Lingerie brand launches massive earned media campaign on sexist Calvin Klein Billboard

You've probably heard about this by now, as it's all over social and mainstream media. Calvin Klein is in trouble over a billboard that stereotypes women being focussed on seducing men, while men are focussed on making money.

The board's down now (according to the brand's PR "as part of the planned rotation of our spring 2016 advertising campaign"), but not before this happened:

The creator of the video is Heidi Zak,  CEO of lingerie company ThirdLove. That's right, a competitor of Calvin Klein's in the underwear industry.

While Ms. Zak is justified in saying that CK's ad is awful, what's interesting is that her brand is all over that video. And her Change.Org petition, Take Down Sexist Billboard In NYC. And the hashtag, #MoreThanMyUnderwear. And, of course, all the earned media.

In short, Ms. Zak has turned anger against a major brand into a highly-effective PR campaign for her own.

It's not surprising that marketers are riding the waves of social media outrage that result from tone-deaf ad campaigns like the CK one. In a way, this is a win-win situation for both CK and ThirdLove, as both are being talked about. CK gets to keep being credibly "naughty," as they have been since the Brooke Shields days. ThirdLove gets to champion the interests of "real women." And all it took was one insulting billboard.

Media may be getting more complicated, but the marketing strategies couldn't be simpler.

Is the boy in the Moschino Barbie ad a leap forward?

That wasn't a rhetorical question. While I applaud gender diversity in a traditionally female toy category, the portrayal of the boy seems a little... umm... stereotyped?

FRIDAY IS FIERCE LIKE #MOSCHINOBARBIE

A video posted by Jeremy Scott (@itsjeremyscott) on Nov 20, 2015 at 5:00pm PST

Not that there's any problem whatsoever with implying that the little boy is gay, but did they have to do it with such a cartoonish cliché?

People seem pretty happy with this development (at least the Buzzfeed set) but I'm not sure this is as progressive as it seems. The idea that Barbie is an obsession for gay men is not exactly new, nor is the conspicuous presence of gay men in the fashion industry.

Making the only male character in the ad a miniature Jeremy Scott is a big wink to insiders, but what is it doing to transcend stereotypes? Heterosexual — or less stereotypically gay — boys who want to play with dolls in this sexist, homophobic world won't be helped by this stereotype. They might even be hurt by it.

Urban Outfitters channels the Holocaust — again?

Via Bloomberg

Once is an accident, maybe. Twice is... suspect.

After being called out for a t-shirt design that some found reminiscent of the Star of David patch German Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust, the Anti-Defamation League has brought public attention to this tapestry.

In a similarity that is much stronger than the t-shirt in the previous scandal, this textile seems to mimic both the pink triangle the Nazis used to identify men arrested as homosexuals and the grey striped uniforms of the death camps.

Via Instinct

One can only hope that this is a terrible coincidence and not someone's sick idea of a hip cultural reference. But so far, there doesn't seem to be any apology (or response of any kind) by Urban Outfitters.

Thanks to Laura for the tip.

Housewife, USA, commits brand suicide

Seen on Ads of The World today: Suicide and Isadora Duncan.

There's not much to say about these ads. They claim to be for Etsy scarf seller The Year Of May, but I doubt any money changed hands.

What ads like this really are is promotion for the ad agency. In this instance, the  responsible party is Housewife, USA, a Texas-based virtual agency run by Flor Leibaschoff.

These are typical of the "edgy shit" made by creatives, for creatives, with no real purpose other than to get the makers noticed.

Well congratulations. Making fun of suicide and the grotesque death of Isadora Duncan are certainly attention-getting. Not the good kind of attention, but at least we know what you're willing to sink to.

Can we retire the term "politically correct" now?

What does it mean, anyway? I first heard the term back in high school, in the late '80s. A feminist guest speaker was talking to us about sexual harassment and rape. In an open session, I mentioned that I thought it was a good idea for a guy not to walk right behind a woman stranger on a dark or empty street, but rather cross to the other side so she wouldn't be scared. For this, I was pronounced "a very politically correct young man."

That was then. The term was at first applied in a positive manner by late second-wave feminists, to describe a person who was on-side. However, with the backlash that inevitably came during the '90s, the term was appropriated as derision. Today, when someone calls me "politically correct," they're dismissing my opinion as overly-sensitive "politics" (as opposed to reality or common sense).

