Banned at the Bay Bridge: Too “Brokeback” for CBS Outdoor?

[ptannen]

http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=6333

(also copied below)

Banned at the Bay Bridge: Too “Brokeback” for CBS Outdoor?

Banned at the Bay Bridge: Too “Brokeback” for CBS Outdoor? By Kim Corsaro
Published: April 26, 2007

When San Francisco radio station 95.7-"The Wolf"--went Country the morning of March 1, they devised an advertising campaign that sampled the Big & Rich Grammy-nominated country song from 2004, "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)." Their television commercial, which includes the song, has aired repeatedly and without controversy on numerous Bay Area television stations since March.

But according to 95.7 program director Scott Mahalick, CBS Outdoor pulled the plug on The Wolf when the radio station tried to feature the slogan on a large, multi-message LED display billboard near the Bay Bridge Toll Plaza that greets drivers coming off the Bridge. According to Mahalick, they were running "30 second, 15 second commercials, which open with the hook of this song, "Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)" on TV sstations in their listening area. Mahalick says they didn't even "consider that it would be an issue."

But CBS Outdoor-a national subsidiary of CBS network that sells outdoor advertising--thought differently, and they delivered a flat, "No" to The Wolf.

Mahalick couldn't believe it. He says they "went up the chain" at CBS Outdoor, where they sent a copy of the TV commercial, expecting that would straighten everything out. "We were running it full motion video on every TV station and there's no problem," said Mahallick. "They just performed it on Dancing With the Stars. It's mainstream."

Still, CBS Outdoor balked and refused to post the billboard. Did they consider it too gay? Executives at CBS Outdoor were unavailable for comment at press time.

Most certainly, awareness has changed in the Bay Area. This writer recalls another large freeway billboard, off the San Francisco Central Freeway in the late 1970s, when the general public didn't have a clue about gay sensibilities. Nobody said a thing about the billboard until Chronicle columnist Herb Caen pointed out that the gay community was howling about this message that slipped by the ad agency and billboard company censors. The billboard, for something like the California Dairy industry, featured a stark black background, with a small picture of a dish of ice cream, with a dollop of whipped cream and a cherry on top. Across the billboard, the ad slogan declared: "Top Your Favorite Bottom with Real Whipped Cream."

Makes riding a cowboy seem downright tame by comparison.
 

[Jeff Wrangler]

"Top Your Favorite Bottom with Real Whipped Cream."

     And don't forget the chocolate syrup. 

(Or peanut butter if you're Mainewriter. ...  )

Thanks for this, Pete.

So what came first, the slogan or the song?

Our Liberty Gay Rodeo Association had a fundraiser for their designated charities last Saturday, and the song was played for line dancing. First I heard it. 

[Meryl]

Hunh.  I don't know the song, but is it specifically about men?  I know it usually is associated with gays, but it could apply to women riding cowboys, too.  Maybe the reference to the sex act was their main objection.  Everyone's so worried the puritans will get after them nowadays.  It's sad, really. 

[LauraGigs]

Yeah, sounds like it can be interpreted "straightly" to me.  Here are the lyrics:

Well, I walk into the room
Passing out hundred dollar bills
And it kills and it thrills like the horns on my Silverado grill
And I buy the bar a double round of crown
And everybody's getting down
An' this town ain't never gonna be the same.

[Chorus:]
Cause I saddle up my horse
and I ride into the city
I make a lot of noise
Cause the girls
They are so pretty
Riding up and down Broadway
on my old stud Leroy
And the girls say
Save a horse, ride a cowboy.
Everybody says
Save a horse, Ride a cowboy

Well I don't give a dang about nothing
I'm singing and Bling- Blanging
While the girls are drinking
Long necks down!
And I wouldn't trade ol' Leroy
or my Chevrolet for your Escalade
Or your freak parade
I'm the only John Wayne left in this town

[Chorus]

[Spoken:]
I'm a thourough-bred
that's what she said
in the back of my truck bed
As I was gettin' buzzed on suds
Out on some back country road.
We where flying high
Fining, whine, having ourselves a big and rich time
And I was going, just about as far as she'd let me go.
But her evaluation
of my cowboy reputation
Had me begging for salvation
all night long
So I took her out giggin frogs
Introduced her to my old bird dog
And sang her every Wilie Nelson song I could think of
And we made love

And I saddled up my horse
and I ride into the city
I make a lot of noise
Cause the girls
They are so pretty
Riding up and down Broadway
on my old stud Leroy
And the girls say
Save a horse, ride a cowboy
Everybody says
Save a horse, Ride a cowboy.

