In this program we try to avoid heavy-handed cultural analysis, but that was an example
of men exploiting women, exploiting men, exploiting women, in a commercial designed to make French
women, if not French women, buy television sets.
Also the girl had a very nice chest.
Frenchmen have always been rather good at staying unimpressed when women disrobe, perhaps
having realized that this is the best way to ensure the girls will go on doing it.
On French television, beautiful bare bosoms are not regarded as a threat to civilization.
They crop up in the commercials everywhere with a frequency either heartening or depressing,
depending on your nationality, gender and viewpoint.
Gaston Jaunet, un amour de femme.
Gaston Jaunet, un amour de femme.
I thought he looked a bit rough.
He was fat rider of some kind.
In the British media, nudity is a virtual monopoly of page three of Fleet Street newspapers.
There are far fewer boobs on the tube and scarcely any in the commercials.
The same goes double for America, where every newspaper in the country recently debated
whether or not it was bad taste for this commercial to appear on cable television there.
I love silk.
It makes me feel so, so, mmm, wow.
The soft Italian silk from Burley.
Burley knows how to bring out the best in me.
Oh.
Personally, I was impressed.
I bought a bra and pants set immediately and I'm wearing them now.
In the United Kingdom up until the 1950s, what went on under a woman's outer garments
was protected by the Official Secrets Act.
When commercial television came along, advertisers bought corsets out of the closet and called
them girdles.
The girdles filled the screen.
The palladium girls proved Sir Romster girdles that you move, keep you smooth.
No matter how active you are, Sir Romster's crossover panels let you move, keep you smooth.
The whalebone kick line.
The watchword in the 1950s was delicacy.
When the hostess of those now long forgotten television advertising magazines had to talk
about underwear, she steered clear of awkward mouthfuls like brassier and knickers and substituted
words like bra and panties, snappy words that could be lost in the corners of her hockey
sticks elocution.
Well, I wonder what you think of this one.
I think it's charming.
Yes, it's also very practical because it's a minimum iron brodery ongles and it has its
own matching panties and costs 78 shillings complete.
But of course, this is where a choice of bra is terribly important.
You see, you certainly don't want one which cuts into you or rides up every time you stretch
or move your arms about.
But here is the answer.
It has crisscross elastic at the sides and in front which moves with you whatever you
do.
In fact, you can almost say it breathes with you, giving you complete freedom of action.
You feel confident and you feel comfortable.
And of course, the Living Bra gives you a wonderful uplift whatever you wear.
Another important thing about the Living Bra is that it's available with pre-shaped cups.
Which fitted right into the pre-shaped sources.
You can hear how the tiny word bra practically disappears.
Mealy Mouth's British gentility has a lot to do with the lack of central heating.
In Australia, where the weather is more hospitable, bra commercials were frank from the start
and have been getting franker all the time.
And the only thing you want to balance is the ball.
What a pity to restrain all that exuberance.
The Australians are also ahead in promoting the completely bra-less bra.
Give you three guesses what this is.
Right, it's a topless tray.
It's called a topless tray because it doesn't topple or tip either.
This actually shapes itself to whatever's underneath to keep it steady.
Catch my drift?
It's great for romantic TV dinners, breakfast in bed.
I'm just having a micro acrobatic snack on the terrace.
Killer, knock it off!
Bra's can't tip on top or tip over.
She probably doesn't either.
But it's a commercial guarantee to offend all feminists anywhere.
There'll probably never be an end to the exploitation of the female body for commercial purposes.
But on French TV screens, there's already a beginning to the exploitation of the male
body for the same reason.
In the American
Athena!
Athena!
Athena!
Athena!
Athena!
Athena!
Athena!
Athena!
Athena, the underlings of men who keep their shape.
He seems to have brought an extra courgette.
The leering ladies are supposed to make you think how women feel when men are mentally undressing them.
But why should anyone want to undress the average man?
We look so much better with our clothes on.
After the break, we'll see how the Japanese attack each other's manhood with medieval mallets.
But first, here's some Scandinavian feminist advice for soldiers who try to use their Army Mores Code training for chatting up birds on park benches.
Only one in ten thousand will get a job in the Army.
You have a choice of more than a hundred different professions.
