You Guys Would Be Sexy If "Neanderthal" Was Considered A Turn On

By Erin in News on Jul 21, 2005 2:48PM

"Kill Your Idols" never rang so true.

We here at Chicagoist, despite all evidence to the contrary, are sniveling little Fan Grrrls when it comes to some members of the local media. After all, without them where would we be? So it came as a shock—right up there with finding out that there is no Santa Claus—when we read the Sun-Times recently to find that not one, not two, but three of their staff members took issue with the Dove ad campaign, or rather, the fact that the campaign has the nerve to use women who aren't the traditionally thin embodiment of what's considered attractive enough to shill a useless beauty product ...

... and that these women were offending the clearly delicate constitutions of these men: Lucio Guerrero, Bill Zwecker and Richard Roeper.

Excuse us, but what the fuck gentlemen? Did a woman with a little junk in her trunk break your hearts? What the hell is it to you if a company uses women who have a tummy to sell their product in their underwear? It isn't that Chicagoist thinks we should each subscribe to some carbon-copied ideal of what is considered beautiful—what melts your butter is what melts your butter, after all.

But that's not what this is about. This is about your use of the words "unsettling" and "disturbing" followed by other choice terms such as "chunky." This is about you three excusing yourselves for your ignorance with some lazy argument centering on you just being "a man."

So let's take this writer-by-writer, shall we?

Lucio (whose comments show up in the 2nd item, unattributed online, because whomever is running the Web over at the S-T still thinks its 1997 and can't develop a site worth shit), you’re a sad, little man. “Ads should be about the beautiful people?” Advertising isn’t pornography, dude. We know it’s a little hard to tell sometimes but it isn’t. And if you think it’s “disturbing” to see a normal looking woman posing in an ad, just imagine what it might be like for a woman to see ads that reduce her gender to panting whores at the mere whiff of deodorant.

Then again, you’re a staff writer. We've been "staff writers" too and we know how that goes. It's tough being The Bitch and it's tempting when someone gives you the chance to bust open the First Person and not get a little drunk with power. Maybe your boss TOLD you to write a piece that made you sound like a 22-year-old kid heading to $.25 draft night. If that's the case, mission accomplished. And since you need that paycheck to pay for this month’s copy of Juggs or Leg Show or whatever other fucking magazine has warped your mind, you had to do it. Fine.

You, Richard Roeper, have no excuse.

Rich, we feel betrayed. We love you. You’re the guy we look to when we need someone to cut through the bullshit. You give out an annual GOOF (Gloriously Overexposed Overhyped Fool) award purposely to stick it to those who take advantage of the media’s desire for the fake and the glossy. But given carte blanche with your column, you use it to make a plea for "more fantasy babes." It's hypocrtical, at best. And if what we've all heard about you is true, your whole “confirmed bachelor” shtick is starting to seem less and less like a choice you made than one that was made for you.

Nothing is sexier than a guy approaching middle age who still clings onto the notion that a man with a little bread in his pocket and some expensive hair gel can still have his way with the ladies. This is pretty big talk for a dude who will always be known as "The Person Who Replaced Siskel."

And by the way: the word “gals?” It’s time to let that one go. You’re not Herb Tarlek from WKRP in Cincinnati so it’s time to stop talking like him.

And Zwecker? Join the fray when you're not ripping off celebrity headlines from every gossip rag on the East Coast, huh? You're consistently a day late and a dollar short with each and every column and it's as embarrassing to read as what you said at your "blog."

Chicagoist isn't taking a political, fat-acceptance stance here. There is no "real" woman and we take just as much issue with the notion that the models typically seen in advertisments are fair game for our collective self-loathing as a society that has bought into the idea that a woman is only attractive once someone deems her worthy of a national ad campaign.

Our problem is the idea that a paper, even a rag like the Sun-Times, feels the need to take a stance at all. That we need to constantly beleaguer the point of beauty and what it's supposed to mean. That their minds are so shockingly narrow and driven by hormones that they've missed the point of the campaign completely.

We've found it a little odd that Dove is hawking "firming lotion" using women proud to be anything but firm. Just the same, sign Chicagoist up for some. We'll fucking hand that shit out at the next Happy Hour. In the meantime, we want these three airbrushed, strapped in corsets, wearing control trop from now on.

We just can't read a newspaper with such flabby men writing articles.

Thanks Scott!!