Mail Breast Hypocrites

What can one say about the latest advert from insurance comparison site confused.com? Mildly irritating, a little cheap and nasty, brash, and unsubtle, but not when the Mail gets hold of it. “TV viewers complain about ‘overly sexual’ cartoon ad of women with large breasts on prime time” screams the headline. Someone at Dacre Towers is having a laugh.

You calling me a f***ing hypocrite, c***?!?

It’s a cartoon, for goodness’ sake. They aren’t really grumbling, are they? Well, sadly they are: it’s another case of You Betcha, says Sarah. “TV viewers have got their knickers in a twist over the sight of women dancing in bikinis and a large woman flashing her underwear in a cartoon advert” says Phil Vinter’s piece. So there have been hundreds of complaints, then?

Er, no there haven’t. Just 37 have been registered so far, but then, there had been very few complaints to the BBC about Sachsgate before the Mail cranked up the why-oh-why machine and heaped as much bovine by-product as it could muster over the heads of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. But not only is this a feeble attempt to stir up complaints, it’s also grotesquely hypocritical.

Because on Mail Online right now – and as I type this we’re in Childrens’ TV time, so there should be none of this available for impressionable young minds to be polluted by – there is a variety of naked flesh, and real flesh at that. For starters, there is the obligatory Kim Bloody Kardashian piece, including – guess what – a bikini photo! And very tight trousers, a Martin Clarke favourite.

And if that isn’t enough arse for readers, there is another obligatory feature, that of Pippa Middleton, with lots of photos, especially of her backside, and wherever she shows off plenty of leg. Then, for bikini and flesh fans, there is a whole feature on Imogen Thomas, famous for being involved with famous people. And having large breasts. And splashing on a load of sun slap.

On top of all that, and available 24 hours a day, watershed or no, there is a report on Alexandra Burke (who she? – Ed) who “wore a tiny pair of shorts as she danced on stage”, and showed off her arse for good measure. One could go on, and Mail Online does, with yet more arse, more bikini, more leg, more everything, while its hacks stand in their very draughty glasshouse.

Heck, they’ve even done a feature on the last photoshoot of Marilyn Monroe (with a still from The Seven Year Itch thrown in to provide the obligatory leg shot). And yet this rabble of hacks can call out a cartoon advert for being risqué. Come off it, Messrs Clarke and Dacre, you’re a pair of shameless hypocrites. If anyone should cut down on the pre-watershed flesh, it’s you two.

So that’s another case of Situation Normal At The Mail. No change there, then.