So I've been a Mud Wrestling fan since my very young age.. and I've always been very happy to see Mud Wrestling in main stream culture.. adds, movies, tv shows.. And we see less and less of those appearances. Even organizing a mud wrestling party appears much less Politically Correct now.. Is this the end of main stream Mud Wrestling?
Lots of noise caused this week by Miller Light apologizing for having woman in Bikinis to sell beer 20 years ago (like the whole industry). Often used in those discussions is their famous mud wrestling scene and they are shaming that history.. and I'm really struggling with that canceling and shaming part.. Even asking people to send them their old s**t (sexist adds) and they'll turn it in to make it good s**t..

Hurting my feelings here a bit..

https://youtu.be/NQwPRH89Ihg

"Cancel culture" is overblown. Acknowledging women's existence isn't woke. Camera phones and the idiots who use them killed mud wrestling.

No, not really. Newtons 3rd law of Motion states "For every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction". In other words, what was "in" yesterday may not be so tomorrow and overtones of was is "in" a decade ago may come back just as seen in music, artistry, movies etc,

People need to remember that the whole mud wrestling phenomenon wasn't just something that a group of degenerates did on Friday nights at the Tropicana. It was a cultural (or sub cultural depending how you perceive it) part of history. It was first derived in Eastern Europe in the early 19th century and spread throughout other nations, including Germany and France. In the states, it was so widespread that not only did it see mainstream prominence but A list celebrities and major rock artist from Richie Sambora to Motley Crue and Ozzy Osbourne could be seen at these nightclubs featuring it.

Brands like Coors, Miller Light or whoever else who follows along can do whatever lip service they want. Fact is the women who put them on the map were the women who used their sex appeal to bait men into buying their product. If anything, they need to salute them. I mean, You honestly think Victoria's Secrets didn't know what they were doing by continuing to send out their catalog every month? It was Marketing:101 of the 80's and 90's and it still continues to this day. Why else would any established nightclub hire bottle service girls? I don't see any nightclubs canceling out ladies night (which was strictly made to draw in the men). You think Onlyfans had no idea what they were doing when they launched their platform during the pandemic? Cheerleading is still a thing, right?

Women, in and of themselves are a powerful force in advertising and the mainstream media, both mentally, emotionally and of course physically. That is NOT going away (or at least completely). Will it evolve? Of course. We won't have instances where a scene like "For All The Marbles" will need to be shot twice because the producer was a prick who insisted that the girls go topless despite their reservations of doing so.

In the end, there is NOTHING wrong with mud wrestling in the mainstream media. Just a few months ago, they aired a scene (as pathetic as it was) for the Chipendales doc. It holds a historical significance in our culture and no matter how much we want to deny it, it has become a trope in the mainstream media whenever we see two contentious females in the same room. Will how we approach these scenes change? Certainly. That doesn't mean it is wrong in and of itself or it will disappear forever.

Long live mud wrestling and women in bikinis!

So there is nothing wrong with using sex to sell products. What's wrong is that morons on soap boxes want to make other people feel bad for enjoying woman looking great and being sexy.
Typically women who are comfortable with their bodies have zero issues with seeing women do whatever they want as long as they WANT to do that thing. That being said models that aren't comfortable with any given thing should remove themselves from a role by turning it down instead of trying to twist the role into something else (like what happened with Cowboy Bebop). Both men and women can use their bodies for selling things. Just like you see nicely dressed guys or guys with muscles and good looks selling stuff in commercials you also see the same of women. It's just the political climate and heavily slanted media want to give megaphones to the morons on soapboxes that don't deserve megaphones.

So don't feel bad for liking something that isn't inherently sick or wrong and don't listen to the media right now as it's just terrible.

I find it funny that well established countries that hold themselves high in regard to how they treat women have zero issues with mud wrestling scenes in their mainstream media. UK, Spain, France, Germany etc all have reoccurring instances where these scenes come up in their mainstream media. This whole culture war nonsense is strictly a US phenomenon.

Some of this culture war shit has, unfortunately, spread to Britain too

I remember people being outraged about the mud wrestling commercial when it first aired. Eventually, the hysteria died down and people moved on. Unfortunately, companies no longer have spines and refuse to stand up to the miniscule number of people who actually care about these things. They all just see a few thousand people talking on Twitter and think it somehow represents the beliefs and feelings of the entire population. I wish companies and their boards and the media would learn to ignore what people say on social media because it really isn't newsworthy or a valid representation of how most people feel on any issue.

I think there's some selective memory going on. There are plenty of plenty of American reality shows where women embarrass themselves for money and exposure. They might not always be in ways that we prefer but we're always good for a couple of messy challenges on Big Brother and Survivor. Admittedly I'm not a mud wrestling guy so I'm not on the hunt of mud wrestling videos, but I'm much more likely to attribute the apparent lack of mud wrestling in American culture to general apathy (or the aforementioned selective memory) than some kind of culture war. One of our highest rated TV shows is a harem fantasy and we made OnlyFans creators millionaires. Mud wrestling is nothing.

