Tuesday, April 28, 1998
Ads for strippers, penile implants corrupt purity
of sports pages
COLUMN: Uncover secret connection between porn, women’s golf
scores
I’ve got to hand it to advertisers, they sure are subtle. Every
morning they make their pitch to me, knowing that there is no
chance that I won’t at least see want they are trying to fob off on
me.
There they are, dotting the periphery of my sports page, making
themselves seen. There’s always the usual suspects: the car
dealerships, the pagers, the computer stores.
But there’s also a whole other animal lurking, one that preys
upon human fallibility.
Like it isn’t bad enough that people have to be reminded at
eight in the morning about the litany of genetic misfortune waiting
for them or nearly choke on their cereal when a picture of a
stripper is right next to the box scores.
No, they have to supply a public service message along with
them.
Example: Monday morning, Dodger game story. Discussion of
tremendously overpaid athletes playing .500 baseball.
It’s not enough that we read about men making more money than
Midas because right below is a pair of ads for bankruptcy
attorneys.
The message here, as I sit in my boxers trying to wake up, is
that not only will I never make crazy loot, but what I get I’ll
probably squander, and when I do, I should call Asset Protection
Inc.
So I press on, hoping that the middle pages will bring better
tidings. I come to the Angels game story, and there is a picture of
the Tampa Bay Devil Rays’ manager bumping an umpire, certainly a
manly endeavor if ever there was one.
And what’s right below this testosterone-laced picture but an ad
for – do you believe – penile enlargement!
It’s like the caption on the photo should be:"If you want
cojones like this guy shoulder blocking an ump, then see
below."
Or better yet: "You bet he’s wearing a cup, because he just came
from The Barron Center!"
The final and perhaps most telling hidden message in these
sports pages ads was in the golf standings where the results from
the latest LPGA tournament were presented.
No problem there; however, right next to the final scores from
the annual Chick-Fil-A Championships are a litany of ads for strip
bars, all adorned with bored looking, heavily made up women.
How on earth am I supposed to appreciate Nancy Ramsbottom’s
sixth-place finish when I’m being promised someone named Roxy
LeRoux live on stage all this week?
And I ask you, the strip club ads right next to the Chick-Fil-A
Championships? Come on, that’s just too perfect to be a
coincidence.
I suppose that there’s nowhere else to put these testaments to
human aging, genetics and hormones because no other section lends
itself so well to these thinly veiled references.
In what other part of the paper is the primary reader a balding,
bankrupt, stripper-ogling oaf who suffers from worse shrinkage than
George Constanza?
The Calendar page? Nah, those cross-hairs are fixed firmly on
blue-haired women with an undying addiction to Liz Smith.
The front page? Business? Come on, the people who read those are
far too interested in the lingerie models next to the latest
Clinton story and the inside skinny on Bill Gates’ next attempt to
take over the world.
Obviously, there’s never going to be a "Dumb People Doing Dumb
Things" section, full of stories of crystal meth labs catching
fire, chases down the 405 and all the other crap on the evening
news. But if there was, that would be the perfect place to put all
of these ads.
That way I’d know exactly where to look if I suddenly decided
that, medical school be damned, I want to own my own adult web
site. I’d have a reference point when looking for the best drink
specials at a nudie bar.
Best of all, my sports page would be free and clear of that
junk. I could focus my attention on what is pure and good in the
world; the salary squabbles, the wife-beating, the inflated
contracts.
There’s no place for porno when I want to read about J.R.
Rider’s latest indiscretion.
But that isn’t going to happen, for it is my beloved sports page
that draws the tired, the poor, the huddling masses. It is the
equal opportunity section, because it gives us, on every page,
either something to feel bad about or something to worry about.
Oh yeah, there’s some sports stuff too.
Shapiro is a Daily Bruin staff writer and columnist. E-mail
responses to [email protected]
Mark Shapiro