The boys at the office loved filming it, but Donald Draper finds he could really lose his head over the repercussions of this ill-conceived campaign:

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Found via Mark Steyn, who dubs the ad “Fatima’s Secret”:

This German lingerie ad (warning: contains soft-focus footage of the female form in all its pulchritude — don’t stampede all at once) has a cool superficial smartness with what is intended to be an O. Henry switcheroo at the tail.

I think it’s more like wishful thinking. For one thing, if the actress were truly a believer as opposed to a jobbing actress, taking this underdressed gig would earn her an honor killing. Enjoy the multiculti sophisticated jests while you can, lads.

Geez, did Naomi Wolf come up with the idea for this? As Phyllis Chesler recently in late August:

Women in chadors are really feminist ninja warriors. Rather than allow themselves to be gawked at by male strangers, they choose to defeat the “male gaze” by hiding from it in plain view.

But don’t you worry: Beneath that chador, abaya, burqa, or veil, there is a sexy courtesan wearing “Victoria Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotion,” just waiting for her husband to come home for a night of wild and sensuous marital lovemaking.

Obviously, these are not my ideas. I am quoting from a piece by Naomi Wolf that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago. Yes, Wolf is the bubbly, feminist author who once advised Vice President Al “The Climate” Gore on what colors he should wear while campaigning and who is or was friendly with Gore’s daughter. Full disclosure: I have casually known Wolf and her parents for more than a quarter-century.

Wolf recently traveled to Morocco, Jordan, and Eygpt, where she found the women “as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” Whew! What a relief. She writes:

“Many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. … Many women said something like this: …’how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.’ This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.”

“Really? If so, I’m the Queen of England”, Chesler joked.

(Yes, I downloaded a copy in case this one gets pulled from YouTube. Follow the links here for our earlier examples of 21st Century Mad Men and their very strange cocktail that mixes leftwing politics and advertising.)