INDIA’S FEDERAL information minister has ordered all television channels to either modify or stop broadcasting “overtly sexual” deodorant advertisements that use female models in suggestive poses and sexual situations.
“The ads brim with messages aimed at tickling libidinous male instincts,” the ministry declared, giving all channels until tomorrow to make the necessary changes.
Invoking the cable television networks rules, the information ministry maintained that the “vulgar and suggestive” adverts offended “good taste and decency” as they blatantly relayed the message that some deodorants “aroused women’s sexuality”.
The ads also portrayed women as “hankering after men under the influence of such deodorants”, the ministry added. It said they violated India’s advertising code which mandates that “cable operators should ensure that the portrayal of the female form is tasteful and aesthetic and within the well-established norms of good taste and decency”.
One of these adverts shows a woman who finds a stranger’s deodorant so stimulating that she begins undressing, while another portrays a crowd of cheering young women unable to control their libidos, mobbing a man after he had sprayed himself with perfume.
However, none of the brands, such as Axe, Wild Stone and Addiction Deo, named by the ministry have so far responded to the ban. This is not the first time the information ministry has played moral policeman, having suspended the well-known overseas Fashion TV channel for 10 days for showing topless models during a late-night show.
Meanwhile, the Advertising Standard Council of India, a self-regulatory voluntary organisation of the industry, said over the weekend that there had been several complaints about the deodorant adverts over the past two years and that it had acted in some cases. But in many instances it found the ads were not objectionable and unlikely to cause grave or widespread offence.
Besides, the council added, many of the deodorant ads were aired only after 11pm, outside family viewing times.
India, despite its global image as a vibrant emerging economy, information technology powerhouse, home to Bollywood and the land of the Kama Sutra, still hesitates to talk about sex openly.