[MaineWriter]

    And don't forget the chocolate syrup. 

(Or peanut butter if you're Mainewriter. ...  )

You want a quote, cowboy? As I recall, you were my beta reader for that chapter....LOL

L

[injest]

That is a mainstream song....I was not aware of any gay undertones from the video OR the lyrics. Only one radio would play it when it first came out (in fact one radio station refused to give away the comped copies of the CDs they sent out). But when it got into the top ten everyone started playing it. Has been popular for a while.

(they wouldn't play it because of the whole 'ride a cowboy' statement; thought it was too sexual)

[Jeff Wrangler]

(they wouldn't play it because of the whole 'ride a cowboy' statement; thought it was too sexual)

Gee, ya think maybe?

    

[injest]

Gee, ya think maybe?

    

well, I am a little offended at the sexist attitude of a lot of country music. You always hear about rap music and how THEY treat women, but nothing is ever said about country music.

"Ride a cowboy" to me is no worse than "my baby is born and bred in the USA"

My horse was bred, my cows are bred, I MIGHT breed my dogs.....but I was NOT bred thank you very much!

Then we have a lovely little ditty by two old men talking about a teenage girl (that they have to sneak back in her house on Sunday morning ..so she can be "all ribbons and curls") oh! and she also is sleeping with her math teacher...

or the one that says how sad it is that the South didn't win the Civil War cause "If the South woulda won we'd had it made!" (and them pesky uppity blacks would still be out in the slave houses, although they dont' just come straight out and SAY that....it is just a given...*wink*) and then they could have EVERY "girl child sent to Georgia to learn to smile and talk with that sweet southern style" (cause you know the sole purpose of women is to be amusing and attractive to white straight men!)

or the lovely "Honky Tonk Badonkey donk" or whatever....has all these men of varying ages leering at a bunch of teenagers barely wearing anything on their behinds; the camera never showing anything but their behinds.

Ride a cowboy is too risque? Only for straight white men and the women that buy into their bulls***!

Sorry for the rant! 

[Ellemeno]

well, I am a little offended at the sexist attitude of a lot of country music. You always hear about rap music and how THEY treat women, but nothing is ever said about country music.

               

[dot-matrix]

Bravo!  Bravo! Bravissima! Jess you are my HERO! NO ONE could have said it better!

[injest]

Thank you Thank you!!

(just slap me and call me a feminazi!!)

and I used to be such a good little girl!

 

[Jeff Wrangler]

well, I am a little offended at the sexist attitude of a lot of country music. You always hear about rap music and how THEY treat women, but nothing is ever said about country music.

Little Darlin', plainly you aren't "a little offended," you are a lot offended, and clearly you have a right to be.

I'm not a big listener of Country music--heck, I don't much listen to music anyway--and it's invidious to rank degrees of awfulness--but I'm guessing that even though Country might tend to objectify women, in the main it doesn't outright call them bitches and whores and advocate bashing them around, which is my impression is common in Rap?

"Ride a cowboy" to me is no worse than "my baby is born and bred in the USA"

My horse was bred, my cows are bred, I MIGHT breed my dogs.....but I was NOT bred thank you very much!

That really offends you? Isn't that strange, I never would have thought to take "born and bred" as offensive. I suppose it can be seen as an animal analogy, but I've quite commonly referred to myself as "born and bred a Lutheran" or "a Pennsylvanian born and bred," and I never took the phrase to mean anything other than "born and raised," or "born and nurtured." I guess I'd better watch where I use it!

And you just go right ahead and rant all you want. Your posts are always interesting and worth reading.  

[injest]

I think the 'born and bred' thing is context sensitive....the song is a laundry list of his 'girls' physical attributes (reads like a laundry list) "sexy long hair, Sexy long legs" and compares her to his radio and car....(those were made in foreign countries)

and using imagery or innuendo is not much better to me...in fact it is more insidious. If you are listening to a song calling a woman a whore your thought is "That is horrible" whereas you hear some song about a teenage girl "Rocking" some old man's world your responce is "Oh it is just a song" but it is very similar in attitude. Both demean and bring women down to a sexual object; the rapper isn't talking about love...and neither is the old man, in both the female is to be used and discarded. At least in most of the rap videos I have seen the women ARE in fact women..with women's shapes and faces. In some of these country videos they use VERY young girls with about as much shape as a six year old boy!

