Diary of a Non-Traditional Greek

The Riot: PETA 'commercial' normalizes, humorizes violence against women

I gladly am taking a break from staring at my sociology textbook to write about the latest (unsurprisingly) controversial PETA commercial (trigger warning: there’s a pantsless/shirtless injured woman). I think this just one of PETA’s many cheap bags of tricks where they feel that in order to hold animals up and treat them well they have to treat a marginalized population like shit. (see: black people, lesbians, Jewish folks)

It’s almost funny that I am currently reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf. The section I just read is how our society does this weird there where media likes to blur the line between violence against women and sex and frame it as a ‘normal’ thing. I think this ad serves as a great example of this.

So in short: (trigger warning again - I am going to describe the video) the ad is about a girl whose boyfriend becomes vegan. As a result of becoming vegan he has become so forceful in bed that her head formed a head in the wall and she needs a neckbrace. The majority of the video is her walking the streets with only her underwear on under a heavy coat. Of course they couldn’t help but to include the gratuitous (and unnecessary) shot where we get to see the scantily-clad, injured girlfriend from behind. It can be very triggering because, seeing a woman disheveled wandering around with no clothes on reminds me of, well, someone after being raped.

This video is problematic on a few levels: It implies that violent sex is good sex. They’re saying, “See! To be a *good* lover you have to put your girlfriend in a neckbrace! That’s true fucking!” And that’s bullshit.

The ad is supposed to be funny (at least I think?) as some mock PSA about a “disease,” but the only thing I see that needs to be “cured” is the notion that being a good lover is a violent lover.

I think the combination of the rape imagery with the implication of “you’re not doing your girlfriend right if you’re not physically fucking her up” is what’s problematic and will leave many viewers uneasy. I acknowledge that people perform consensual BDSM successfully and that it can be very satisfying for all parties involved. HOWEVER, my gripe with the PETA clip is that is continues with dangerous narrative that minimizes violence against women and that sexual violence is not something to be used as some sort of joke.