from the 'offensively bad idea' department

[coraa]

Wow.

"EA has a new way to annoy its own models: give out prizes for Comic Con attendees who commit acts of lust with their booth babes. Also, if you win, you get to take the lady out to dinner! This is going to end well for everyone involved."

What the hell? I mean, I've been annoyed by booth babes before, mostly because I think that it really reinforces the idea that it's only men who are their audience -- and also because the degree of objectification makes me squidgy -- but that sounds downright innocent compared to 'Commit random acts of lust with our models, take pictures of it, repeat, and you might win a sinful night with two beautiful women!' (And yeah, the 'acts of lust' and 'sinful night' wordings are right out of their ad. I'm not extrapolating anything.)

Because, you know, it's a great idea to literally reward stalking and groping with a date with a beautiful woman! That's a message we want to spread. And also, do these booth babes wear big signs or something? Is there some protection to keep non-EA-employee attractive women from being 'mistaken' for booth babes and, well, 'act of lust'-ed?

Argh.

EA, I love The Sims, but this is Not On.

EDIT: jmpava pointed out that these are the same geniuses who thought it was a good idea to promote their game (the same game, so probably the same Marketing/PR group) by staging a fake Christian protest. Which doesn't make it any less offensive, but geez, the stupidity....

Comments

[ceph.livejournal.com]

Isn't that, er, illegal? Even if they could find any women willing to do it, I would think it would run afoul of sexual harassment laws, "adult entertainment" regulations, or both.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Well. Technically, the contest rules say that what you need to do with a booth babe to be eligible is 'get your picture taken with them,' so maybe they're hoping that's sufficiently CYA that they can said, "Well, we didn't tell to you grab her breast we just implied it." And there's no promises that the 'sinful night' includes sex. Just... lots and lots and lots of implications.

I imagine they're trying to eat their cake and have it too.

EDIT: Also, let's be honest here, I'm guessing that eighteen-year-old girls hired by EA are unlikely to complain if they might lose their jobs, even if legally they're entitled to. Chances of a lawsuit seem much more likely to come from random female con-attendee who was mistaken (or "mistaken") for a booth babe and grabbed. It's sickening, but true -- there are enough attractive young women that they're kinda expendable, and they can dump the ones who raise issues. See also: sexual harassment in the modeling industry.

[ceph.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I think "commit acts of lust" definitely crosses a line, so far as terminology goes. I agree about the models, but there's an interesting legal question--if a company essentially puts out a press release saying "we are instituting a policy to encourage sexual harassment of our employees", do you have to wait for an employee to complain before you can prosecute the employer?

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't know. It's interesting. It seems like you could raise a 'hostile environment' suit even if you weren't one of the targeted babes, but I don't know the legal details enough to know whether that would fly.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

As it turns out, a) Their actual contest has them saying to take a picture/commit an 'act of lust' with any booth babe at the show, not just EA booth babes, so there's no way they could have contractually covered their asses with regards to 'adult entertainment' stuff, and b) they're now backtracking hardcore and saying that while they said 'act of lust,' they really just meant 'take a picture,' and we're all overreacting if we think that horny, lonely, socially-inept con fanboys are going to interpret their 'act of lust' as meaning, you know, 'act of lust.' But they're not rescinding the contest.

Actually, given the wording, I think their chances of lawsuit are drastically greater than I originally thought. There's no way the booth babes at, say, the Tower Records booth are going to feel pressured not to sue EA for encouraging boys to stalk and grope them.