Critics Kill New Zealand Cougar

Unless you’ve been hibernating, you know that a cougar now refers to an older woman who stalks younger men. Feminists have been fuming, but with the broadcasting of Courtney Cox’s Cougartown, it is clear that the word is here to stay. Sigh.

An Air New Zealand ad takes the meaning to a whole new level and has been pulled for promoting rape. (Video after jump)

The documentary style spot defines cougars as “too old to be your girlfriend, too young to be your mother.”

They starve themselves by day but “hunt large slabs of meat at night” by stalking young men at a bar. A victim tries to refuse one, as the voice over intones “she has not tasted fresh meat for days” and the cougar drags off her prey.

This has sparked complaints from male survivors of rape, who say that it makes a serious situation humorous. Many Air New Zealand staff were also unhappy with the commercial.

“They find it degrading and that it is encouraging potentially harmful behaviour, so my question is why is our national carrier promoting sexually predatory behaviour?” New Zealand’s Rape Prevention Education director Kim McGregor told the New Zealand Herald.

Has society sunk to a new level, or are critics just taking this too far?