Professions which you can use, even in civilian life.
There are women in the Army.
Form the front line!
What that ferocious but fascinating female is telling us is that the perfume she's wearing
gives her independence, a mind of her own and carte blanche to crash her car through a cafe.
Just how a best-selling smell can make you more individual instead of less
isn't among the questions raised. Nevertheless, the smell of the essential you has conquered the
world.
A fragrance called Australis. The stuff to use if you suffer from Tasmania.
Yes, Australia's come a long way from the days when the girls just used to rub themselves with
a lotion made from crushed sandflies and koala sweat. I remember the days when a fragrance was
called perfume if not plain scent but it always had exotic powers. Prince Macho Belly brings you
Aviance, a radiant new perfume that lasts through the night and what a way to start it.
And he only came to read the meter.
The Americans, the Americans were the first to contend that your perfume can change your
personality and as usual it was the Americans who were the first to spot their own absurdity.
Here's the amateur low-budget spoof commercial that blew the gaff.
Pretentious.
And that's why I wear the perfume that pretends to be all the things I pretend to be
and all those things are pretentious.
Pretentious by Nouveau Riche.
A well-aimed kick up the crutch for all men engaged in stinging women five hundred dollars an ounce for a prestige pong.
But it will take more than humor to stop women wanting to smell expensive and a lot of men want
the same thing as long as the perfumes made for them have names like Beast and Wolf's Claw.
In Brazil, smells sprayed from cans have gender-bending effects.
And it also kills flies.
Sexual roles are no longer clear. Who wears the pants might well wear the perfume too.
The Finns, the great ones we're getting straight to the point, have tackled the problem of sex roles with this memorable message.
A and B have the same occupation.
They've worked for the same employer for the same length of time.
They have the same educational background and the same qualifications.
But B gets better work to do.
Faster promotion and higher pay.
Why? For this reason.
For this reason, it's time to scrap the roles.
If the awkward male differences are just drawn on, it's easy to rub them off.
If the real thing is harder to eliminate, but the Japanese do their best in their ongoing game show called Endurance,
the globe-girdling epic which eliminates the contestants through trial by ordeal.
Last week in Greece, the field was further reduced by being force-fed with soft-boiled sheep's brains and Tabasco.
This week, the survivors are in Spain and eager to prove that a bang with a big
ball can't break their spirits.
At this medieval castle, each contestant is tied to the ramparts while overacting Spanish collaborators
prepare to swing the hammer which will propel the cannonball up into the victim's vital areas.
The
dried pumpkin is to crack the contestant's skull as he tries to get rid of the
II
Come out, come out...
Give-up, give-up, give-up.
The loser is the first one to sing like Neil Sadaka.
The remainder limp off to the nearest bull ring where their tender backsides are faced with this challenge.
Another demonstration dummy dies bravely.
But an ordinary bullfight isn't enough for the organizers of endurance.
To ensure that contestants can't make a quick getaway, they are securely strapped to this device.
Their bottoms protected by the upright pole, all they have to do when the bull is released
into the ring is to wait until the last possible moment before uprooting the crucifix and sprinting
to safety. In case anything goes wrong, a marksman is standing by.
...
Yes, it's a stuffed bull mounted on wheels and pushed into the ring by happy Spanish
collaborators, but the contestants didn't know that.
Once again, the only reason the contestants have for believing they won't get killed is
the assumption that the organizers wouldn't be that crazy.
Since all the previous evidence suggests that the organizers are that crazy, this must be
cold comfort.
Incidentally, the crucifix has no great religious significance in Japan.
It's more of a means of entertainment, as we will see next week.
Meanwhile, on the theme of men manipulating women through underwear or vice versa, we'll
leave it to you to decide who's doing what to whom here and where.
A girl can go a long way with a pair of sexy legs.
But I can't stand the thought of us being apart again.
A trial separation could help to stop those dreadful erotic dreams you've been having
about me.
You're not constipated, are you?
No.
When was it you last went?
This morning.
Well, what's up with you then?
What's the point of trying to explain love to a woman of 76 who thinks even the word
is obscene?
More confessions from the Secret Diary of Adrienne Mole, 9 o'clock Thursday on ABC.
