An animal rights organization (ARO) which shall remain nameless (it's best not to encourage them!) frequently makes outrageous claims, features celebrity spokespersons, makes false comparisons, and showcases relatively well-known celebrities. (The celebrities are the main reason I enjoy checking out this organization's posters: most of them are not only young, beautiful, and female, but they're also completely starkers!)
The posters' occasional word play is also fun.
True, the ARO occasionally overuses a line, such as “I'd rather go naked than wear fur.” I've seen this declaration on a poster of a naked student (relax, she's in college, judging by her age) filling up a chalkboard with repetitions of this statement. In another poster bearing the same proclamation, the naked celebrity stands next to a tree in a forest. The line, this time, is provided in the form of a caption. In a third variation, the nude lies on her stomach, her head turned toward the camera at which she gazes. Her knees are bent, and her feet crossed above her thighs. She is quoted as saying (even though her mouth is closed and she is entirely motionless) “I'd rather go naked than wear fur.” The posters' imagery doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but who cares? There's a hot, naked chick.
Several other posters feature the same elements: a naked model and the words “I'd rather go naked than wear fur.” ARO, we got the message the first time! Think of something else—and by “something else,” I don't mean an alternate version of the same line: “Fur? I'd rather go naked” isn't going to cut it, and “Turn your back on fur” isn't much better. (Is this ARO paying the copywriters who write this text so much that the posters have to recycle the same tired message?)
Perhaps you've seen the ARO's several renditions of the “All Animals Have the Same Parts” poster, in which lines on the model's bare body “carve” her into various cuts of meat: chuck, shoulder, rib, loin, round, and (my personal favorite) rump. The first time we see this poster, we might agree it is original, but the second or the hundredth time? By then, it's merely derivative—of itself.
Another poster shows its nude kneeling in a field of red peppers, as she bites into one that looks a bit too phallic for coincidence. “Spice Up Your Life,” the text invites the voyeur—I mean, the viewer—"Go Vegetarian.” (I have never thought of a phallus as a spice before, or as any other kind of food, although maybe some of the poster's viewers have done so,)
Other posters use puns or plays on words to sugarcoat their propaganda—uh, messages. A naked model clutching a lamb is introduced with the words, “The Naked Truth.” Another poster, in prominently displaying its naked model's delightful derriere as she holds a rabbit, informs viewers of her preference for displaying her delightful derriere, or her “buns,” a shortened version of “bunny.”
A model who's undeniably fit stands before an open locker room locker. A double entendre, in the form of a question, asks whether viewers want her body. If so, additional text advises how this desire can be realized: “Go Vegetarian.”
For viewers who'd rather view a transgender woman than the real deal, a poster featuring such a celebrity reveals that the model's “healthiest transformation” wasn't hormone-replacement therapy, breast augmentation, or the shaving of her Adam's apple, but her having embraced a vegetarian diet. She suggests that her viewers “Try a vegan makeover and see how well it suits” them. Unlike most of the ARO's models, this celeb isn't naked. She wears a lettuce-leaf bra and a pair of panties made of peas. Being transgender, apparently, is enough of a “wow factor” in and of itself ; nudity is unnecessary.
I could go on—and on. The ARO has commissioned a lot of posters. But my real reason for writing this wonderfully informative, albeit slightly saucy, article for The Spoof's magazine is that the research involved was so rewarding. Most of the models are naked, and most of them exhibit, among other charms, their delightful derrieres. As one who appreciates this animal part more than other cuts of the ARO models' meat, I find that many of their posters serve an end I can get behind.
If you like such posters, be sure you donate to the ARO so they will continue their campaign to make us just like them.
