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Just took a look at what is perceived to be the "edgiest" of the ads... I dunno.

I'm at the point where I am personally unshockable when it comes to how the entertainment industry pushes sex and language and violence to young teens and kids.

I suspect the reality is all of the controversy was taken into account before the ads were green lit and they were not only expecting it but assuming it will lead to higher ratings for Gossip Girl. Is this show even a hit?

As far as the linking of the words "fucking" and "God" together...it kind of seemed like white noise against everything else to me. It's on the low end of anything I may find "offensive".

But then again, I'm the kind of guy that expects the story of an Yale art student artificially inseminating herself with strangers sperm and then inducing abortions on herself as a final term art project.

I see it as just the kind of world we live in.

If ratings go up the person who came up with the OMFG campaign will probably be elevated to showrunner.

I read about that Yale student as well Nicol. I love the part where she says that she never intended to go for shock value. I also wonder what kind of debate on the relationship between art and the human body she is hoping to start.

I don't think Gossip Girl is a hit. I thought it was a show that only survived because of the writer's strike. I don't know for sure though. I'm happy to say that I've never seen a single second of it.

for what it's worth, i did a double-take on barham last weekend at this same billboard. unfuckingbelievable.

Dave, what's funny about that is that in the most recent copy of EW with the delicious Tina Fey on the cover, the print ad has been changed from OMFG to OMG. Not sure if they're targeting this campaign in anyway based off of area and demographics.

Trachtenberg and Meester = THE. HOTNESS.

I tend to think, as with those Captivity posters, it's somehow just assumed no one in LA flinches at that kind of thing. It wouldn't fly in flyover... but then again, posters and billboards for film and television aren't especially prevalent even in most major cities.

So, DPo is anti-Sarah Marshall? I think it looks wack, but to hear Phillips and especially Roeper last week, it's an ALL-TIME MASTERPIECE, one of the funniest movies EVER MADE.

Like, really????

David, STFU.

I don't see what the 'stupid' part is, the ads serve two purposes: they tie in organically to the show and its target audience, and they're controversial enough to get notice (as this entry proves) without being actually offensive (I mean, seriously, we're getting upset about a _letter_?) The Captivity ads were a hundred times worse, and were rightfully taken down.

Nicol, if you'd like I can ask five of my female friends from college what their motivations were when they impregnated themselves for performance art.

Stella,

Yes...I agree. The whole "I am ony trying to provoke debate" argument always makes me roll my eyes.

Maybe in her next class a bunch of students can dowse her in rotten eggs and tomatoes and when she complains they can say they were not trying to hurt her, they were just provoking debate about historical forms of criticism in art.

Jeff,

I really do not get the inference of your comment. Please explain.

My point is, the Yale girl you mention is the exception that proves the rule.

Personally, I loathe performance art. It really is a nadir of some kind. And in my art history classes, there was widespread skepticism about it. The brainwashing didn't take.

Jeff,

She is the exception that proves what rule? Still not with you. Please explain.

Not everyone at a liberal arts college is a lunatic self-impregnating performance artist. Not even the feminazi crusaders against patriarchy through art - most of them.

D-Po, love that you're all irate over all this, but how have you not realized from your years in this business that if you give this industry an inch it will take miles and miles?

I too am a First Amendment absolutist and believe in personal responsibility, but believing in something and actually expecting people to exercise this responsibility are two very different things - again, as you well know.

You had to figure it would get to this point eventually. The industry, and the marketing of said industry's product to various demographics, has been lowering the bar for decades now. So why would you expect them to pull up now?

Jeff,

"Not everyone at a liberal arts college is a lunatic self-impregnating performance artist."

Last time I checked, Yale was a little bigger than the notion of "Liberal Arts College".

I wish I could see the world in such parsed, simplistic, out of context terms as you do, Jeff. I really do.

Yeah, all that's valid and such, but, you know, it's A LETTER.

Oooh, the letter F is on Barham!

LEIGHTON MEESTER OWNS YOU.

