La Voz

I find it offensive that anyone would assume the students at this college (an institution of higher learning) would fall prey to the Pierre Silber Halloween ad.

If the school can use the money from this ad to benefit its students then they should do it, and they should rest assured that the students here are smart enough and mature enough to recognize why the school would allow an ad such as this.

The Oct. 23 letter to the editor by Mikako Nomura was offensive to both genders of students at De Anza. First of all, the letter by says that the models used in the ad look anorexic and that it promotes crash diets or unhealthy dieting.

The fact is that if you look around campus you'll find that the majority of girls are just as thin if not more thin than the models pictured in the ad. Are they unhealthy? Are they promoting crash diets? How do the large number of girls on this campus now feel knowing that they look anorexic to you?

Also, what was offensive to us males is the comment that we'd pick up all the ads off the ground and put them in the plastic sleeve of our binders. This implies that all the men on campus have the mindset of adolescent junior high school boys.

Granted, I do think it's ridiculous that Halloween is promoted as an opportunity to dress immodestly. However that is the way it is.

There are a few age-old rules to advertising. One of the biggest is that sex sells. Pierre Silber did not create this idea, nor did they start the trend of girls wanting to dress as skimpy as possible on Halloween. Pierre Silber simply cashed in on it.

If they didn't make these outfits then someone else would. And guess what? They'd sell.

The ad was not offensive to females any more so than cheerleader outfits are offensive to high school girls. As for the size of the models, until you've had someone close to you become anorexic and you've watched them transform from a healthy person into a walking skeleton covered in bruises from lack of iron, then I think you have no right to make that comparison.

La Voz saw a way to earn some money for us. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Everyone here is an adult fully capable of decision making. If you don't like the ad, don't look at it. As for me, I thought it was pretty hilarious.

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