Guess Gisele Bundchen isn't always the pride and joy of Brazil.
The supermodel, 31, has been condemned by government officials in her native country for a provocative new TV ad campaign for lingerie brand Hope.
In one of the commercials, Bundchen shows off her world-famous bod in her underwear as she appeases and seduces a ticked-off onscreen husband for a few boo-boos: Crashing his car, maxing out his credit card and inviting her mom to stay with them.
A voiceover in the ad tells would-be Hope customers: "You're a Brazilian woman — use your charm."
Brazilian officials were not amused, and have demanded that the ad campaign — dubbed "naturally beautiful" — be yanked from the airwaves.
"The campaign promotes the misguided stereotype of a woman as a sexual object of her husband and ignores the major advances we have achieved in deconstructing sexist practices and thinking," Brazil's secretariat said in a statement excerpted at The Guardian, adding that viewers have lodged complaints against the ad.
"The model, Gisele Bündchen, encourages Brazilian women to use their 'charm' … to lessen possible reactions from their partners," the statement charged. Even worse, claims the statement, the ad even infringes upon two articles of the Brazilian constitution with "discriminatory content against women."
Hope lingerie's president Sandra Chayo retorted that the ads were "never intended to come across as sexist…Gisele can testify that all of the situations shown in the campaign are jokes about daily life … in no way should they be taken as being depreciative of the feminine figure. It would be absurd for us, who make a living off the preferences of women, to do anything to devalue our main consumer."
Watch the clip and tell Us: Is this ad sexist?
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