This is absolutely true but I don't think the temperature there has quite reached the critical mass that it has here in the US. I still think BBC does fantastic reporting for the era that we are in.

We, on the other hand, are the personification of decadence where we can never do anything small but have to shoot a hot button subject with steroids, hyperbole, out of context hashtags and make everything viral. God forbid a real catastrophe hits our country because I honestly don't think our citizens would be able to tell the difference.

I don't really watch reality tv honestly. I personally feel it rots brain cells but I know where you are coming from. Honestly, I am not worried. "This too shall pass". I am pretty sure I remember that even in the time period where mud and oil wrestling hit it's climax, there was a loud voice in the room talking about how degenerating it was to women. This really is nothing new and I feel it is generational thus doomed to repeat itself throughout our history *shrugs*

To me, it's really a non issue. Give them a few years when opinions lighten and they will be back with swimsuit calendars. The problem with public opinion dictating policy is that opinions change.

Just wait till they hear how I would sell beer.

I think that there is a sense of recognition that past behavior may not have been acceptable. Where it was not acceptable in their mind they feel that an apology is warranted. This is not something new. Anyone that collected the Looney Tunes DVD's remembers the statement from Whoopi about a product of their time and being wrong then and wrong now. But erasing or ignoring that part of history is more damaging. I think that needs to be the case now. Acknowledge that it was something that was done at the time, not as an excuse, but as an example to do better and be better. We are changing as a society and this is part of changing, acknowledging things in our past that were wrong and changing who we are to recognize those things. People should not be exploited. If there were women that enjoyed doing the wrestling and enjoyed what went with it, I don't think there is an issue as long as they were treated respectfully during the shoots and during the matches. If there were situations where the women were not treated right as I am almost positive there were, then as a company I think they have a responsibility to reach out to the women and apologize and reconcile what happened.

I'm not sure and can't speak about the behaviors of their marketing and production staff during that time period but to my knowledge, all those women were models and consenting. Was there probably some back set shenanigans? Most definitely. How widespread or bad it was in their companies is unknown, though. Maybe these companies are trying to get ahead of a known incident *shrugs*. There is a plethora of reasons why a company would switch stances like that and it holds zero bearing on it's true stance as a company. It's all just clever PR and really no different from the ads they did that they now condemn. It's just made for a different audience. That's why I honestly wish people didn't take a stupid ad like that so seriously. In 5 years, it will be something else based on the demographics they are trying to wrangle in.

I'd be curious to see your evidence for that last idea. I sure haven't seen any studies about, like, women's self-esteem as compared with their opinions about sexual advertising, but if you know of some I'd like to check them out. (On the other hand, I *have* seen studies about the effectiveness of sexual advertising as a business practice. Turns out it doesn't work )

As for the other thing, I don't think the problem is people enjoying looking at women. My understanding is that it's just like any other group of people who want to be represented in a reasonable and fair way as opposed to being stereotyped or whatever. Which, you can call that "cancel culture" or whatever, but I feel like it's a pretty simple and universal desire that all of us have.

The only thing I seem to have against this whole thread is the misnomer of calling it "cancel culture". I have sat in many a production meetings for commercials and even marketing round tables and it is never discussed in that manner. It's more about a demographic range or segment of the population they are trying to reach in order to sell more product. In this case, it's women and the latest generation of alcohol consumers.

It happens all the time. A few ago, Victoria's Secret decided to advertise more featuring plus sized models and Fredricks of Hollywood followed, Venus Swimwear decided to offer a more modest line up, Playboy decided it was going to stop doing Nudity in 2016 only to restart it in 2017 and McDonalds has been back and forth about the McRib for the past 2 decades. This is the ebb and flow of marketing and official brand policy/culture will always be different from the image it is trying to project which is always changing.

Oh, for sure. And that's why it's a little silly to talk about these corporations as though they have, like, some crazy agenda that they're following. Corporate imaging, whether that's advertising or PR or graphic design or whatever, is all a show. Thinking that corporations "believe" their ads is like thinking that Daniel Craig believes that he's actually James Bond.

One of the craziest things about reality is that corporations mostly have no real idea how to gain a competitive advantage. That's why they do so much dumb shit all the time, like facebook throwing away billions of dollars on the "metaverse" idea. They have more money than sense, so they just throw money at random shit until it either works or they go broke. Kinda nuts, but that's the way it is.

I honestly don't think it's too much to be concerned about. This type of thing has been going on forever the only difference is now we have social media and things like this seem magnified because there's more outlets to openly complain about...well frankly EVERYTHING. Just imagine how insane the 80's would have been if social media would have been around during the satanic panic years, or when certain groups were trying to kill the horror movie genre, and yes beautiful women in bikinis were still a problem to certain groups even in the 80's. Just remember the majority are mostly cool with a lot of these things.