And that's what American Apparel is doing here, in this billboard shared by Sociological Images' Lisa Wade.

What this says is that when people complain that AA ads are encouraging the sexualization of schoolgirls, fetishizing sexual violence, or just plain exploiting people for fun and profit, they are just sucking up to feminist "politics." The fact that AA is sweatshop-free excuses all this, because their manufacturing is "ethical." Never mind that their founder, Dov Charney, was fired by his own board for "several instances of alleged misconduct" with female employees.

"Politically correct" is dead. This cynical advertising is just flogging its corpse. Time to move on.

Now you can protest with #Femen without taking your shirt off

It's been a while since I've written about Femen, the Ukrainian-born topless protest group that has since gone global. But this tee, just Tweeted, and on sale at their web site, seemed timely.

Considering that the group considers their bare breasts "weapons" in the war against misogyny, creating a clothed toplessness raises some questions: Is this self-aware parody? Commoditization of their tactics for fundraising? Or just a more accessible form of solidarity for shy women (and flat-chested men)?

There's another version of the shirt that reads, "Every Woman is a Riot" in reference to Pussy Riot - the allied Russian punk protest band that won the world's support when some members were jailed.

Is this Cavalli logo an appropriated Sufi symbol?

Via The Fashion Law

See that fake tattoo on Georgia May Jagger's neck?

Okay, now mentally rotate it 90 degrees. What does it look like? To an entire sect of Sufi Muslims, it looks like this:

Via MTO

Followers of The Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi Shahmaghsoudi School of Sufi Islam are outraged at seeing their emblem in a sexualized advertising campaign. They've launched a Twitter hashtag campaign, #takeoffjustlogo, as well as a petition.



I have written frequently about the problem of commercial appropriation of cultural symbols. And I think I've established myself as a critic of Islamophobia. But as a branding professional, I think this outrage is completely mistaken.

The logo is clearly a stylized "JC" monogram. There is no extra elaboration. "Just" JC.

I firmly believe that the logo designer was completely unaware of any similarity with the Sufi symbol, and it takes a concerted effort to see it:

Via Allvoices

So what's the big deal? One of the anti-Cavalli campaign organizers, American doctoral student Nasim Bahadorani, said "We have this sign that to us represents blessed peace. It's a refuge … To see it disgraced like this for a company to make money is heartbreaking."

But really? There are only so many ways to create symbols in the world. As much as this one means to The Maktab Tarighat Oveyssi Shahmaghsoudi School, and as much as their religious sensibilities are real, this accidental sort-of similarity ranks pretty low in the problems of the world. At least in my opinion.

Cavalli can choose to withdraw the logo if they want to, and they may if they feel the bad PR will influence their key target audiences. But for now, the brand is appealing to the European Union's trademark and design authority, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM).

From Reuters:

"Roberto Cavalli SpA is deeply saddened by the distress expressed by the Sufist School students, but hopes that the sentence emitted by a competent authority such as the OHIM, will convince the Sufist religion of the complete good faith and the groundlessness of their requests," the company said this week in a statement.

Ironically, Roberto Cavalli was the subject of some much more warranted religious outrage back in 2004, when he produced a line of bikinis featuring classical Indian images of Hindu gods. Cavalli apologized and withdrew the swimwear from stores following protests in the UK.

Sexy advertising gets clever for fashion app

As much as I complain about sex in advertising, it's not because I'm "anti-sex." What I am is anti-contributing-to-women-being-commoditized and anti-lazy-creative.

This ad, for a fashion shopping app, is pretty tasteful in its sexualization of both male and female models, and the insight is pretty clever. Using the pixelization we're used to seeing on the naughty bits, it tells us that it's the clothes that their customers really get off on:



It was actually kind of refreshing for a sexy ad, wasn't it?

Via Ads Of The World

1979: O.J. Simpson's 'third leg' sells boots in Playboy #TBT

When I was scanning an old NORML ad for today's Osocio post, I stumbled across this bizarre pre-Photoshop ad for Dingo Boots.

The copy, "the man's all legs" refers to the fact that then (as now) he held the record for the highest single season yards-per-game average in the NFL. But considering this ad was placed in a 1979 Playboy magazine, you have to wonder if the old "third leg" pun was in play.

People younger than me, who only know OJ Simpson from his murder trial, may not realize what a huge deal this man was in the '70s. I still have my original copy of The Book Of Lists that gives the results of an August, 1976, Ladies' Home Journal poll of children's "Top 10 Heroes And Heroines."