The Sheriff told me I was sounding angry yesterday...hope I didnt come across as too witchy!

 

[LauraGigs]

Sheriff told me I was sounding angry yesterday...hope I didnt come across as too witchy!

Uh, Bettermost and other places have been sounding boards for gay men to vent plenty of anger.  And they don't worry about (or apologize for) sounding "witchy".  Neither should you.

[SFEnnisSF]

Here is the song with a BBM related You Tube video done to it.   

"Save A Horse...Ride Jack Twist" 

[delalluvia]

well, I am a little offended at the sexist attitude of a lot of country music. You always hear about rap music and how THEY treat women, but nothing is ever said about country music.

"Ride a cowboy" to me is no worse than "my baby is born and bred in the USA"

My horse was bred, my cows are bred, I MIGHT breed my dogs.....but I was NOT bred thank you very much!

Then we have a lovely little ditty by two old men talking about a teenage girl (that they have to sneak back in her house on Sunday morning ..so she can be "all ribbons and curls") oh! and she also is sleeping with her math teacher...

or the one that says how sad it is that the South didn't win the Civil War cause "If the South woulda won we'd had it made!" (and them pesky uppity blacks would still be out in the slave houses, although they dont' just come straight out and SAY that....it is just a given...*wink*) and then they could have EVERY "girl child sent to Georgia to learn to smile and talk with that sweet southern style" (cause you know the sole purpose of women is to be amusing and attractive to white straight men!)

or the lovely "Honky Tonk Badonkey donk" or whatever....has all these men of varying ages leering at a bunch of teenagers barely wearing anything on their behinds; the camera never showing anything but their behinds.

Ride a cowboy is too risque? Only for straight white men and the women that buy into their bulls***!

Sorry for the rant! 

Well said.  Country western music is sexist because most country/cowboy guys are sexist.

[Jeff Wrangler]

In some of these country videos they use VERY young girls with about as much shape as a six year old boy!

Eeeew. ... Really? Yuck! 

The Sheriff told me I was sounding angry yesterday...hope I didnt come across as too witchy!

 

Like I said, you just keep right on rantin'! Anything you've got to say is always worth readin'! 

[injest]

Well said.  Country western music is sexist because most country/cowboy guys are sexist.

what really irritates me are the women that buy into the idea that being liberated means acting out MEN'S fantasies. "Look at me I am spread eagled on the hood of a car! I am empowered!"

My personal most hated is a video of a bunch of girls wearing underpants and chaps 'attacking' a man with a beer and a big ol s*** eating grin on his face...then one sits on him and 'rides' him.

Yeah, that right there is empowerment....that is what the ERA was fighting for.

[delalluvia]

what really irritates me are the women that buy into the idea that being liberated means acting out MEN'S fantasies. "Look at me I am spread eagled on the hood of a car! I am empowered!"

My personal most hated is a video of a bunch of girls wearing underpants and chaps 'attacking' a man with a beer and a big ol s*** eating grin on his face...then one sits on him and 'rides' him.

Yeah, that right there is empowerment....that is what the ERA was fighting for.

The trouble with true equality is that the idea is for women to be free enough and equal enough to men to be just as good or just as bad as men without the entire gender taking the blame for any one woman's behavior.

This was readily shown recently where Paris Hilton and the rest of the skank pack were taken to task by some article/psychologist for being a bad influence on young girls and that their behavior should be reined in or censored somehow because they're bad role models.

Of course, no mention was made in the article of all the men stars/rockers etc., who've been boozing and whoring and tearing up hotel rooms for decades and how THEIR behavior should be curtailed.  Another still engrained typical example of how boys will be boys, but girls had better be ladies. 

This is a quick aside from the cowboy issue but what you said about videos kinda reminded me of this.  There was a recent commercial for Axe for men's deoderizing spray.  But the gist of all the commercials is that wearing/using this product makes men irresistable to women.

