So I am a fan of Lanham’s theory of Attention Economy (link to interview) and I tend to enjoy a raunchy joke. As other’s have noted, Purdue’s student newspaper, the Exponent recently tried their hand at both. In a perverse way, they succeeded at both.
To the former, they have attracted at lot of eyeballs. I am contributing to that exposure. Controversy has gravitational pull.
There might be a context in which the cartoon (and I link back to Mxrk, since I can’t find a copy online), might be a critical commentary on an atmosphere of hyper-masculine conquest generated by contemporary youth culture. Maybe. But this ad, as many others on Facebook note, seems pretty happy with itself. There doesn’t seem to be a trace of irony to be found.
Hence the latter perversity. Its all too cliche for me to even spell it out here. In fact, it is so over the top, that it almost seems biblical to me (see how sex has become so impersonal, see how we have embraced debauchery, etc). It commands such a conservative heteronormative response that it performs something reminiscent of the sentiment of the “church” from this “if God were on Facebook” snippet:
As my wife pointed out, if you search “cartoon” on the Exponent site it becomes readily apparent that they don’t like women. Even without the cartoon in question, there’s plenty of other evidence. I think it enough for me to say: “that’s not o.k.”