Here are the results:

Girls
1. O.J. Simpson
2. Neil Armstrong     
3. Robert Redford
4. Elton John
5. Billie Jean King
6. Mary Tyler Moore
7. John Wayne
8. Chris Evert
9. Katherine Hepburn
10. Henry Kissinger

Boys
1. O.J. Simpson
2. Elton John
3. John Wayne
4. Chris Evert
5. Neil Armstrong
6. Joe Namath
7. Henry Kissinger
8. Robert Redford
9. Gerald Ford
10. Mary Tyler Moore

Times sure have changed.

Thanks to Kerry for the ad

Supermodel covers Blondie in her bikini

There's nothing new about a model singing in accented monotone — Nico was the patron saint of that.

But Nico had the magic of the '60s New York City art scene behind her, as well as the music of the Velvet Underground, Jackson Browne, and other great collaborators.

Gisele Bundchen, on the other hand, has Auto-Tune and a weak arrangement of the classic new wave/disco crossover hit by French DJ Bob Sinclair:



Oh yeah, and it's an ad for swimwear. In case you missed it.

According to Ace Showbiz, the ad was given a premiere showing on Good Morning America yesterday.

The only good thing about it is that H&M is donating all royalties from the song's iTunes sales to UNICEF. If anyone buys it.

You could also buy this instead, and donate directly to UNICEF here:

What ISN'T wrong with this violence against women awareness campaign?

Via Ads of The World

This is a real shame, in every sense of the word. I quite liked last year's "You Are Not a Sketch" campaign for this client, Star Models of Brazil, by an agency called Revolution.

But this one? Not. At. All.

Via Ads of The World

Let's ignore the fact that it wasn't translated well into English. (Interestingly, the same campaign on Coloribus gives a different version: "It was the cleavage" and "It was the behaviour") I can't seem to find any Portuguese versions, which leads me to suspect that the agency, Revolution Brasil, created them specifically for international Web sharing.

But these are only shareworthy for how misguided they are. The assumption, that the woman in the middle of each ad is the type of person the viewer would assume was "asking for" sexual violence, and the two on the sides are not, is trying to push a point that no victim is to blame. But in doing so, it uncovers the agency team's prejudice against certain women and in doing so simply reinforces the idea that religious people, mothers, and soldiers are "better" than women who dress "slutty" or dare to have tattoos and pink hair. (WTF is that anyway? An indication that she's rebellious?)

This is not the way to address serious problems, which are commonly known in the present dialogue as "slut shaming" and "victim blaming".  You may be sick of those words, but they represent concepts that clearly are not getting through to everyone. Especially in the ad industry.

Nothing™ by Adbusters

I don't always like Adbusters' anarchist assault on my livelihood, but when I do it's something like this. Classic.

The conflicting teen sex messages of Candie's

Creepy much? Via Hollywood Life

Teen fashion brand Candie's seems to want it both ways. On one hand, they sell the idea that teens can look sexy in their clothes, featuring provocative images using young spokespeople like 16-year-old Disney Channel actress Bella Thorne, above.

At the same time, their Corporate Social Responsibility arm, Candie's Foundation, is an organization that seeks to prevent teen pregnancy by preaching abstinence. They've also been heavily criticized for using celebrities to shame teen mothers.

In fact, their whole plan is to instil a fear of pregnancy in teens. From their web site:

Our campaigns are making a difference. Research has shown that teen girls who have been exposed to the foundation and its messages are more likely to view teen pregnancy and parenthood as stressful and negative, and they are more likely to be skeptical of the media's portrayal of teen pregnancy and parenting. They also think teens should wait longer to have sex than girls who are not aware of the foundation and its messages.

There's something quintessentially American about a brand that sexualizes young girls, then tells them to suppress their sexuality or risk ruining their lives.

Interestingly, even the right-wing blowhards at Fox News see an issue with this.

Fox 411 quotes Katie Yoder, of the socially conservative (read: Fundamentalist Christian and anti-choice) Culture and Media Institute:

Candie's isn't selling clothes, it's selling sex and teaching young girls to act seductively. Thorne sends the message that being feminine has nothing to do with being genuine and that confidence means popping your hips and shaking your butt.

When both bleeding hearts like me and the One Million Moms brigade actually agree, you know there's a problem. Although I doubt we see it the same way.