Nicol, I think using the case of this one crazy lady to bolster your omnipresent anti-academia theme is exactly what you're accusing me of.

I saw that about 10 days ago. Can't believe it's still up.

This is what gives conservatives the fodder to call hollywood and liberals ungodly animals. And, i gotta say, they are. I'm not religious, nor political, but it's pathetic that nothing is sacred in this country anymore. You can bet your ass that if it was a black kissing a white on that billboard, or 2 men kissing each other, with the OMFG, people would be shitting on themselves about it; some group would be crying foul that OMFG symbolizes shocking surprise that gays are kissing, or some other twisted logic. Never mind that OMFG is what's twisted.

Example number 873945 in america's disappearing morality.

Jeff,

One crazy lady...who got her project approved by the department head...who has her curriculum approved by a board and faculty...who got volunteers...and was supported by many students...at Yale...

I mean really, Jeff. The notion that academia is -not - extreme is what's getting harder and harder to prove.

Fewer people are buying that argument anymore.

Nicol, you have no idea what you're talking about. First of all, I think it's probably pretty likely that the whole thing is a hoax for the sake of art. A major University professor wouldn't sign off on such a project, ahead of time, without putting themselves at risk of major lawsuits down the line. That's pretty obvious.

Like I said before, I'll ask my friends from college not only why they had all their abortions and maybe that'll enlighten us both.

The OMFG ads are sleazy, prurient and wholly a product of the marketing scum who have take over this town. There's no sense of maybe, just maybe, that not every child should have to see these "cutting edge" billboards all over the city.

It's the same marketing amorality that lets them put up the CAPTIVITY billboards without a thought to who might be looking at it. I'm a flaming progressive and don't believe in censorship, but the airwaves and public landscape don't belong to the mad ad men. Yet.

My academic experience has been anything but extreme. I have had openly conservative professors at both of the universities I have attended (I'm currently in grad school in Chicago). I know I mentioned here before that my New Media, Old Media professor last term told us early on that he's a McCain supporter and in every class went on and on about the liberal media and how awful Clinton is. A professor I had for a politics class as an undergrad was actively and openly involved in Republican politics at the state level. I can only speak to my own experiences, but at two large universities in two different states, it was hardly extreme.

And where does the US Military get much of its weapons technology from?

Bueller?

Nicol D?

UC Berkeley.

Today, the three laboratories (including Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory) have a combined UC workforce of 18,000 and operate on federally financed budgets totaling nearly $4 billion.2 Along with nuclear weapons research, LANL and LLNL conduct civilian studies as well, such as energy, space, and medical research. The vast amount of funding, however, given by the Department of Energy to the UC for management of the labs is used for weapons research. In 2002, LANL recieved 1.2 billion dollars for research and development of nuclear weapons, which was 80% of its entire DOE funding for that year.
http://www.fiatpax.net/LANLtoday.html

Things that make you go hmmmm.

Jeff,

Your first reaction was that it was just an individual. I questioned the chain of command and now you say maybe its a hoax. If you can prove that...I will defer. But there is no indication that it is. My exeperience and knowledge says it is not.

"A major University professor wouldn't sign off on such a project, ahead of time, without putting themselves at risk of major lawsuits down the line. That's pretty obvious."

Apparently not.

Stella,

If you had the experience you had I am glad and I hope that you never felt bullied by any profs who you disagreed with.

I would love to get those profs personal views of being in the faculty lounge though. Remember, I do not say there are - no - consevative university profs. Just that they are rare, few and have a very uphill battle.

Like a wrote the other day...Stepin Fetchit was the first black millionaire entertainer. That didn't mean there was no racism in the film industry at the time.

Christian,

That happens whether or not it is a Republican or Democrat administration. Remember, having a military that has up to date technolgy is not exactly what I would call "right wing". Should Obama win, he will also benefit. That in no way discredits my argument.

Here's what no one is really saying about this kind of shit..

And I'm going to come off like a kook saying this, but stay with me..

It's the coke.

Seriously.