One particular commercial was yet another male fantasy, but I stared at it in horror.  Guy is standing on a beach, spraying himself with this stuff with a big old "I've died and gone to heaven" grin on his face while all around him are gorgeous women in bikinis racing toward him, knocking each other down, climbing down the beach cliffs, running across the sands, swimming and running out of the water toward him - packs of blondes, brunettes, redheads.  Thousands of them.

I looked at the women's faces.  They were grim.

And this one guy, right in the middle.

The commercial closes right before they get to him, and all I could think of is - that guy - or a guys' fantasy is that - those women are suddenly going to come to a stop and turn kitten-ish?  The guy is Orpheus.  Those women are going to grab him and start pulling and pulling him, clothes are going to get grabbed, then parts he will wish didn't dangle so invitingly are going to get grabbed then ripped off, then his limbs are going to be....  The guy is going to get ripped to pieces.  But he thinks he's in the middle of a sexual fantasy.   

[injest]

The trouble with true equality is that the idea is for women to be free enough and equal enough to men to be just as good or just as bad as men without the entire gender taking the blame for any one woman's behavior.

This was readily shown recently where Paris Hilton and the rest of the skank pack were taken to task by some article/psychologist for being a bad influence on young girls and that their behavior should be reined in or censored somehow because they're bad role models.

Of course, no mention was made in the article of all the men stars/rockers etc., who've been boozing and whoring and tearing up hotel rooms for decades and how THEIR behavior should be curtailed.  Another still engrained typical example of how boys will be boys, but girls had better be ladies. 

This is a quick aside from the cowboy issue but what you said about videos kinda reminded me of this.  There was a recent commercial for Axe for men's deoderizing spray.  But the gist of all the commercials is that wearing/using this product makes men irresistable to women.

One particular commercial was yet another male fantasy, but I stared at it in horror.  Guy is standing on a beach, spraying himself with this stuff with a big old "I've died and gone to heaven" grin on his face while all around him are gorgeous women in bikinis racing toward him, knocking each other down, climbing down the beach cliffs, running across the sands, swimming and running out of the water toward him - packs of blondes, brunettes, redheads.  Thousands of them.

I looked at the women's faces.  They were grim.

And this one guy, right in the middle.

The commercial closes right before they get to him, and all I could think of is - that guy - or a guys' fantasy is that - those women are suddenly going to come to a stop and turn kitten-ish?  The guy is Orpheus.  Those women are going to grab him and start pulling and pulling him, clothes are going to get grabbed, then parts he will wish didn't dangle so invitingly are going to get grabbed then ripped off, then his limbs are going to be....  The guy is going to get ripped to pieces.  But he thinks he's in the middle of a sexual fantasy.   

Maenids?

Del you always astound me! LOL

I do agree with you about women being allowed to be as bad as the guys. I don't object to the women country singers that call themselves "redneck woman with a baby on my hip"and act stupid. I object to MEN protraying women that way and then claiming they are showing women as being modern and liberated. The songs I have mentioned here are sung by men, produced by men.

[Ellemeno]

I think the 'born and bred' thing is context sensitive....the song is a laundry list of his 'girls' physical attributes (reads like a laundry list) "sexy long hair, Sexy long legs" and compares her to his radio and car....(those were made in foreign countries)

and using imagery or innuendo is not much better to me...in fact it is more insidious. If you are listening to a song calling a woman a whore your thought is "That is horrible" whereas you hear some song about a teenage girl "Rocking" some old man's world your responce is "Oh it is just a song" but it is very similar in attitude. Both demean and bring women down to a sexual object; the rapper isn't talking about love...and neither is the old man, in both the female is to be used and discarded. At least in most of the rap videos I have seen the women ARE in fact women..with women's shapes and faces. In some of these country videos they use VERY young girls with about as much shape as a six year old boy!

The Sheriff told me I was sounding angry yesterday...hope I didnt come across as too witchy!

 

Still with ya, Friend. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

The guy is Orpheus.   

Perhaps not the best analogy here. According to Ovid, Orpheus was torn to pieces by Thracian maenads because, after he failed to rescue his beloved wife Eurydice from Hades, he gave up women for boys.

[injest]

Perhaps not the best analogy here. According to Ovid, Orpheus was torn to pieces by Thracian maenads because, after he failed to rescue his beloved wife Eurydice from Hades, he gave up women for boys.

HUH!

I had never heard that part!

