Fashion designer Calvin Klein has done it again: He’s created yet another controversial advertisement designed to raise eyebrows. It’s a television commercial so provocative, it’s been banned in America. (It’s also getting Klein a ton of attention.)
The spot for Klein’s new Secret Obsession fragrance features a nude Eva Mendes rolling around in bed. What really steamed up American censors is that viewers get a full-on shot of the sultry starlet’s boob — nipple and all.
The new ad is hardly the Nipplegate that was Janet and Justin‘s half-time boobie shot, but at least one person is spitting mad. Fabien Baron, the ad’s creative director says, “You must be kidding me. This country really needs a new president — this country is so messed up. It’s such a joke and it’s quite upsetting, frankly, how hypocritical this country has become. It’s OK for children to see people killed by guns? Spreading a little love right now would be a good idea.”
Of course, Baron grew up in France where people are not terrified of a breast.
This isn’t the first time Klein’s ads have come under scrutiny. In 1981, Klein got into a lot of hot water (and banned from CBS)when the now-infamous television commercial for his blue jeans featured a 15-year-old Brooke Shields looking at the camera and purring, “You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.”
The Shields commercial makes Miley Cyrus‘ Vanity Fair pose look kittenish.
In the 1990s, Klein was criticized for featuring scrawny model Kate Moss in campaigns and later for contributing to “heroin chic” for ads that depicted waifish young men and women with jutting bones and circles under the eyes.
That was also the decade Klein introduced those shots of an underwear-clad Mark “Marky Mark” Wahlberg grabbing his crotch, which, at the time, not everyone was nuts about. (Pardon the pun.)
Klein courts controversy and why not? He gets more free press that way. His new Mendes commercial may not be make it on television in the States, but it will become an internet sensation.
Here’s a link to the Mendes clip, but it is definitely NSFW. Unless you work from home. (Or for Calvin Klein.)
What do you think? Are these kind of ads too provocative for television? Or, is America messed up for depicting violence on TV and then shirking from a boob? Give us your opinion.
