The Guardian

London, May 30:

Paris Hilton’s appearance in a risque commercial for a US hamburger chain has been branded

“soft-core porn’’ by a conservative advocacy group WHEN one ponders America’s unrelenting culture wars, Paris Hilton, the bad girl hotel heiress, does not spring to mind as a natural activist on the barricades. But her appearance in a risque commercial for a US hamburger chain has enlisted Hilton as a soldier, after a conservative advocacy group branded the ad “soft-core porn’’. Which, after all, is something that Hilton, infamous for her role in a sex tape, shot by her then boyfriend and released on the internet, might be thought to know something about. By primetime US TV standards, the ad is fairly raunchy. Hilton slinks into a garage wearing heels and a skimpy black swimsuit, grabs a sponge, plays with a hose, then slithers soapily over a black Bentley, as “I Love Paris’’ fills the soundtrack. She climaxes by biting one of Carl’s Jr. spicy burgers, endorsing it with the tagline, “That’s hot’’.

The Parents Television Council (PTC) which claims a million members, is threatening to petition the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which regulates US airwaves, to rule the ad indecent. “We feel it is a very sexually graphic advertisement. It could be an adult video, given the content,’’ says the PTC’s Melissa Caldwell. Hilton’s ad, aimed at advertiser-coveted young males, has run during The O.C., Desperate Housewives, and sports shows.

But whereas viewers can avoid programmes they find offensive, Caldwell says it is hard to avoid it.