Opinion

IF LOOKS COULD KILL

Will stylish women soon be literally as well as figuratively stunning? If the folks at Taser have their way, fashionistas will soon be stopping muggers in their tracks and watching the bandits collapse bonelessly at their well-shod feet – thanks to a 50,000 volt stun gun.

Last week the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas featured a new chick device from Taser that hopes to be the Lady Remington of the pain compliance industry. You may remember Taser from such scandals as the long-running Bernard Kerik Follies of 2004 to two-thousand-whenever (Bernie sold $6.2 million worth of stock options the company gave him while he was promoting their product) and from alarmed reports by groups such as Amnesty International (which has linked the Taser to 280 deaths, although in Amnesty’s typically frustrating way, it did not tally up how many of the victims deserved it).

Taser rolled out its new weapon for femmes fatales, the C2, which puts high voltage into a holster containing a one gigabyte MP3 player with darling little white earbuds. “Fashion with a bite,” says Taser. Wags instantly dubbed it the “iTase,” though we’ll have to wait to see if C2 adds texting capabilities to turn it into a BlastBerry. Can a promotional deal with Jolt Cola be far behind?

Taser boasts that the C2 has enough juice in its lithium battery to deliver up to 50 shocks, although you probably won’t need it that many times unless you live in Detroit.

The C2, which is illegal for civilian use in New York and New Jersey, but legal in California, comes in not only “red-hot red” and “fashion pink” colors but also in a leopard-skin model, because drag queens need personal protection too. (Each time it fires, it also releases a burst of confetti with a serial number traceable to the weapon on each piece, to increase both accountability and fabulousness.) Will such cutesy-wootsyness be enough to convince trendy women? Will the next cliché of headline writers be “The Devil Wears Taser”?

Taser has built its business on sales to military and law enforcement officials, who proved at the University of Florida that if you’ve got a stun gun in your pocket, your tendency is to tase first and allow questions to be asked never. In a way, it’s an ideal weapon for women: Like the passive-breakup model universally beloved by females (stop returning his phone calls and keep telling your friends how annoying it is that he hasn’t figured out he’s been dumped) it’s hostile yet avoids the embarrassing effort of spelling everything out for him.

The C2 is small enough to fit in any hand (although that clunky sideways belt holster makes it look a little like a cellphone circa 1998), it doesn’t leave any gross bloodstains and it shoots the kind of cool invisible hurt-ray that gorgeous women already have experience with, since they learn to fire them from their eyeballs by the time they’re 16. This Taser’s dart-like bursts have a range of up to 15 feet, which means they can reach to the other end of the bar when you don’t feel like explaining to that sketchy guy that no, he can’t buy you a drink.

If Taser is serious about selling to women, though, it’s going about it in the wrong way. It needs to de-nerdify. (So does another device unveiled at CES, the new lady-friendly Sony Ericsson Bluetooth headset, which has slip-on covers in fashion colors and a silver-plated necklace attachment.) Women don’t want to look like they just left the control room on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Taser’s comical logo – a shiny metallic silver lightning bolt ripping through the middle of the earth – also needs work. It looks like it was designed by whoever was doing the covers of Robert Heinlein paperbacks in 1974, or by Paul Verhoeven’s stormtrooper-costume maker on “RoboCop” or “Starship Troopers.”

Taser (the name is an acronym from Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle) should avoid marching in the dork parade of the Consumer Electronics Show and go for a deal with Lucky magazine (“High-Voltage Accessories That Say Both Bad Girl and Girly-Girl”) or Project Runway, which has proven itself more than willing to work with unlikely corporate sponsors. (A recent show featured designers told to make outfits out of candy from the Hershey Store where, it seems safe to say, Elle magazine editors and Heidi Klum don’t spend a lot of their time). Instead, a Taser saleswoman in Vegas cheerfully told conventioneers the device would make a perfect gift for Valentine’s Day. Not in my house.

http://www.kylesmithonline.com