A British ad featuring Pamela Anderson has been banned after the country’s Advertising Standards Authority agreed that it was sexist and degrading.
The commercial stars Anderson and another actress in a business meeting and the two are wearing cleavage-bearing blazers, while one of their male colleagues fantasizes about them in bikinis and doused in cream.
The BBC notes that the company behind the ad, Dreamscape Networks, said that it was created as a tongue-in-cheek joke, but the ASA disagreed.
After receiving just four complaints on the ad, the group ruled on Wednesday that the critics considered the ad “offensive” and “sexist and degrading to women.”
In its ruling, the ASA said that it did acknowledge that Dreamcast did not have any malicious intent, but the fact is that the women are “portrayed sexually throughout the ad, not just during the fantasy sequence.”
“Although the fantasy scene, which we considered was sexually suggestive, was limited to Adam's imagination, we considered it gave the impression that he viewed his female colleagues as sexual objects to be lusted after,” the group noted. “Because of that, we considered the ad was likely to cause serious offence to some viewers on the basis that it was sexist and degrading to women.”
In conclusion, they said that the ad can no longer be aired as is. The BBC notes that the ad was also pulled in Australia in 2010 because of similar complaints. It was produced by the Australian firm Brand Agency and recently edited by London’s Space City.
Meanwhile, the 45-year-old Anderson is also in the news because of a racy Vogue Brazil photoshoot she did, in which she’s wearing a revealing, see-through shirt and a really skimpy bathing suit.
image: YouTube