What?

I'm already at work in the WAM parody of this commercial.
When the spokesbabe says she wants "the Good S#!t", she gets it, by the bucketload.

What I think he is referring to is the several independent studies in focus groups that revealed that sex appeal in advertisements only made marginal increases in select demographics. Mostly 18-35 which typically in that age group consisted of trade skill, grad and pre grad students, young single adults with an entry level income and still paying off their student loan debts. Few young married couples. Mostly all male.

In other words: Younger = Less money/less credit history = less likely to actually buy and young wives were not likely to allow you to impulse buy a new car with their "future new home" savings simply because there was a pair of breasts in the commercial. Mud wrestling and catfighting in a beer commercial makes sense simply because the hyper sex driven overtones attract the primary target audience at that time period (which was still coming off the heels of the late 90's): males and young males 21-40 years old. Same with the Coors Lite Girls appearances at bars and nightclubs or the swimsuit calendars they put out. I just about never seen a man's garage (or automotive shop) without one in fact.

It's still relevant, though. Just not as widely used. Just ask Hooters and everyone who claims they go there because the Wings are good

You kidding?! I'm seriously thinking about giving the Miller Lite Catfight a much needed redux! We can even tie in present ongoing events into the storyline. Kinda like the manshow mud wrestling scene from the episode that starts out with the ladies protesting outside. LOL

So, two things. On the one hand, yes, obviously sexual advertising works if what you're advertising is... sex (or porn, or whatever). That's the most literal idea of "sex sells": people do literally buy sex, images of sex, and so on.

But, on the other hand, most people are not dumb enough to believe that drinking a beer is the same as fucking a model, or even owning a swimsuit calendar or whatever. (Humans may be pretty foolish overall, but we're not quite *that* far gone ) So, like, pointing to Hooters or Playboy as proof that "sex sells" is sort of missing the point. The question for corporations isn't whether sex sells *itself* - the question is whether sex can sell *any* random thing.

And as far as we can tell, the answer seems to be no. If you look at big studies (like this one, say: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02650487.2017.1334996), they tend to conclude that sexual advertising hurts a brand's image without providing any overall boost to sales. Other studies try to understand why this happens (like this one: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-020-01190-6), but ultimately the reality is what it is regardless of the explanation.

(Which, at this point, some of you might be thinking, "Fuck that, what do those eggheads know, sexy ads are so common that corporations must have a good reason for using them." Alas, no. Like I said, corporations are not very logical. Another example is layoffs. That big run of layoffs that happened across tech companies starting late last year? Those types of layoffs don't actually help companies. They're just for show. You can read this article: https://hbr.org/2022/12/what-companies-still-get-wrong-about-layoffs Or this one: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-copycat-layoffs-wont-help-tech-companies-or-their-employees Or just use your common sense: workers make your products, so getting rid of workers means getting rid of your products, which means getting rid of profits. So, no, something is not automatically rational or a good idea just because companies do it a lot.)

Sex DEFINITELY sells depending on the product and it's demographic. Erotic novels with the buff shirtless guy on the cover, they know their audience as well as beer (which could be a whole other thread today) knows or knew theirs. The example of Hooters given previously knows their audience. It just depends

Opinions change, but overall progress doesn't usually. It's within my TV-viewing memory that the BBC was broadcasting "The Black And White Minstrel Show" on prime-time Saturday evening TV to an audience of millions every week. And yes, for anyone not aware of it, it was just as horrific as it sounds and that it ran at all, never mind for 20 years (1958-1978) is now widely regarded as abhorrent. That won't be making a come-back in any forseable future.

if swimsuit calendars ever make a comeback I'd expect them to be far more diverse, but personally I think "drape a hot half-naked girl over it" as a way of selling stuff, other than actual sex industry products, is probably history. Brands will want to be seen as progressive and "for everyone".

On the other hand mud wrestling probably has a good future, people will always like watching fit hot people grappling with each other in slippery stuff. But I'd expect it to become more diverse in terms of performers over time in order to appeal to an audience that increasingly values diversity in its entertainment.

The Black and white minstrel show was just shite anyway, even if you ignored the racist aspect of it. There had been complaints about it for years, going back to the 60s

Right, sure - like I said, sex does sell itself. It sells porn, it sells escort services, it sells the SI swimsuit edition, and so on. If you want to stare at some tits for a while, then obviously Hooters advertising is going to appeal to you; if you want to read a steamy sex scene, Fabio on a book cover will draw you in.

It's just, to me, that's not good enough to justify saying "sex sells" as a general principle, especially given the decently large amount of evidence we've found suggesting that it doesn't.

Brexit is nothing if not culture wars IMO. It's barely even about being in the EU or not now. Just a vehicle to polarise people.

Men will always like hot women. Always. Women will always know this inherently. Nothing to be ashamed of here.