I have nothing against teens expressing their sexuality among their peers. I just think they need the right information and support to do it safely, to avoid exploitation, unplanned pregnancy, regret, and the threat of rape. Candies wants girls to feel like sexual objects by buying their clothes, but also wants to terrify them out of actually acting on that agency by threatening grave consequences.

This is no way to raise a generation of women.

Now, THIS is a bold lingerie ad

Photo from Forever Yours "Bra School". H/T ABC

Elly Mayday is a Canadian model who, at the age of 25, is living with a rare form of ovarian cancer. A year ago, she was the star model for Forever Yours Lingerie of Vancouver. However, since her diagnosis last summer, her treatment has changed her appearance considerably and now she is... still the star model for Forever Yours Lingerie of Vancouver.

Via Forever Yours

Sonya Perkins, co-founder of Forever Yours Lingerie, told ABC news that she first hired Ms. Mayday for a Valentine's Day shoot in 2013. "At the time, she was a size 14 and had a nice bust and a small waist and big, full hips and behind," she said. "We wanted to represent that look." 

While Ms. Perkins was initially uneasy with Ms. Mayday's determination to keep working in front of the camera, she stood by her model. And now it is paying off.

"In the lingerie industry, it's not something you do," Elly Mayday explained. "It's all about long hair and big breasts and arched backs. But it's important to show what real women look like underneath their clothes. Most people have some issue they are dealing with."

Now, both model and brand are making headlines around the world. And the Elly Mayday fanpage on Facebook has almost 84,000 followers.

On posting the Forever Yours online ad on her page, Ms. Mayday was effusive in her appreciation of the support she's receiving from the lingerie brand and its customers:

It's a wonderful thing to have such caring people to work with. They have supported me through thick and thin — literally— sickness and health and are still with me today.  

As you can see this photo represents more than just a sports bra. Its represent the acceptance we all need to have for one another as well as ourselves. Thank you Sonya & Brian. Getting to know both of you has been a true blessing and you will always have a place in my heart for what you have done for me.  

Over 7,000 dollars was given to me to help me pay for unexpected costs, like my needles this week that cost $1000 not covered by provincial health care. I bought a new juicer and have been able to afford to eat organically as well. just to list a few things.. 

$2 from every pair of underwear sold as well as in-store and online donations. What an incredible gift. I am so blessed♥

I can never thank you enough for the support.pun intended

So, while American Eagle is getting virtual hugs and high fives for its commitment to not photoshopping its typical-looking models,  elsewhere there are brands and models who are willing to show us what it really takes to do something about the fashion industry's body image problem.

Update: Apologies to Sonja Perkins for initially calling her "Jenkins." It was an error compounded from the ABC article.

Is this really "redefining beauty"?

There's a quite a bit of backlash against excessive Photoshopping of models over the past few years. From snarky comments by subjects who don't recognize themselves post-PS and anti-Photoshop marketing campaigns to outright bans on excessive photo alteration, retouching has never been more in the public eye. In some cases, the backlash can even be accused of going too far.

Some magazines, like Seventeen have responded to public pressure by promising to stop airbrushing models to death. And of course some fashion brands are jumping onboard.

Which brings us to this:

The "all natural" approach by aerie, the lingerie brand associated with American Eagle, is understandably getting noticed. AdFreak's Roo Ciambriello calls them "Simple, Revolutionary Lingerie Ads." But as Adrants' ever-subtle Steve Hall points out, "Of course we're never going to see girls in these campaigns that aren't already naturally hot."

While it's laudable that the models don't have artificial thigh gaps or plasticized skin, they are not exactly ordinary people. Not that we should entirely expect them to be, I suppose. Models are hired based on their looks. But attempting to take the higher ground by saying the brand represents "the real you" can expose it to greater scrutiny as well.

Remember when a Dove "Real Beauty" casting call was leaked? It specified "BEAUTIFUL ARMS AND LEGS AND FACE WILL BE SHOWN! MUST HAVE FLAWLESS SKIN, NO TATTOOS OR SCARS! Well groomed and clean...Nice Bodies..NATURALLY, FIT Not too Curvy Not too Athletic." (Caps theirs.)

Underwear models, like swimsuit models, tend to have pretty "flawless" appearance to begin with. I get it. Fashion is aspirational, and people want to believe that the clothes will make them seem sexy, or beautiful, or powerful, or cool, or whatever the brand promises. It always has, even long before Photoshop existed.