It is ridiculous how much cocaine is abused in the Hollywood workplace, right now.

I know it's nothing new, but, its making the cocaine abuse in the 80's seem like the tranquil 50's..

People are bumping and skiing so much as a crutch to stay as productive as possible in a 24/hour day that their "judgement" skills go out the window and they think shit like this AD-Campaign is okay.

Seriously, Doctors call it amphetamine psychosis and it is slow to take and hard to recognize until the crazy just takes over.

My most recent and favorite example:

My neighbor is an EP of several of our most popular and trashy reality shows; and while in the middle of production, coked up, they with their coked out judgment, thought it would be okay to leave their cat alone at home for a week with food while they were away on location shooting. Not even bothering to have a friend stop by to look at the cat..

Needless to say, when they came back they called me in hysterics wondering if I'd seen their cat and they were sure it was dead. It wasn't, they were so oblivious from the blow they didn't catch the cat run out of their spot as they left on their shoot...

I found the cat living under the building.

Cocaine = Provides that false confidence and self esteem needed by every bone headed pretty boy and vapid chick in this game that really either have no talent or the discipline to develop it....

Off-Tangent - It blows my mind how much the reality game is a hussle. They work my neighbor to death and feed them blow on set and at the workplace to keep the party going. My neighbor thinks they're hot shit on the way for their career because they have big credits, but....they don't get paid. shit...

While their boss is just getting stupid rich selling this content all over the world and to XBox Live and ITunes and all that shit.

People in Hollywood! Don't follow that hussle! Turn down the party favors at work and get your money instead.

Because when you hit your bottom and need rehab and you think they've got your back, they don't. They just replace you with the next person off the bus from Ivy-League give them your job, and start feeding them the party blow. Rinse & Repeat. Welcome to the system...

With that game, the big boss just saved all the money they should've been paying you and the person that replaced you by keeping you both high..and congratulations, you're dreams have been shattered and you've been HUSTLED!!

It's a very Gorilla Pimp move.

Good Times..

Nicol, I believe it's one or the other, no question. The research I did online doesn't prove one way or the other what the real story is, but I believe that no major university in the country would open themselves up to a lawsuit that this young woman would apply if, down the road, she had health problems. And the university would also have made a statement, of some kind, if they thought there was any real reason for it...so that's suggestive to me.

But it helps out your confirmation bias, so no, apparently not. I apologize for making that kind of assumption.

And let me say again - it sounds like you went to a really shitty university. Glad I'm not Canadian so it won't be major option for any kids I might have.

By Gawd, THX I think you're onto something. It's true that when I first moved out here, I thought it was 1985 all over again. Lotsa blow and yes, lotsa boneheaded delusions of grandeur.

Nicol, I'm not trying to convince you that liberal professors don't exist. Of course they do. I just think you resort to overly broad generalizations at times, this being one of them. I have had as many openly conservative professors as liberal ones, and like I said, I have attended two large universities (10,000 or more students) in two different states. My experience can't be an exception to the rule.

I never felt bullied, but in all honesty the professor who supports McCain became visibly (and vocally) disgusted in class if someone expressed an anti-McCain or pro-Obama view (no one dared say anything positive about Clinton considering th remarks he made about her in every class). As far as I know this guy isn't having a rough time because of his political views.

This is a link where Yale says it was a hoax.

http://www.nysun.com/news/national/yale-students-art-project-creative-fiction

I have no idea. I know if it was real, and I was part of the administration, I would say it was a hoax too. So who knows.

But I just thought in the interest of the truth, I would post the link.

Thank you, it would have been just as easy for you to brush it under the rug.

I think it's likelier that, if it was for real, the administration would have fired her advisor or someone in the faculty, because the truth of these things always comes out.

