Children's brand awareness

People are saying that the playboy stationery is harmless as children don't know what the rabbit symbol means.

I would argue that children are far more brand aware than we think.

A while ago I was watching tv with my 3 year old nephew. We saw an advert for Mars bars. There was no reference to chocolate in the entire advert - no shot of a chocolate bar. At the end of the advert the Mars logo appeared on the screen and the voice over said 'Mars - pleasure you can't measure' (again, no mention of chocolate). After the advert, my nephew said 'I like that chocolate' - 3 years old and he recognises the Mars brand!

What does the Playboy bunny say to girls? Girls should wear pink and make themselves look pretty for boys? I don't know but I don't think they're as naive as we'd like to think.

Vicar pulls down Playboy stationery

This article appeared in the Telegraph today. I wonder if we could join this protest? Something should be done, I think there is enough outrage now to really change things. Well done Tim Jones! I wish I'd done it!

Vicar pulls down Playboy stationery display
By Lucy Cockcroft
Last Updated: 2:19AM BST 22/05/2008

A vicar was so incensed to see Playboy stationery stacked on a shop shelf next to children’s merchandise that he decided to take direct action, and pulled down the display.
The Reverend Tim Jones, 40, said the pornography empire deliberately aims the bright pink pencil cases and note books, branded with the distinctive bunny logo, at young girls.
So, he decided to take a stand and threw the offending merchandise from shelves in the York branch of Stationery Box, after getting the full backing of the store manager.
Rev Jones said: "I told the assistant manager, who was on duty, I was going to be launching a protest at the shop, and I went over to where the Playboy material was on the shelf alongside the Winnie The Pooh and Mickey Mouse items.

"I started tossing it on the floor away from where people were. I also encouraged customers to sign a petition against the intrusion of commercial brands such as Playboy into goods and services targeting children.
"The long-term intention of their strategy is to encourage children to see the Playboy bunny as a friendly brand appropriate for children, preparing them for early commercial acceptance of Playboy pornographic merchandise.
"This constitutes a kind of institutional grooming of children for their commercial exploitation by the powerful sex industry. It is indirect but not accidental. It is deliberate, intentional, cynical and wicked and must be resisted."
Rev Jones, who has a seven-year-old daughter, has persuaded staff at the Stationery Box branch to remove the entire Playboy range pending a "merchandising review".
A spokesman for the shop said: "Because we respect the views of the communities that we trade in, and following Father Jones' visit, we have removed the product from sale in this store while we review our merchandising policy."
A spokesman for Playboy said: "We were surprised to discover that Playboy stationery has been so inappropriately positioned. Playboy's target audience is 18 to 34-year-olds so we clearly did not authorise or approve the placement of our product next to such well-known children's characters. We will be reviewing this situation immediately."

New book out

I read about a new book in the Observer yesterday, can't wait to get my hands on it! It's called In Prude: How The Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls by Carol Platt Liebau.

The article is here: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2224694,00.html

Where it all started...

What lead to me writing this blog?

Various incidents happened to me that lead me to consider exploring the issue of our sexualised or 'raunch' culture.

I read that in 2006 the top-selling pencil case at WH Smiths was a 'playboy' pencil case. This really disturbed me. It's not that I think that the young girls buying these really understand what the playboy bunny represents and that in some way this corrupts them. It's the insidiousness of it all - ten years ago, there would have been no way that a child would have been allowed a playboy pencil case. Indeed it would have been something only men would have been interested in. Some might say that women have 'reclaimed' the playboy image for themselves. I think this is a false view of feminism.

I was on holiday in Italy last year. We visited Amalfi Cathedral. Before we went there, the tour guide on the coach said 'if you want to visit the cathedral, ladies, please ensure that your shoulders are covered and men, please don't wear shorts'. A woman behind me on the coach, probably in her late 30s said to her husband 'that's strange!' This really surprised me - the concept of modesty in a place of worship was completely alien to this woman. I might not have been that surprised had she been a teenager, but for an adult to express surprise at such a request I thought was very odd.

Last Christmas, my colleagues were booking a restaurant for our Christmas dinner at a restaurant chain famous for flavoured vodka. As we were booking for a large number, the restaurant offered 'pole dancing lessons' at a discount to 8 or more women. I was asked if I'd like to do this, my friends said 'Bryony, you're normally up for a laugh, are you coming?' I flat refused, I couldn't think of anything I would rather not do, particularly with work colleagues. The connotations of pole dancing to me are all negative: a negative view of female sexuality, definitely related to abuse and prostitution, and to the subjugation of women. What really shocked me was that a) I was the only younger person in the office to say 'no' and b) that my friends and colleagues have bought the lie that pole dancing is somehow empowering for women. What utter rubbish! I can appreciate that you could lose weight by doing it but I could not in all conscience attend a pole dancing 'lesson' because of where it has come from and what it represents. The girls didn't book the lessons in the end. I think a lot of it was bravado and that they didn't really want to do it. However, I do know that lots of women are booking pole dancing as part of their hen do festivities. What sort of a view of sex does that give a woman going into a lifelong relationship? That their body is only for the pleasure of men? That sex is only a one way thing?

Now, I realise writing this down now that this blog could become a one woman rant. That is not my intention. What I intend to do here is explore some of the above issues in as measured a way as I can. I will write about each of these areas and try and look at the issues from a Christian and biblical perspective. The Christian view of sex has to be positive, not negative. Sex is an incredible gift from God. I don't want to be Mary Whitehouse, but I do want to do something about the warped view of sex we have in our culture that is completely not what God intended for us.

As Christians we are called to change the world in the name of Jesus...are we sitting by and just letting this stuff happen?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.- Romans 12:2

If we are not careful, we Christian men and women could sit by and allow the lies told by our over sexualised culture to be believed by new generations. I don't want our children growing up thinking that they must be thin, sexy, sluttish and raunchy if they want to get by in life. I don't want our young girls to think that boys will only like them if they dress a certain way and do things they may well not be ready to do. I don't want boys growing up thinking that women are just a source of entertainment, both sexual and humorous - the 'zoo magazine' attitude to women.

I'm reminded of the analogy of the boiling frog. Put a frog into a bowl of boiling water and it will jump out, put a frog into a pan and gently bring the pan to boil and it will die.

This is the book that inspired me to create this blog.

Introduction

This is my first ever blog.
I have opened this blog to put down my thoughts and research around the theme of Christianity and its interface with an increasingly sexualised culture.
I believe that as Christians we should be 'counter-cultural' - thus the name, the 'dead fish' blog - since 'only dead fish go with the current'.
I'll be posting my first 'chapter' shortly.