Audi drops not to subtle paedophile car advert!

[Knoxinbox]

There is no way this was just badly thought through....

I think this comment sums it up

“Let's add it up: Red=eroticism, sports car=substitute for potency, animal print mini-skirt=sex appeal, banana=phallic symbol. But sure this is all just accidental...”

Do you think this was someone testing the waters so to speak about how society might respond to something like this? I’ve read quite a few things on here about how the MRA has as its core aim to normalise paedophilia as just another sexual preference (eg minor attracted person) and this was what immediately jumped to my mind with this ad.

What do you think??

Because people would say that was sexist. Why is it that only boys can like cars or act cool? Why are little boys not at risk of peadophiles?

I have to laugh and laugh at the idea that anyone would have posed a little boy like that in leopard print lounging against a car bonnet holding a banana up to his mouth. Somehow I'm pretty sure that everyone who signed off on this ad would have spotted the problems right away if it had been a boy posed in the same manner.

I find it utterly bizarre that, because in certain contexts bananas are used as a phallic symbol, any time a banana appears in an advert we're meant to think it represents a phallus even if the context doesn't imply it and there is no logical reason to imagine the creator would have intended it.

Sometimes a banana is just a banana.

I have to laugh and laugh at the idea that anyone would have posed a little boy like that in leopard print lounging against a car bonnet holding a banana up to his mouth.

Have you seen the picture? She’s just leaning against the car. And she isn’t holding the banana up to her face.

Sometimes a banana is just a banana

In advertising? Would love to see examples of inexplicable random non-innuendo-y bananas in advertisements. Or any examples of ads where males are holding phallic objects up to their mouth like that.

Mini skirt? Cute little girl frock. Is it leopard print? I saw pattern but assumed floral. However every clothes store is full of leopard print for girls from age newborn up. Eating a banana is weird why didn’t they pick another fruit? We have 2 small dc and call the midweek shop runs milk and banana runs. We don’t call them Apple or satsuma runs because we don’t need to restock those every few days.
My thoughts to whoever at Audi had to write that apology out.

I didn't see this advert as sexual, but if someone did, it doesn't mean to say they are a paedophile, it could mean they are projecting a fear.
I was sexually abused as a kid and I am just realising that what I percieve sometimes is a projection of fear.

At least Audi listened to people’s concerns & acted on them unlike Lush & the Body shop who just shout transphobe & bigot at anyone who disagrees with their stance.

I don’t see the problem with the images. Although the slogan is a bit weird... I’d like to know how the image fits with that slogan.
I thought it portrayed a big, fast, solid car that can be relied on even by a tiny sweet little girl, a bit like the car has her back. Which is a bit sexist in its own right but not sexual.

Is it supposed to be a video or just that still image?

Because if it’s just the image - you’re reaching so hard. Honestly you’re doing a disservice to actual victims of paedophiles by claiming anything and everything is a sexualisation of children.

I don’t see anything sexual in that image. She isn’t wearing a mini skirt, she’s wearing a dress. She isn’t provocatively posing either.

The colour or type of car is irrelevant. The advert is inappropriate because kids shouldn’t be standing next to a car like that as they wouldn’t be visible to the driver. It’s dangerous in terms of RTCs, not because of CSA.

Eating a banana is weird in the context of a car ad, but nothing sexual jumped into my mind. People that immediately associate eating bananas with oral sex or genitals just have perverted minds frankly, why is that your default assumption?

I saw a discussion on Reddit the other day where someone who worked as a content moderator for Facebook was warning parents not to let their kids run around naked in public. The CM said they deleted a new group every day where pedophiles were sharing surreptitiously taken videos of naked children.

There was a loud vocal contingent dogpiling the CM and accusing them of being a creep and a "Karen." It was quite transparent that this contingent mostly consisted of pedophiles who didn't want anyone listening to the CM's advice.

That keeps popping into my mind as I read this thread. Couldn't say why. 🤷

@Kantastic

I saw a discussion on Reddit the other day where someone who worked as a content moderator for Facebook was warning parents not to let their kids run around naked in public. The CM said they deleted a new group every day where pedophiles were sharing surreptitiously taken videos of naked children.

