There's a kinda whiny op-ed about Dove bars versus Axe body spray in this morning's Globe. Poet Michelle Gillett writes:

Viewers are struggling to make sense of how Dove can promise to educate girls on a wider definition of beauty while other Unilever ads exhort boys to make "nice girls naughty" and assure them, "the more you spray, the more you get" in the Axe deodorant body spray ads. The female models in those ads do not come in a variety of shapes and sizes like the ones in the Real Beauty ads. Axe is promoted by the Bom Chicka Wah Wahs, a fictional all-female singing group dressed in lingerie, fish net stockings, and stilettos, whose lyrics suggest, "If you have that aroma on, you can have our whole band."

I remember when the "Axe Effect" spots started coming out, and they played them before the previews at the movies.  I had gone to a matinee in Davis Square—The Departed—and it was me, and, like, five lesbian couples in the movie theater, and they ran that brilliant ad with the armies of bikini-clad babes on a frantic race to the beach.  When the three armies (blond, brunette, and redhead, I think) converge, at the end, we see they will battle over a lone geek, spraying himself with Axe.  "Spray More.  Get More.  The Axe Effect." 

I laughed and laughed.  But all I heard behind me were tongue clucks and eye-rolls (and, yes, I could actually hear the eyes rolling, that's how dried-up this crowd was), along with comments like, "yeah, right," and "you wish." 

But that's part of the fun of these ads.  They're so over-the-top.  All of the " Axe Effect" and "Bom Chicka Wah Wah" ads are based on the same premise.  Geeky guy, gorgeous girl(s).  But it's gloriously tongue-in-cheek.  It's supposed to play on the pin-up fantasies of teen-age boys.  (I will say that with the full-length music video the Bom Chicka Wah Wah girls have definitely jumped the shark—kind of like the Geiko cavemen getting their own sitcom.)

Axe's best ads are outrageous good fun.  Like this one.  Some are clever plays on gender and sex, like this one. Some are even poignant.  When Axe launched a "longer-lasting" formula, they came out with this ad.  They also have a line of underwear, by the way.  Here's a brilliant ad for their "built-to-stretch" boxer-briefs.

Are these ads harmful to young women?  Michelle Gillett thinks so.  Any ads objectifying pretty women are suspect, of course, even when they are obviously tongue-in-cheek (but for the record, the aforementioned full-length Bom Chicka Wah Wah video is, indeed, in the worst possible taste, and makes Gillett's point for her).

But the lion's share of the Axe ads, while provocative, are harder to pin down.  If the ads were for split pea soup or bottled water I might agree that the frank if exaggerated sexuality they depict is inappropriate.  But the story of perfume is inseparable from the story of seduction and sex.  The ads are oddly honest on the connection.  Where they go with it from there plays on male fantasies of virility and seduction so self-consciously the ads achieve good-natured irony.

And humor always invites a degree of critical thought about what is being depicted, because humor itself takes a degree of critical thought.

Yes, Axe is a product.  And yes, the ads play with sexual stereotypes to sell it to us.  But that's another matter.  Does it harm boys and girls who might see it without any sense of irony? 

I think once the boys douse themselves in it only to discover that the legendary Axe Effect is a bit milder than advertised, and that there is such a thing as way too much of a good thing, they may actually learn a valuable lesson about truth in advertising. 

And I have too much faith in the raw intelligence of girls to believe that they can be so easily turned to mindless sluts. Or that the pretty girls in these ads will relegate them to a life of wanton blowjobs and bulimia.

Self and sex are more complex.  What struck me about Gillett's grave call to arms in the Globe was the utter lack of humor in it. Not to mention the insensitivity towards and blatant prejudice against beautiful people it exhibits. 

We have rights, too, Gillett.  And we're not afraid to use them.