Robin Thicke's advert for a new wireless speaker has been deemed too sexual for daytime TV. Following 97 complaints from across the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered broadcasters not to show the advert, which features Thicke's song Blurred Lines, before 7.30pm.
Based on the official music video for Blurred Lines, Thicke's advert for Beats Pill speakers has proved similarly controversial, offending some viewers with its portrayal of scantily-clad women posing suggestively while the R&B singer croons, "You know you want it". The song itself has already been banned from several British universities amid claims by student leaders that it encourages sexual harassment, "rape culture and lad banter".
In complaints to the ASA, viewers asserted that the Beats Pill advert was sexist, degrading to women, and too "overtly sexual" for underage viewers. According to the official report, "some complainants [also] challenged whether the models featured were irresponsibly thin".
On Wednesday, the ASA dismissed most of these complaints, agreeing with Beats Electronics' argument that the commercial depicts "confident, self-assured [women] who [are] not subservient to the male character". The authority said that although some viewers might find certain shots distasteful, the ad was "[not] likely to result in widespread or serious offence". It also declared that the featured models, while slim, "did not look underweight".
However, the ASA upheld complaints about the overall tone of Thicke's video, which was deemed sexual. The authority found that, even if children did not understand the advert's innuendo, there were enough "headless bodies and … sexually suggestive scenes" to merit timing restrictions under rule 32.3 of the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising, which relates to under-16s.
Thicke has not always denied accusations that his Blurred Lines video is misogynistic. "What a pleasure it is to [finally] degrade a woman," he told GQ before the scandal erupted. "I've never gotten to do that before."
