The United Kingdom Advertising Standards Authority has been cracking down on some fashion add that they feel are not sending the right message. Whether about body image or bad behavior they are taking steps to create boundaries where few exist.

They banned the Diesel “Be Stupid” Billboards saying they were indecent, and could be seen by children and might encourage bad behavior.

Now first of all I have to say that the slogan itself is just asinine the name of the campaign in Be Stupid. Seriously? Whoever thought of that and got paid an obscene amount of money for coming up with this tripe should be put in front of the that Lion in the ad.
“Smart may have the Brains but Stupid has the Balls”. Way to go! Balls without brains is just dangerous (I have two words for you Shock & Awe, got my point?) Clearly Stupid was in charge of the first ad because I can’t quite figure out why any of these things are sharing the same space. If this chick is on Safari, would she be in a bikini, out of the jeep snapping pictures of her crotch? And who does that anyway?

Now if the girl flashing the security camera had some brains she would have realized that she didn’t have to find a ladder drag it to a building and then risk life, limb, and possible arrest in order to flash a security camera. She might have realized that every bank ATM has a security camera and they are at ground level easy access. In the time it took her to set up that stunt she could have hit at least 10 ATM cameras!

The last thing I would like to say about this the fact that both of the subjects in these ads are women, so essentially this is Diesel’s message to women, it’s better to have (quite ironically) balls, then to have brains. And these great big balls that you have would have you doing things like physically expose yourself in a sexually provocative ways towards men, who since they probably have Brains will exploit you.

Yeah I think I have to go with the UK ASA on this one ban them, and burn them while your at it.

Then there is the Mui Mui ad that is was reviewed and the ban was vetoed.

The thing is this model is very thin- too thin, but it doesn’t look overly strange to the eye because most models are that thin or more so. Should this one be banned, I don’t know she has a dress on, there are some adds that show more of a model’s emaciated form that I could see being more harmful, but we have to start somewhere. Sure this is rather tame but if you ban something tame then it makes others know that you… What do you think?

This last clip is a YSL Perfume ad for Belle d’Opium this was banned because it suggests drug use (well uh the perfume is the Opium beauty or something) At a point the model gestures to her arm arm and drags her finger down suggesting an injection, then there is the simulation of being high and convulsing. That having been said it is beautifully shot and choreographically it is engaging and the French actress Melanie Thierry featured in the commercial is quite a good mover, I was impressed by that. But just because it is artistic, more so then something presented by Diesel does not mean that is could not be just as potentially harmful.