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Is it just me or are the network
airwaves filled with fake porn? I'm semi-serious when I say
that I think advertising for hair care products in particular
has gotten way out of hand in terms of sexual overtones. When
I was a kid it was bad enough suffering through all of those
Jane Russell "Cross Your Heart Bra" commercials,
not to mention the even more horrifying Summer Breeze douche
commercials. I grew up in a household with three brothers.
You haven't experienced an awkward moment until you and your
brothers are watching the Brady Bunch and suddenly you are
accosted by a mother and daughter talking about keeping their
crotches "fresh as a summer's day". I still don't
even know what that means, but the point is that it was not
something I wanted to hear about in mixed company. In fact,
it was not something I wanted to hear about in any company.
And on a side note, though I can't ever recall my mother and
me ever having a discussion about whether or not our vaginas
were "fresh", I'm pretty certain that mine is, thank-you
very much.
Anyway, those horrible bra commercials and douche ads stopped
running a while ago, much to the relief of me and adolescent
girls with brothers everywhere. However, in their place comes
a new kind of horror. Of course I'm talking about the Herbal
Essences "Totally Organic Experience" commercials.
The first time I saw one of these ads was during an episode
of Saturday Night Live. Naturally, I thought the ad was another
one of those wacky SNL send ups of real commercials. I was
wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. Much to my disbelief, the
commercial, which featured a surgically enhanced woman screaming
"Yes, yes, yes!!!!" while getting off in an airplane
lavatory because her shampoo was just THAT good, was not a
joke. It was real. And it was just the beginning of a monstrous
trend in advertising: the fake orgasm that we are all supposed
to recognize as an orgasm but that we are not supposed to
call an orgasm.
We all know that sex sells. However, this new crop of advertising
is really giving sex a bad name. What woman has an orgasm
while washing her hair? I mean, because of the actual hair-washing
and not setting number three or sometimes four on Waterpik
Revolution Massaging Shower Head . Come on, fellas, back me
up on this - most women don't have orgasms after hours of
heavy manual labor and we are supposed to believe that one
shot of shampoo is going to do the job a well meaning (and
sometimes desperate) lover cannot achieve? Maybe that's a
bad example. Ladies, you know what I mean.
What really bothers me about the Herbal Essences commercials
is not so much the fake climaxing as the bad acting. Obviously
these women went to the Linda Lovelace School of Drama. The
point is that watching these commercials is like watching
actual porn only NOT watching actual porn. Its really kind
of creepy and on some level, a little bit sad, too. All of
the moves are the same, all of the noises are the same, and
all of the faces are the same. But unlike real porn, after
you suffer through the implausible situation, the bad music,
and the ridiculous acting, you aren't rewarded with the money
shot. Who authorized this crap, anyway? Talk about mind games.
Which brings me to my next product: Pantene. OK, so Pantene
really fucked up in the late '80's with that whole "Don't
Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful" campaign. That debacle
was just begging for pissed off, average looking women everywhere
to scream at their televisions in a PMS induced rage. Pantene
lost a lot more customers than they gained with that piece
of crap idea. They needed a new angle, to become the American
woman's friend again, and so they did a wise thing. They enlisted
Kelly Ripa from "Live with Regis and Kelly" to be
their spokesperson. It seemed the honchos at Pantene were
on the right track. But then they were seduced by the whole
"sex sells" idea and they did the unthinkable. They
turned Kelly Ripa - the darling of the morning airwaves -
into a shampoo and conditioner whore. It sounds unbelievable
but I saw it with my own eyes - and believe me, I know a whore
when I see one. Ahem.
The ad starts out innocently enough. Ripa runs her fingers
through her luxurious blond tresses, confessing all of her
hair sins, (blow drying, coloring, blah, blah, blah) and bonding
with her audience. But then the tide turns. Words like "shaft"
and "penetrate" begin to infiltrate her sentences.
She starts talking about "massaging" the "shaft"
with something "creamy". Is it getting hot in here?
And then comes the big gross-out, a close-up of Ripa's hand
with about a tablespoon of thick, white, creamy stuff in the
center of her palm. HELLO??. Excuse me but if that stuff is
what I think it is, it is definitely not going in my hair.
Certainly not on purpose.
What this all boils down to is that fake porn on network TV
is way worse than real porn on DVD. Lets face it, porn isn't
all its cracked up to be, but at least when we seek it out
we usually get what we pay for. And we don't have to worry
about our brothers watching it with us. So please, advertising
agencies across the country, believe me when I tell you that
porn is best left to the experts. Lets get it out of our living
rooms and back in the video store basements, ok?
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Above: Kelly Ripa is a dirty, dirty whore
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