Diet Coke is celebrating its 30th birthday with the return of the Diet Coke Hunk character. The ad is the fourth in a series which began in 1994. The original, which starred Lucky Vanous as shirtless construction worker, centered on a group of women who would gather in a office window every day at 11:30 to watch a shirtless Vanous take a break with a Diet Coke. Additional versions of the ad followed in 1998 and 2007. The 2007 version caused a bit of a storm as hunk actor Francois Xavier, unlike in other ads, did not take his shirt off.
This new 2013 version, entitled Gardener and directed by Rocky Morton, returns to it roots. In the ad, a group of five female friends sitting in the park during their lunch break watch the latest hunk, model Andrew Cooper, mowing the grass. One girl has an idea and sets a Diet Coke can rolling down the hill – timing it perfectly to intercept the gardener’s path. He picks it up, opens it, and as it has been shaken up, the Diet Coke shoots up all over him, soaking his t-shirt. Hmm. Remind anyone of anything? No, your mind is not in the gutter. It’s a blatant, sexually-fueled double entendre.
After the Diet Coke erupts all over him, Cooper gives the girls some topless entertainment. All perfectly innocent fun. But what if the gender roles where reversed? What if it were group of guys ogling a hot female gardener who took her top off (not revealing her breasts but a bikini top) after a Diet Coke erupted all over her face? Oh yes, you can bet the sexual objectification police would be all over that one. How dare a group of men get their rocks off watching a woman get a Diet Coke facial? How degrading! How insensitive!
Discuss.
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