Vulgarity--It's All Around Us

Is anyone else alarmed by the increasing usage of vulgar images and language in advertising? I know this sounds like an old (and old man's) refrain, but it seems in the last 3-4 weeks I've seen a whole lot of new stuff out there that's really going for the lowest common denominator. Now, you know I love words, so I can appreciate a clever play on words, even if it's pretty vulgar, but most of these aren't clever or funny.

Here is one that recently caught my eye. There's a new show on NBC called Whitney. The ad I noticed first was on the side of a bus stop on 7th Ave, and it had a picture of the title character--played by Whitney Cummings (above), loosely based on her life-- and a guy in the background (her live-in boyfriend, apparently), with this text, "Whoever invented morning sex didn't think about morning breath." Now, that's neither a new thought, nor is it a particularly clever way of phrasing it. But mostly, it's a pretty vile image, especially for a public bus stop. Now, Ms. Cummings (incidentally, Whitney Cummings is a pretty good porn name) is a fairly attractive woman, I'll give you that, but come on...