However, the question for me is whether a lingerie brand that features beautiful young women lounging around provocatively in underwear should be celebrated for not gilding the lily (so to speak) by altering them to remove their few "flaws."

Maybe just a little bit, but not too much. It's still feeding into female stereotypes of what acceptably sexy bodies look like, and how their sexuality is presented to the world.

13 most popular posts of 2013

Since starting this bog, almost five years ago,  I've been working to find my niche among ad bloggers.

I'm still working on it. As you'll see from the list below, scandal still "sells" the most clicks online. While I don't purposely write for linkbait, I've learned my lesson about the SEO dangers of putting the words "teen," "sexting" and "nudity" in the same headline. I have a feeling I disappointed a few creeps with that one...


#13 This is how you do sex in advertising

I was a little worried at first, with the lesbian fetish cliché of the two women kissing, but when bethonged spokesman Brandon Allen gets in bed with the threesome, the ad achieves a kind of self-deprecating charm and irony.


#12 No, this is not a "real" Russian Tampax ad

This nasty little clip, which is making the viral rounds of HuffPo, LiveLeak, etc., is not a "Russian Tampax Ad". According to its own YouTube "about" section, it's a promotional video for the bizarre mess known as "Movie 43".


#11 Can this kind of teaser campaign still be effective?

It's like a combination of the fictional Gabbo! campaign from The Simpsons and early meme site Zombo.com.

So what is it for? I'm not that curious, really. I'm more interested in seeing if such an old-school teaser campaign can still work, without either being prematurely outed or simply forgotten about before it reaches critical mass.


#10 This push-up bra gag has been done before

Seem familiar? You might be thinking of a similar Dutch campaign, starring Andrej Pejić, from a couple of years ago.


#9 Travel campaign offers a brutal take on mob mentality — but is it for real?

To me, this is another example of belief in the stupid old adage that there's "no such thing as bad publicity".  There is... for brands. It's the creative teams and agencies that really benefit from these "edgy" campaigns, as the ad community congratulates them for convincing someone else to pay for another self-serving attempt at notoriety.

#8 Billboard celebrating "remarkable women" shows only men

The men are all donors to the campaign. Which is great. And the campaign itself is a good one. But the paternalism of the billboard, even if unintentional, is baffling.

#7 This could be the worst Facebook ad of all time

If you don't recognize the face in the ad, that's Rehtaeh Parsons, a Canadian teen who committed suicide last April after being raped at a party while too intoxicated to consent, and experiencing extreme online sexual harassment and abuse when photos of the crime were circulated among her peers.

Whether the company used the photo accidentally or on purpose is unknown. The web site the ad directs to is no longer online.

#6 Advertising rape culture in anti-rape campaigns

Victim-blaming. It's ugly, it's hurtful, and it's doing nothing to stop people from raping other people.

In the aftermath of the Steubenville rape trial, in which two teenage men were convicted of raping and humiliating an unconscious teenage woman, it's time we had another look at what these supposedly-helpful ads are saying. 

#5 Pussy Riot appropriated again, this time by Vanessa Hudgens

I've written before, both here and on Osocio, about the appropriation of anarcho-feminist group Pussy Riot's knitted balaclava brand. Here's the latest sighting, from former Disney star Vanessa Hudgens'  '$$$ex' Teaser Video.

#4 Low-fat cheese brand makes fun of diet industry clichés aimed at women 

More and more brands are realizing that the best way to reach women is to make fun of the way everyone else tries to reach women.

The menstruation products industry has been doing this for years. Fashion, too. So low-cal foods might as well get into the action. And who knows cheese better than a cheese manufacturer?

#3 This vintage ad illustration makes photoshopped ads look realistic by comparison

Portraying unrealistic body types in ads and fashion is nothing new.

#2 "You're not the first" to do this awful, sexist concept, either

Aston Martin says in their blog that the ad is fake. But it's been done for real, several times.

#1 Parenting magazine shock advertises with "teen" sexting image (partial nudity)

Don't panic — it's an ad. The models are obviously adults. But is using a titillating image a good idea, even if it's saying "we're against that sort of thing"? It's as if the all-male creative team at Jung von Matt were a little too into this one. As a result, in my opinion, they just end up contributing to the problem of adults fetishizing teen sexuality.