You had a dance, a fish supper and a ride home.
What more do you want?
Oh, that's nice, isn't it?
Casting that up in me face.
It wasn't much, was it?
About better nights.
You've seen better days too, dear.
There we are then.
What about that?
Mastery.
Add in just what I wanted to see.
Yes, there's only one snag.
What?
You were supposed to be defending him.
I hate to think of a book like this getting in the wrong hands.
As soon as I've finished this, I shall recommend they ban it.
That's pretty easy.
What's it all about?
Mayday!
Mayday!
Mayday!
Mayday!
Hang on, Mayday.
I'm with you, Mayday.
Carry on, Mayday.
Will you please take my position down on radio for help?
Please, hurry.
Will you please keep your voice down?
The neighbours are complaining.
Go on, I'm listening.
Are you there?
I can't hear you.
I'm whispering.
I can't hear you.
Oh, the man's a maniac.
He's gone again.
I'm not a maniac.
I'm whispering.
Thank God.
Coming soon to ABC.
Now available on ABC Video, Jeffrey Robertson's controversial hypothetical, Unto Us a Child
is Born.
For creating a baby for a happily unmarried couple.
Add to your bid to make your life easier.
For the best in the world, we've got a child.
For the best in the world, we've got a child.
For the best in the world, we've got a child.
For the best in the world, we've got a child.
For creating a baby for a happily unmarried couple.
Two titles from ABC's Towards 2000 series.
A living creature with a raging fire in its belly.
Steam trains of Australia is a must for loco lovers.
Four great videos from the ABC shop in your capital city and wherever videos are sold.
8 o'clock Tuesday, live from Parliament House Canberra, the Treasurer Paul Keating presents
the 1986 Federal Budget and at 9.30 a one-hour special budget edition of the Carlton Walsh
Report. ABC, Informing Australia.
Yul Brynner, born 1915, died 1985. Oscar winner, father, fisherman, chess player, cigarette
smoker, victim of lung cancer. One of the last things Yul Brynner did before he died
was to make a plea on national television to cigarette smokers about the dangers of smoking.
Of all his performances on the stage and screen, this is the one that meant the most to him.
Now that I'm gone, I tell you, don't smoke. Whatever you do, just don't smoke. If I could
take back that smoking, we wouldn't be talking about any cancer. Shortly after, Yul Brynner
was dead from lung cancer. It was too late for him, but it need not be the same for you.
Four Corners has been following the major stories of our time for a quarter of a century.
Our special 25th anniversary edition invites you to relive some of the highlights of those
years. They're marching to the sweaty jungles that fire off yet now. 20, 18 and 19 years,
in they go. There have been some memorable moments.
Do you think you're a tough man? Yes, I am. Some momentous.
The assassination last week of Senator Benigno Aquino.
Some trivial. The next step is the monkey. One, two, three,
four. Some moving.
I've seen animals in Australian feed lots better treated than these people.
Many controversial. The woman is on her way to commit a crime. She's
seeking an abortion. A few contentious.
There is no conflict of interest. And some amusing.
25 years of Four Corners, soon on ABC.
but everyone's doing it. In Tasmania, the wood heater makes a comeback.
This year again we're going to see a lot of chaos in the countryside here in the States
and farmers are going to be very fed up, I think, with the situation by coming winter.
And this year in America, 100,000 farm families will be out in the cold.
Hello and welcome to Countrywide. Last week on Countrywide we told of the rapid
demise occurring to the Australian family farm. Government taxes and high interest rates
have taken their toll, but the latest burden is the slump in world grain prices, forced
down by subsidised sales from the EC and USA. The irony is that although the US policy was
designed to help America's farmers, the family farm there is facing an even more rapid death
than here in Australia. Recent estimates in America put the number
of farmers leaving their properties each week at a staggering 2,000 and things are likely
to get a lot worse in the coming American winter.
The farmer's plight was highlighted last year by a Farm Aid pop concert. John Cougar Mellon
Camp was the driving force behind it and his song, Rain on the Scarecrow, has become a
rally song for many small family farmers in the Midwest. It's from there that Philip Williams
sent this report.
