It was too good to last.
Yesterday I blogged about Protein World, the U.K. protein-supplement company that actually stood up to the feminist harpies who dissed and defaced its London Tube ads showing gorgeous supermodel Julie Somerfield in a bikini with copy that asked "Are You Beach Body Ready?" Protein World told the feminists who screamed about "objectification" and "fat-shaming" to take a hike.
Alas, when they couldn't shame Protein World in the way that they typically can with twitchy mega-corporations terrified of offending professional victims, the feminists turned to–yes, you guessed it–the heavy hand of the government to shut down the ads.
And–hey–whining and vandalism work!
The Daily Beast reports:
They’ve scribbled “NOT OKAY” and “F**k Your Sexist Shit” over the model’s cleavage, signing their work with a now-viral hashtag, #eachbodysready.
A Change.Org petition calling for the removal of Protein World’s campaign on the grounds that it aims “to make [people] feel physically inferior to the unrealistic body image of the bronzed model” has received nearly 60,000 signatures.
And on Saturday, 750 people (and counting) will attend a “Take Back the Bikini” rally in Hyde Park to protest Protein World’s body-shaming ad campaign.
Well, good on them! Their vandalism, hashtag activism, and protests have made international headlines and prompted the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to scrub the weight loss supplement campaign from Underground stations and ban it from appearing again “in its current form.”
The advertising watchdog has been investigating the “beach body ready” campaign, responding to some 360 complaints that it objectifies women and promotes unhealthy body standards.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the ASA said they are pulling the ads “in the next three days.” (Protein World told The Daily Beast that the campaign’s three-week run in tube stations was already scheduled to end next week.)
The ASA will now determine if the campaign “breaks harm and offense rules or is socially irresponsible.”
The ASA seemed to have been egged along by this op-ed in the U.K. Guardian by anti-fat-shaming ringleader Rhiannon Lucy Coslett:
Is your body, the incredibly complex, awe-inspiring physical vessel that carts around your brain, and equipment for breathing, excreting, digesting and so much more, and is perhaps even growing new life within it, currently at a level of slimness determined as attractive according to western notions of female beauty such that it can be exposed to fellow human beings on the beach without causing them unnecessary trauma?
My own slogan would probably be deemed overly long by the advertisers, who happen in this case to be Protein World, hawkers of supplements. They want you to look at the picture of a woman in a bikini and feel bad about yourself, then go online and indulge in their “weight loss collection” of powders and capsules. This may not be an appealing proposition for you; perhaps you have a fondness for cheese on toast, or the consumption of protein shakes by the men in your life and their subsequent odorous emissions have bred a seething dislike of Holland & Barrett. Perhaps, like me, it’s a bit of both.
It’s strange, coming back to a world of advertising when you’ve been away. I just visited Cuba, where there are no ads at all, unless you count the odd bit of graffiti proclaiming “Socialism or death”. On my return, descending into the dark, putrid bowels of London’s underground system was quite a shock.
Cuba! Where freedom rings! But unfortunately, Britain doesn't seem too far behind in its willingness to censor just about anything that inspires approved victim groups to scream loud enough.