Breast cancer PSAs use lechery for good

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a new crop of public service announcements leverage male lechery to an astonishing degree. The latest and greatest is a spot called "Save the Boobs," from the Rethink Breast Cancer charity, in which a voluptuous young woman in a white bikini walks into a pool party scene. Strip-club music kicks in and the camera slow-mo's her fleshy assets while the partygoers attempt to pick their jaws up off the ground. No discreet, quick-cut editing here. The camera stares, unblinking, unashamed, at the woman's figure.

"Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in young women ages 25 to 49," says the text.

If this were a Budweiser commercial, the bluestockings, psalm singers and family focusers would be going completely mental, but in this case the morals police have no grounds to object unless they want to come off as somehow pro-breast cancer.

In recent years, the increasing frankness of breast cancer PSAs has been a bright spot of adult sensibility in what is Americans' generally neurotic relationship to the female anatomy. Bear in mind that our national dialogue was brought to an inane standstill when Janet Jackson's breast was briefly exposed during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Compared to the "Save the Boobs" spot, Jackson might as well have been wearing a burqa.

Also, this ad -- and a couple more like it -- represent one of the few occasions when the male tendency to objectify the female body is put to good use, as opposed to selling beer and premium football cable packages. They seem to answer a question that must have nagged breast-cancer-awareness advocates: How to get men to care? With rare exceptions, men don't suffer from breast cancer. The earnest, sad-violins spots invoking moms and grand-moms of the past probably haven't gained much traction among men.

Feminist film theory has a name for the camera's eye here: The "male gaze," which is to say, the camera's view is that of the male spectator and unseen protagonist regarding the female as an object (cf. Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"). This is the camera's-eye of pornography and it's inherently misogynistic. The "Save the Boobs" spot spoofs the male gaze and turns it into something positive.

Similarly, British pop star Keeley Hazell did a PSA for breast cancer awareness last year in which, while she talks, the camera drops down to ogle her chest before she waves the attention back up to her face.