Men don’t comprise a big piece of the “Twilight” francise today. Ashley Greene, who plays Alice Cullen in the movie, may drum up future box office business, with her splanishy mermaid editorial for SoBe drinks.

Looking at the photo spread, a few thoughts came to mind: Body-painting on last year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and the Pirelli calendars.

Questions:

-Is SoBe healthy?

-Is SoBe green, or are we just seeing a clever, toying with men’s brains here?

- It doesn’t look so different from the VS Catalogue. Why wouldn’t women like it?

Answers:

-SoBe is a calorie-free Lifewater drink. Sounds like women to me.

The promotional photographs with Greene trading swimsuits for ‘skin suits’, display pink or orange scales painted on by make-up artist Joanne Gair for SoBe Lifewater’s Wearing Zero campaign. Painting women is indeed a mindbender, a form or New Eroticism is which you see nothing — and yet everything. Note, last year’s Sports Illustrated models did wear sheer thongs.

If you don’t believe me that you can’t see a thing, join me for a closer look in the SoBe photo gallery. After your nipple search, you will take a lasting look at the bottle of Lifewater.

Now let’s go to the SoBe’s YouTube channel, which isn’t embeddable, but you can enter through the back door at YouTube.

Ashley Greene’s photographer Raphael Mazzucco for SoBe

Photographer Raphael Mazzucco pitches the SoBe product, discussing his simple, ‘organic’ photography style with shots of the SoBe bottle.

- No, SoBe isn’t some Scandinavian organic health drink; nor is it produced in the Italian Riviera, no matter what erotic breeze blows from photographer Raphael Mazzucco. SoBe Lifewater, an enhanced water drink, is owned by PepsiCo.

The product is a naturally flavored beverage that is a rich source of antioxidant vitamins C & E. Antioxidants can help the body protect itself against free radicals which are molecules that can damage cells. SoBe Lifewater, designed to help you live a healthier life. Unlike the original SoBe, which had 40 calories per 8 oz. serving, SoBe Lifewater is made with PureVia, derived from the stevia leaf. Nothing is chemically or structurally altered when extracted, according to the SoBe website.

Bottom line, SoBe qualifies as an Anne of Carversville Love Potion, an aphrodisiac of the healthy kind. Is it healthier than squeezing fresh fruit juices in water? I have no idea how easy it is to reproduce SoBe, but I’m super sensitive to pint-size nonresuseable plastic bottles these days.

The world is drowning in plastic bottles.

So — what about the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue for 2010? Will we see body painting? In a quick glance, I’m not sure. SoBe says “yes” Ashley Greene’s featured in the 2010 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Online, over at SI, the connection isn’t yet established.

Not to be critical, but with the YouTube SoBe campaign driving multi-million page views, the two dots should be connected. SI’s very behind the curve, living in 2009.

Devil’s Advocate

Activists are also into body painting. A couple weeks ago we featuredperformance artist Alice Newstead, who is hanging in a Lush shop window, not by the latest mermaid synthetic fabrication but by her own skin. Newstead is committed to ending the brutal slaughter and extinction of sharks for Chinese soup.

Alice Newstead Submits to the Horrors of Shark Finning

We’ve run a series of articles — and so is Oprah — on the massive problems of garbage in the Pacific. Plastic bottle awareness could move into top 10 environmental awareness lists in the future. It’s easy enough to stop, or at least multi-use plastic bottles.