Well, that's it for 2013. Happy New Year, and thanks for reading.

Another "stripper" fashion campaign, but with a twist

Hypersexualized campaigns are getting so lazy these days, when I first saw the thumbnail for Steve Hall's Adrants post about this campaign, I thought it was the same one I blogged about yesterday.

It's not. This one, at least has a gag at the end:



Still a pretty embarrassing stripper campaign, but this one has an actual product message about why you, the straight man in the captive audience, need new gitch. The insight is pretty solid. I have some underpants that are holier than the Shroud of Turin.

I'm not sure whether to classify this one as a shock gag or just more run-of-the-mill sex in advertising. If the former, considering it was done with a great deal more "shock" and "gag" just two years ago for cancer awareness by JWT London, this one has some stiff competition.

Fashion brand adopts "will strip for attention" strategy

This could be the sleaziest use of sex in advertising that you will read about today. French fashion brand Vicomte A. hired Fred & Farid, Shanghai, to create an online campaign that allows users to undress a woman (or a man, apparently) by sharing promotions for items of clothing.

The portfolio video claims incredible success: >150,000 Facebook shares; >300,000 Twitter accounts accessed; 150% increase in Facebook "likes" and a fivefold increase in traffic to their e-commerce site:



Hey, waitaminute! Isn't something missing here? Sales figures?

Getting people to share information for a reward — whether is be voyeurism, altruism, or even just looking cool —is easy. The real problem is one of conversion.

Online fundraisers know only too well that you can emotionally trigger a user to share your cause, but you can't make them open their wallets. Using sex in advertising for attention is another part of the same problem. You can get tonnes of earned media and shares by titillating and outraging the internet with blatantly sexualized images of people, but to sell product you still have to brand and convinced based on that products actual benefits. Even a fashion brand, which depends on intangibles like cool factor, has to be able to deliver by providing great looks and a label that will impress peers.

This is French fashion. It looks pretty good. But check out the prices:

I'm going to hazard a guess that this campaign — which owed its viral success to men who had nothing better to do than to show all their friends they were willing to prostitute their social media persona for a peek at online nudity — was not well-enough targeted to people actually willing to shell out $383 USD on a goddamn pair of pants.

Sure, they'll click a call-to-action. But where are the sales?

Tip via Ads Of The World

Never forget: Nude female bodies are luxury goods

Or, at least, they can sell luxury goods.

The Vagenda shared this series of images, scanned from the pages of the Evening Standard’s Deluxe Magazine.

Here's their commentary:

Once I’d got over the slight amusement at the idea that we should ‘bare all to show off the season’s most luxurious accessories’ (that’s right ladies, when you spend that much on a handbag the best way to wear it is in the buff!) I was left quite freaked out by these images. The body in the spread has been so dehumanised through the lack of face in any of the shots, and through the positioning of the body as a prop, that it resembles a piece of furniture. This woman's body has been objectified to the point that it’s no longer the object of the photograph, rather a nice background to draw the eye to a ridiculously expensive bag. 

I don't have much more to add, except that it is all painfully pretentious.

At least Robin Thicke showed faces...

The most naked ad I've ever seen is refreshingly unperverted

According to the evolution of public lice, humans and our ancestors have been wearing some sort of clothing for up to 3.3 million years. But this mythological reimagining of the dawn of pants is a little less icky.

I didn't count them, but prepare yourself for a multitude of swinging penises. And twice as many bared breasts. (Although I suspect some of the women in the ad concealed their nether parts behind merkins.)



The short film, called "Studies On Hysteria", is sponsored content for Colorado Denim. It was a project by three German student directors, Matthias Bäuerle, Gabriel Borgetto, Bernd Faaß, from Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg.

It was shot at two open-air museums, which presented some logistical problems, according to this interview:

Since we were shooting with a naked cast, the managers of the museum didn’t want us to interfere with the school classes visiting on a daily basis. Hence, we could only shoot outside in the early morning and in the late afternoon when the museum was closed. However, due to a timing mistake, we were still shooting when the first grade school class passed by our set. I think they weren’t shocked too much, but the teachers wanted to call the cops… Fortunately they didn’t see us shooting the scene in the church.

The actors, apparently, are mostly real-life nudists who were recruited from online naturist communities. And I think that's why this thing ends up being entirely OK in my book. The nudity is equal, it's natural, and it's funny.

H/T Adrants