I had understood he was killed for spying on the sacred rite...that Dionysius led him to do it because he mocked him??

(it has been a long time since I read any Greek mythology..)

[LauraGigs]

It's funny: depending on which book you read, you'll get the actual mythology story, or sometimes a 'PG' version of it in which alternate (more socially acceptable) plots are offered.

[injest]

It's funny: depending on which book you read, you'll get the actual mythology story, or sometimes a 'PG' version of it in which alternate (more socially acceptable) plots are offered.

so it is NOT true that homosexuality was accepted in Greece??

I am so confused....ya'll gonna have me researching mythology!

why would the Maenids kill him for having sex with boys? Zeuz had sex with boys...or is that wrong too?

[Jeff Wrangler]

so it is NOT true that homosexuality was accepted in Greece??

I am so confused....ya'll gonna have me researching mythology!

why would the Maenids kill him for having sex with boys? Zeuz had sex with boys...or is that wrong too?

Maybe it wasn't so much that Orpheus was having sex with boys as that he had stopped having sex with women? Maybe it did have something to do with angering Dionysus. In any case, it wasn't because he was demeaning women. And Ovid was a Roman. I think the Roman attitude toward homosexuality may have been a bit more mixed than the Greek attitude.

Pentheus, king of Thebes, was torn to pieces by Maenads, including his own mother, for spying on their rites.

And Actaeon was turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his own dogs for spying on the goddess Artemis.

[injest]

Maybe it wasn't so much that Orpheus was having sex with boys as that he had stopped having sex with women? Maybe it did have something to do with angering Dionysus. In any case, it wasn't because he was demeaning women. And Ovid was a Roman. I think the Roman attitude toward homosexuality may have been a bit more mixed than the Greek attitude.

Pentheus, king of Thebes, was torn to pieces by Maenads, including his own mother, for spying on their rites.

And Actaeon was turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his own dogs for spying on the goddess Artemis.

dang, it is just like a soap opera!

don't mess with the maenids!

[delalluvia]

Maybe it wasn't so much that Orpheus was having sex with boys as that he had stopped having sex with women? Maybe it did have something to do with angering Dionysus. In any case, it wasn't because he was demeaning women. And Ovid was a Roman. I think the Roman attitude toward homosexuality may have been a bit more mixed than the Greek attitude.

Pentheus, king of Thebes, was torn to pieces by Maenads, including his own mother, for spying on their rites.

And Actaeon was turned into a stag and torn to pieces by his own dogs for spying on the goddess Artemis.

What Laura said.  It's whatever version of the myth you read is why he died.  I wasn't so much alluding to the sexual nature of Orpheus' death as I was alluding to the death of a man surrounded by a very agitated mob of women.  His was the most famous I could think of right off the bat.

In the plot of Euripides' Bacchantes Pentheus was persecuting the followers of Dionysius, so the god appeared in his town in human disguise, allowed Pentheus to capture him, and after some dialogue, took him to watch the rites in secret, then gave Pentheus away after revealing his divinity and the maenads tore him to pieces.

I'm not sure if this was based on a true myth story or just something Euripides made up.

As for Artemis/Diana...well, never watch a goddess bathing.  Even if they forgive you, they will still punish you.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm not sure if this was based on a true myth story or just something Euripides made up.

Good question. Or maybe he elaborated on the story for his dramatic purposes.

Agreed. Don't mess with a goddess! 

[injest]

What Laura said.  It's whatever version of the myth you read is why he died.  I wasn't so much alluding to the sexual nature of Orpheus' death as I was alluding to the death of a man surrounded by a very agitated mob of women.  His was the most famous I could think of right off the bat.

In the plot of Euripides' Bacchantes Pentheus was persecuting the followers of Dionysius, so the god appeared in his town in human disguise, allowed Pentheus to capture him, and after some dialogue, took him to watch the rites in secret, then gave Pentheus away after revealing his divinity and the maenads tore him to pieces.

I'm not sure if this was based on a true myth story or just something Euripides made up.

As for Artemis/Diana...well, never watch a goddess bathing.  Even if they forgive you, they will still punish you.

THAT was the one I was thinking of...

[twistedude]

Jess-that song of the south: BARF!

I have graduyally been developing a grudging admiratuion for CBS...I can't believe it!

[Ellemeno]

You never know where a thread will go.......