe taken as a whole. Would the UK people here think it reasonable of me to accuse them of being rabid anti-semites because Hungary's foreign minister suggested that Jews should be identified and tracked as a danger to the state? Would Germans be pleased at being lumped in with France's ultranationalists? Are Finns and Swedes supposed to take responsibility for Greek financial profligacy and Italian chauvinism?
What's truly strange is that most Reg readers are Americans, yet the vast, vast majority of jingoistic vitriol is directed at Americans from Britons - and the vitriol is often specifically based on Americans being jingoistic and attacking other countries!
I used to be quite a fan of the UK, and to a lesser extent, Europe in general - but at this point I'm starting to feel like I actually really wouldn't be welcome in Britain or on the continent. You've managed to hate the United States' (largely-imagined) self-righteous hatred so much that you've become it yourselves.
I don't have many experiences of Americans going on forums and doing the equivalent of the Reg forumites referring to Americans as stupid, fat, inbred, violence-loving fundamentalists. And yet we're seen as - and hated for! - being the mean ones and the aggressors.
Sigh.
Remember that the US is only a bit smaller than Europe taken as a whole. Would the UK people here think it reasonable of me to accuse them of being rabid anti-semites because Hungary's foreign minister suggested that Jews should be identified and tracked as a danger to the state? Would Germans be pleased at being lumped in with France's ultranationalists? Are Finns and Swedes supposed to take responsibility for Greek financial profligacy and Italian chauvinism?
Yes, the Germans are lumped in with France's ultranationalists, the Finns and Swedes are supposed to take responsibility for our Greek and Italian friend's deeds, as is the rest of the EU in one way or another and we all suffer under whatever stupid statement the Hungarian foreign minister might or might not have uttered.
That is one of the reasons why the EU is not so popular at times...
Want to join the club? You know it all started with a free trade agreement...
Cheers!
"but never criticize France, that bastion of European enlightenment, where they had weeks of huge, enraged protests from their own religious right over the same thing?"
The difference is that we already hate France anyway.
Whereas we're at least on speaking terms with America.
Also: We can get our smug sense of superiority over the French by knowing that they'd surrender if someone fired a pop-gun over the Channel, whereas we have to feel socially superior to the US, lacking the manpower to kick their asses in civilised warfare.
"Also: We can get our smug sense of superiority over the French by knowing that they'd surrender if someone fired a pop-gun over the Channel..."
I don't know about that - as The Economist pointed out, Hollande has something to prove. He might call your bluff on that one, and take you unawares - and before you know it, the royal family will have met the headsman and the King of England will speak French once again.
@David W - take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. It's OK.....
Unfortunately, the Internet at large, with the Reg as only a microcosm of it, is one gigantic Lord Of the Flies. When the kiddies decide something is acceptable to hate, even desirable, then that thing is hated with all the fervor of the 5 minute hate in 1984 - be that something Justin Bebier, or Windows 8, or the US. 90% of the haters are ignorant of the thing they purport to hate; the only information about it they have is what they've heard from the other kiddies, and have no more direct experience of it than the common prole did of Emmanuel Goldstein - they just hate because it is expected.
being a front for a Christian organisation, they are ok with a talking serpent seducing the first woman into eating a forbidden apple, but a pig (obviously meant to represent the person who has purchased a contract from the company) driving a car and being seduced by/suffering the advances of a woman is a bad thing?
Religion...go figure!
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