Hasta La Creative!

Since the decline of cinemas, a lot of projectors seem to have found a new calling in life. On Twitter, Laura Dravland a photographer residing in Montreal remarked on the Dominos Pizza box packaging, hashtagging the headline #rapeculture, and the tweet quickly went viral. The line is a twist on the old “X is the new black” cliché, now stating that “No is the new yes”. Much like the Bud Light #Upforwhatever line which was accused of rape culture last year, it requires one to read a lot into the line that is not implied in it. If it were, then Nike’s classic line “Just do it” is “rape culture” as well.

Her tweet, which currently has 127 hearts and 174 retweets started a chain of heated debate, where people are lobbying insults and insults at each other and Laura is standing her ground.

Dominos Pizza. #rapeculture pic.twitter.com/kfByPiLBe1— Laura Dravland (@LauraDravland) August 4, 2016

The line “No is the new yes” brings the reader into body copy explaining that artisan pizzas are no substitution or additional topping pizzas, as the chef’s have found the perfect topping combinations for you. Now, I’m well aware of advertising and fast food making it all about sex like so many Carl’s Jr and McDonald’s ads have done, but I sincerely doubt that this was what the copywriter had in mind here. This won’t stop the buzz about it, as we all know gender issues is a hot topic right now – see headlines already: “Yikes: Domino’s Pizza Ad Says “No Is The New Yes” at XO jane, ‘No Is The New Yes’ Domino’s Pizza Ad Offends Some With Apparent Rape Innuendo at HuffPo and Bain Capital-owned Domino’s Pizza makes a hah-hah rape joke with its new “NO IS THE NEW YES” campaign at Eclectablog. The photo of the pizza box originally appeared at Shakesville under the headline: “Today in Rape Culture”. To quote Eclectablog:

Apparently Domino’s, currently owned by Bain Capital and owned founded by the very conservative Tom Monaghan, founder of the far-right Thomas More Law Center and other Catholic organizations aimed at promoting his religious views throughout society, doesn’t have any women on their marketing team. This new campaign is clearly a mash-up of “_______ is the new black” and “No means no”.

The latter references unwanted sexual advances made on women.