There are 212 billion reasons rural America's in trouble. $212 billion of rural debt. 2,000
farmers moving off the land each week. A threat to the centuries long tradition of family
farms. Get to look at this wealthy land and just wonder why.
It's no wonder they call this area the breadbasket of the world. The soil is fabulously rich
and it'll just about grow anything you put into it. And yet despite appearances, there's
a sickness in here just as in Australia that threatens to change the face of American agriculture
forever.
Back in 1980 was when probably we were at our peak capacity here in this yard. The yards
are normally designed for 1,200 cattle.
Like so many, Don Paulson borrowed heavily in the late 70s to expand his cattle feedlot
and hog raising enterprise. He was confident the good times would roll on. After all, everyone
told him so, but they were wrong.
We have certain days that are more depressing than others. Of course we have certain events
happen during the days, but it is very, very depressing to know that this has been your
dream and that there's a very good chance that if you haven't lost it in its entirety
now that you will within possibly a year.
Instead of a thriving business, Don and his wife Eileen are caught in the twilight zone
between his banker and the final eviction notice. Under Iowan law, they have a year
to come up with the money they owe or else it all goes. Meanwhile, their only crops are
the weeds, the only livestock, the cats and dogs.
Who do you blame for all of this?
Well, there's a combination. I hate to blame anyone or anything in particular because I
think then you start to focus on that. And it's a combination of things. It's some things
we did and a lot of it is government policy too. And we feel that our trips to Washington
and doing our lobbying here in the state house and the rallies, the farm rallies, they're
all something that we can do to bring about change that will bring prices back to agriculture
and we need a profit, plain and simple. If we don't have that, we can't stay in business,
that's for sure.
One hundred kilometres away in Iowa's capital, Des Moines, Dave Oostendorf is spearheading
the fight to save America's family farms. The organisation is called Prairie Fire and
it's designed to give all the legal, moral and financial support they can to farmers
threatened with foreclosure. It's a resource centre, well organised and determined, with
a telephone hotline for immediate attention.
I think that what we ought to do is to, let's wait and see what the judge rules.
I don't think they quite understand that what they're looking at is fair market value and
not all the work and effort that Don has put into laying out such a nice facility.
Let me know if anything develops before then, ok? Alright, take care, bye.
What sort of services do you offer farmers that are in trouble like the one that just
called there?
Well we provide legal referral, some technical assistance in terms of lenders' policies,
we can refer folks back to local pastors or other mental health professionals and we just
do a lot of talking and listening ourselves on the phone with farmers who are in trouble
and in that manner really help them through their particular problem.
What sort of problems do you encounter on the personal level?
Well there are tremendous amounts of financial problems obviously and those beyond the financial
problems, the human cost of this crisis are extraordinary, increased wife, spouse abuse,
child abuse, even alcohol and drug abuse in the countryside.
Religion plays an integral part in the lives of many in middle America. It's hardly an
area of life that isn't touched by the church in some way or the other. So it's hardly surprising
when there's been trouble in the cornfields, the church has been there both socially and
politically.
In Dave Oustendorf's case, prairie fire is his ministry and saving family farms is his
mission. As an ordained preacher, he believes the church must offer farmers more than a
prayer if they're to survive against the pressures of low commodity prices, unsympathetic banks
and bad government policy.
It is time to stand up to this system as we have stood up to the Farmers Home Administration
and other lenders in the past and as we will continue to stand up to those lenders in the
future because we will not take the kinds of unjust policies and practices that they
have put upon our people.
At crisis meetings across the state, Oustendorf has rallied support against banks who foreclose
on bad debt. Emotions run high at these meetings, people's lives, their families, the very fabric
of the close-knit rural communities is at risk.
I think you all have seen this hog here and we think it's a good symbol for where we're
going today in Omaha as this federal land bank continues to hog up our land.
The banks have become the focus for the utter frustration of farmers who have watched their
property values, which they used to secure loans, slip by as much as 60 per cent in the
past four years. What Oustendorf and his supporters are demanding is a fair price from the government
for their produce. After all, they argue, Washington has the power to control the world
prices of many commodities. Australia knows that only too well. So why doesn't the government
ensure them a decent living instead of allowing giant farming operations to swallow up family
farms by the thousands?
What sort of transformation is happening?
End Andrews