Sweet bird of ute

Dr. Germaine Greer has got her ample bloomers in a knot over a commercial for a Holden ute. The commercial shows a blokey type being interrogated in bed by his (not bad) wife about his 'fantasy'. It is, he tells her, the Holden ute. 'Is that all?', she queries, underwhelmed by his lack of imagination. 'Yeah', he replies, somewhat evasively. We fade back to him in the ute, with the gorgeous Susie Wilks squirming and pouting in the passenger seat, while he makes a conspiratorial 'shhh' gesture. (That's Susie on the right, above, and that photo does her little justice).

Poor old Dr. Greer, so skilled in other areas of hermeneutics, has failed to read something as simple as a TV commercial. She obviously has no idea of who Susie Wilks is, and that the point of the ad depends on recognising her. Susie is a TV presenter of such breathtaking pulchritude that it verges on parody - she's the sort of woman, who can really only appear as a fantasy figure, especially for the kind of ordinary bloke in the ad. In short, it's a joke, Germaine.

Addenda: I also had to laugh when Dr. Greer asserted that 'sexist' ads like this would not be allowed in 'Europe' - "They wouldn't dare". Hmmm. Next time Channel 7 runs one of those compilations of the 'hottest, adults-only commercials from Europe that we can't show you in prime time', I'll make a tape and send it to the good Doctor.

And I'd like to know what this popular-culture expert would make of the current commercials for another automobile, the Nissan Tiida, featuring actress Kim Cattrall in her Sex in the City persona, as a woman capable of achieving orgasm from the act of driving a car. Come to think of it, Greer would probably approve of something that enables women to achieve orgasm without male intervention. But only as long as it was, maybe, a petrol-electric hybrid. With a solar panel.