Business: The Bum's Rush in Advertising

Some turn-on commercials appear to be turn-offs

Smiling coyly at the camera as she hunkers down on the floor and spreads her denim-clad legs wider than a 21-in. television screen, the teen-age temptress murmurs huskily, "You know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing." Then Photographer Richard Avedon's lens zooms in to linger on Actress-Model Brooke Shields' taut jeans.

That is how Calvin Klein jeans are being hawked in a TV commercial called The Feminist. It is one of a series of six Klein ads that, besides selling a lot of $50 pants, are bringing a message to the media: vulgarity in...

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