My overall point to you, Nicol, is that I sympathize that you had a bad college experience, but I would suggest that it wasn't as common or widespread as you may think. My college experience was fine, except that I probably spent too much time studying.

nicol d, your whole paranoid 'liberal university professors out to brainwash impressionable youth and persecute conservative religious people' conspiracy theory appears anecdotal, based on your own personal experience. I've been to university in two different countries and run the gamut from very conservative to positively militant professors, so maybe it's just a simple case of bad luck for you, have you considered that? this at a time when there is a serious movement afoot to have 'creationism' taught along side evolution as a viable alternative explanation for life on earth in US schools...very scary.

just a quick question in no way in defence of any billboard aimed to sell to our younguns: hasn't the term 'oh my god' transended any real religious context into the general linguistic vernacular, like 'holy shit'? or 'hell in a handbasket' or perhaps to a lesser extent 'jesus' (as in 'jesus, are you kidding me?)? hasn't 'omg' become a simple expression meaning the likes of 'no way!'? in which case, is 'omfg' anything more than an issue of profanity, in this case aimed inappropriately at younguns, rather than an issue of morality? just about everyone i know says 'omg' as a matter of course...

Wow. I say "oh my fucking god" quite regularly. Is that bad of me? I say "Jesus fucking Christ!" a lot too. Oh well. I guess I'm going to hell or whatever blah yada etc.

"But like the truly self-indulgent and unfunny (except as a shock laugh) exposure of Jason Segel’s penis FIVE TIMES in his new movie… it’s just unnecessary and childish."

Says the man who routinely mentions vaginas and penises when he could easily just say "woman" or "men". UNNECESSARY!!

kam, you're going to hell in a handbasket ;)
thanks for making my point, it's just an expression, not a religious smear.

I must say, it always amuses me to hear "god" bleeped out from american programs.

Yeah, I love it when the line's censored as "BLEEP damn it!". As if the word "god" doesn't just say itself in your head anyway when it's bleeped like that (What do we bleep? 'god' or the bad word? Let's bleep 'god'! Yay team...).

The more I think about it, the funnier that oddball decision gets for me in a poetic kind of way. And on a side note, I like "Oh Mother-Fucking God" better than "Oh My Fucking God" anyway. Then again, in this case, "Openly Manipulating the Fussy Geezers" would serve just as well.

"But even I could see a reasonable person being extremely offended by the use of that phrase in ads… and not only ads, but ads aimed at teens and pre-teens."

Offended, granted; but "extremely" offended? Not a reasonable person. If seeing OMFG on a billboard advertising an obscure television show gets someone extremely offended, where do they go from there when confronted with anything which is genuinely offensive in the extreme? Call it distasteful, call it sleazy, call it brainless pandering, but "extremely offensive" isn't a level it's reaching. Some of the little ditties that grade schoolers sing during jump rope could teach a thing or two to that billboard about what extremely offensive truly is.

"David, STFU."

Brack, that's just heartbreaking. You had better things to say and you know it.

If this makes you extremely offended then that's kinda bonkers. There's plenty more things to get extremely offended over. The Pope, for instance.

Vulgarity is lewd, gross or coarse (Your mom is a fucking cum-dumpster). Profanity treats something sacred with irreverence or contempt (Anything with God, Jesus, Allah etc.).

Some people can just be bothered by profanity.

My personal logic is that most religious texts say, "Don't fuck with God's name." I believe that there is a God, so I try to personally lay off the profanity. Also, I think is respectful not to screw with other people's gods - just like learning what hand-gestures mean "fuck-off" before visiting a different culture.

Not to belabour the point, but because I made a point of posting the Yale response yesterday that said the induced abortion art project was a fake...

...today, the "artist" says it is - not - a fake.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/art_hoax

Take it as you will. Personally, I suspect the university is covering their ass.

Either way academia and true students of higher learning lose.

"Shvarts acknowledged that she was never pregnant and did not induce abortions, Klasky said."

Nicol, that wraps the whole thing up, as far as I'm concerned. The University says that the actually dangerous/objectionable aspects of the piece were phony, and she agrees. Aside from that, it's a sample of her blood in a jar and some video of her moaning in a bathtub. Art? Maybe. Offensive? That's up to you. An academic travesty? That's where you're wrong, but I know that paranoia and selection bias trumps all with you.

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