The villagers are fuming and they’re storming towards Burton with pitchforks and stakes! They demand justice! Head for the hills!
That’s pretty much what it feels like here with all the angry e-mails and calls I’ve gotten about Burton’s new Love line of snowboards that have naked Playboy bunnies splayed across the top sheet. And I don’t even work at Burton. I work at the Free Press. Duh.
Here’s a pic:
But seriously, people are peeved about the snowboard giant’s new line. They don’t want their kiddies looking at naked chicks on the mountain. I can dig that. It would be sort of uncomfortable to be sitting on the chairlift next to some pizza-faced 15-year-old in triple-XL neon snowboarding gear whose board had a naked woman on it. I would feel compelled to comment on the board- like, “Brah, you just paid nearly $500 for a board with one naked chick on it. You could have just bought yourself a real Playboy for $5, stayed at home and gotten way more bang for your buck.” But he probably wouldn’t have heard me anyway since he’d be blaring some craptastic rap-metal from his iPod.
I’ve got a few questions for Burton, but of course they ain’t talking. They let their P.R. people in New York City handle any “negative press,” and by handle I mean offer a canned statement that had already been forwarded to me 800 times. My question to Burton is this: is this the most innovative graphic design you could come up with? Because for time immemorial, people have been using pictures of naked chicks to sell stuff. It’s not new. In fact, it’s sort of hackneyed and played out, in my own opinion, which was not expressed in today’s Web article. Of course there were Playboy centerfolds on the boards- they were designed with the help of two Burton pros, who are 18 and 19 years-old, respectively. They might as well have just embedded a video player into the board that played a loop of some seedy porno. (Burton, if you design that, I want a cut.)
My other question for Burton is why no Playgirl boards? I would love to ride a board that had Mr. February 1983 slapped on the top sheet, his porn ‘stache resplendent in the fresh powder. I realize they want to sell boards, but think of the irony. Think of the chest hair. I would buy all the sizes and display them in my house. I would name them Donnie, Tony, Joey and Lorenzo. I would create dinner parties and drinking games around my Playgirl boards. At night when I was cold and lonely, I would grab Donnie or Joey off the wall and let him snuggle me to sleep.
My article didn’t get into much about the “self-mutilization” boards that are also part of this edgier Coalition line. They were sort of tough to describe in a way that would make sense. Basically, they’ve got these comic book-esque storyboards that detail the steps one would go through to create the OK symbol or “metal horns” by cutting off one’s digits. Most of the folks I spoke with for the story were more interested in the clothing-optional boards (obvs) and just thought the digit-ectomy boards were bizarre and creepy. Agreed. I can say that because this is a blog, not a newspaper. But in the interest of full disclosure, I do have a Burton board, and it doesn’t have naked chicks on it. And unless I shed my clothes at the top of the mountain, my board will never have a naked chick on it.
