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Too Much Cleavage?

April 22nd, 2010

I know guys settle down!  I know how you feel about the girls, the twins, the fun bags, jugs and boom-booms but that’s not how ABC & FOX execs feel.  Well at least they seem not to like the rack of lamb Lane Bryant is serving up.

Everyone is buzzing about Lane Bryant’s “too sexy for TV” ad.  Lane Bryant said ABC refused to show the commercial during “Dancing with the Stars” because it bared too much cleavage.  The Fox Network also put up a roadblock and demanded excessive re-edits and rebuffed it three times before relenting to air it during the final 10 minutes of “American Idol”.

So I don’t get it with this Lane Bryant ad.  I’ve seen the ad and nothing sticks out to me (pun intended).  If you ask me there is worse programming and commercials out there than a “full-figured” woman wearing a bra and panties.  ABC (Disney Company) airs Cougar Town – which had a memorable scene that implied Courtney Cox’s character administering oral sex to her date.  And Fox airs Glee (which is usually good clean fun) – which glamorized teenagers losing their virginities to Madonna’s Like a Virgin this week.   

I mean where do you draw the line?  In the 1950s, TV couldn’t show married couples sleeping in the same bed. In the ’60s, exposing the bellybutton of I Dream of Jeannie‘s Barbara Eden was risqué.  Braless jiggles on Charlie’s Angels were considered daring in the ’70s. But by the ’90s, the expanse of adult-themed content on premium channels such as HBO and sex-infused music videos on MTV made baring the derriere of a hefty NYPD Blue cop acceptable to the masses on ABC.

Granted most of these commercials and TV shows nowadays are meant to be extreme to start buzz about their products.  It’s all part of the show.  In today’s economy with budgets shrinking, advertisers often feel forced to come up with buzz-worthy campaigns to survive.  Whether or not the Lane Bryant incident is 100% true I don’t know.  But I would really hate to think that ABC & FOX wouldn’t air this spot because a “full-figured” model was used over a “skinny” model.

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