There was a loud vocal contingent dogpiling the CM and accusing them of being a creep and a "Karen." It was quite transparent that this contingent mostly consisted of pedophiles who didn't want anyone listening to the CM's advice.

That keeps popping into my mind as I read this thread. Couldn't say why. 🤷

I honestly had to double check I hadn’t accidentally posted in aibu rather than the feminism board 🤷‍♀️

My only issue with this ad is that her position looks so unsafe (as in she’s about to be run over).
I think people are reaching to be honest on the sexual element.

@Kantastic so by your logic to you not let your daughter wear dresses or eat bananas in case some take a photo of them?

I 100% agree to not post naked photos of children on your social media as they do get shared around the internet. I would understand people saying don’t let your kids runs around naked too. But I would not understand someone saying don’t let you girls wear dresses in case someone finds her sexually attractive and takes a photo of her to share.

Absolutely baffled at the assertion that a perfectly normally dressed child eating a banana is somehow a highly sexually provocative image intended to lure paedophiles toward a certain brand of car.

Even more baffled that AUDI caved in to the hysteria.

I honestly had to double check I hadn’t accidentally posted in aibu rather than the feminism board 🤷‍♀️

Why?

Why was the tag line for the ad:

"Lets your heart beat faster - in every aspect."

Why does seeing a girl eating a banana leaning back on a car relate to your heart beating faster?

@MondayYogurt probably because it’s translated from German- and is the tag line for the entire campaign - not just this advert.

Kantastic so by your logic to you not let your daughter wear dresses or eat bananas in case some take a photo of them?

I don't believe I'm familiar with your usage of the word "logic" quite honestly. I think it's clear that's not what I'm implying. Also don't @ me, thanks.

Mmmm. Advertisers and car manufacturers think very hard about every aspect of the images they create. I'd like to hear Audi explain exactly what they were trying to convey with this.

Me too.

@Kantastic are you serious?!
You sound slightly unhinged. Many MN isn’t for you.

Not a single aspect of that add was accidental. It was all chosen and designed for a purpose. That purpose wasn't 'I know, red car is red, child is cute, and banana is fruit - that'll sell a high power car'.

Yes, it's hardly surprising that advertising is so effective when people are this naive. I don't think they were targeting paedophiles, because I can't imagine they're a high proportion of the sports car market, apart from the Epstein set, but I do think they were deliberately trying to be edgy and fall back on plausible deniability.

[quote Thewheelsfelloffthebus]@MondayYogurt probably because it’s translated from German- and is the tag line for the entire campaign - not just this advert.[/quote]
That doesn't explain why a little girl eating a banana relates at all.

I have eaten bananas in public and received sexual harassment from men for it. One of my childhood memories is chewing on a stick of rock at the seaside and not understanding why a couple of men started talking to me about it. Was I enjoying it etc.

And I've seen children eating bananas and they don't hold them like this. It's posed for a reason, but without talking to the art director we can't know the intent.

If anyone's worried about Audi sales then I'm sure you can rest easy knowing bad publicity is just as valuable. Maybe that's the goal all along, because we're all wasting time talking about a car most of us didn't think about a week ago.

@Sunrise234

I honestly had to double check I hadn’t accidentally posted in aibu rather than the feminism board 🤷‍♀️

Why?

Because from lurking on this board I’ve read so many disturbing accounts of how MRA/TRAs are trying to normalise paedophilia into maintstream society that I thought I would get a few more responses along those lines rather than the usual aibu type response of posters falling over themselves to show how right on they are and how hysterical the op is... which seems to be the way this thread is going.... 🤷‍♀️

What kind of person reacts to a "don't @ me" request by doing it again, immediately?

What kind of person reacts to a woman setting a boundary by immediately doing what they've been asked not to, and accusing the woman of being "unhinged?"

🤔

@Knoxinbox I’ve never seen anyone trying to normalise peadophilia on here or anywhere else. If fact I think the world is getting hotter on it. Celebs and the rich used to get away with it but now they’re starting to be called out.

It is not often that you post on MN and not get a range of different views. That’s what I like about it as it makes you think about things you might not have thought about before.
Some people think that coco pops is racist as it has a monkey on it, I personally don’t. Some people think a little girl wearing leopard print is wrong, I personally don’t.