That's so incredibly foul, promoting the notion that women like to be harrassed and remarked upon by strangers. And what a dumb marketing strategy -- lose weight, become cretin bait? Ewww. Maybe next Jenny Craig can do an ad featuring Rush Limbaugh and the women who are thrilled to be his newly thin 'eye candy.' Bleah.

Think about it: the add exec had to have some way to make the extra attention a thinn(er) woman gets from women relative to a fatter one.
so, the guy is really a symbol of the "attention men give an attractive woman" and not really a statement on cat calling and its appropriateness. Plenty of, rather most all of single woman have some motivation to look good for men. It is a well established fact that weight is one of the top criteria men use to judge a woman's attractiveness. so, really the commercial is not as bad as it seems. It should be taken in good fun. and besides so long as the cat call is not obsene or threatening, many woman enjoy them. case in point my 54 year old mother. It made her day a few years ago when some construction workers yelled at her, "nice bod, lady!!"

It seems kristy alley enjoyed the attention as well, so no harm.

Right because it is a well-established fact that if Kirstie Alley and your mom are okay with it, we should all be okay with it.

JJS, kirstie alley was acting.

and besides so long as the cat call is not obsene or threatening, many woman enjoy them.

are you for real? i have lived in nyc my entire life and put up with an insane amount of catcalling and i can assure you that i was NEVER pleased about it.

i love the idea that it's ok to yell things at women on the street so long as it isn't "threatening." i wonder, jjs, if you would feel the same way if you couldn't do something as simple as walk down the street without some asshole yelling things at you.

ugh, sorry to get rant-y, but this is a pet peeve of mine.

> creeps on the street don't limit their harassment to thin women.

'ell, I was once cat-called while wearing work boots, dungarees, and a man's trenchcoat.

well, I am not pro cat calling. I realize it is a problem and can be a form of harrassment.

The message the add is selling is the potential for more male attention.

Cat calling is offensive to varying degrees to various people, depending upon content, the person doing it, and the person on the recieving end. Surely some forms are offensive to all, ie ones that are threatening or obsene.

And by the way to whoever claimed i was attempting to speak for all women with the example of my mother, I was not. Just demonstrating it is not always offensive to all people. I could give a counter example of how my sister is offended by it in nyc as well, i realize it can be a problem.

This topic reminded me of a time I was traveling in latin america with my sister and a female cousin. We were out at night and walking, when some guys started yelling obsenities at us, particulary at sis and cousin, unwanted sexual comments and the like, i have worked on a construction site and i still had not heard some of the shit they were saying before. It made us all very mad, even in a inraged, I told them I would rip the eyes out of their head if they didn't shut up. fortunatley they left us alone, as they likely could have killed me, but I remember it up me in a mad hostile state of mind for hours after the fact. So, i think i do see how that kind of calling can make one feel bad and upset.

Certainly, many women care for their appearance in part to look attractive. The inherent problem with catcalls, which the ad addresses but doesn't criticize, is that the number of harrassing comments you receive in a day does vary according to how attractive you are. As I gain or lose weight, or my friends do, we notice a difference in the way strange men treat us. I personally hate being catcalled and harrassed, but when they stop, you notice and wonder why. Random men asserting their right to deem women attractive or ignore them is unfair. It puts women in the position of feeling badly that they are not being badly treated, despite disliking the treatment. What are we, damned if they do, damned if they don't?

i think as women we need to pick our battles. catcalling sure, rage war on it! an advertisment for weight loss that was not intetended to be offensive or degrading but rather to promote a product... i think there are more important things to spend time disscusing and or doing something about. if kristy ally likes it when guys call out to her because shes lost wheight all the power to her! i dont think any guy sitting at home is watching that ad. and thinking "you know... wow women like it when i harass them, just look at that kristy ally she loves it!"

I think one point that is being missed besides the obvious "cat-calling" is the fact this is just more promotion of "if you are fat then you will never be happy".

Look at those early Jenny commercials with Kirstie Alley and compare it to this one. Now she's flippn' estatic because with the loss of weight she can attract complete strangers and she can dance! Lord knows she wouldn't of been able to do those things before she lost weight.

Combine this with that Black Eyed Peas' video for "My Humps" and I think you have a hyper-real male fantasy world in which women find sexual harassment empowering.

Butterfly, a commercial does not have to INTEND to be offensive or degrading to actually be so. And I think it's not just about one offensive commercial. It's about perpetuating the notion that women's sole purpose in life is to attract a man. I've been overweight and HAD a man, so I fail to see the connection. I mean, who wants to go out with some superficial asshole who only wants you for your external beauty, anyway?

i agree that it does not have to intend to be offensive to be offensive. but if we tried to remove or cause a stink about every offensive thing on television or in advertizing quite frankly, there would be not a whole lot on tv or in the advertizing world because almost everything is offensive to somone in one way or another, i think that most intelligent women know that you do not have to look a certain way to be with a man. not the kind of man you would want to be with anyhow, and thats IF you want to be with one at all! i just recently lost 25lbs and my boyfriend of 3 years, does that mean i have to gain it back to get a guy again? no because i dont buy into every bit of crap society is selling and that, i think is what women moreso need to learn. not how to stop it because you cant, but you can however defend yourself and help women around you from being damaged by it.

While you cannot raise a fuss about everything that is offensive, I think this commercial reflects a disturbing new trend. While there have always been music videos that establish an unrealistic beauty standard, those have more often than not been targeted towards men. I mentioned "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas before, which - along with this ad - targets women. Sexual harassment is now being sold to women as empowering; it is being sold as something they should aspire to recieving.

I doubt whoever made this add is trying to sell harassment to women as empowering. They are selling Jenny Craig, not a social agenda. Their tactics seem slimy (at the least) as they are obviously designed to play on (and create to an extent) insecurities in their target audience, but to insinuate that the makers of this add are “promoting the notion that women like to be harrassed [sic] and remarked upon by strangers” is taking it a bit far. As for intent (“a commercial does not have to INTEND to be offensive or degrading to actually be so”), how can we hold the maker’s of this commercial responsible for what we read into their work if they never intended for it to mean what we thought? It is a silly commercial, but in the end, anyone who falls for it deserves what they get (a bad meal).

i agree this commercial is not reality at all. IT kinda makes me laugh. All the new commercials are all bad. Just use your dvr and skip all of the commercials.
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