I shouldn't watch it, I know. I should read a book, make a model aeroplane or, God forbid, go out of the house, but the telly has got me reaching for a sick bag yet again.
Advertisers are apparently prepared to stoop to any level to appeal to their target audience but I get particularly revolted by one area in which they insist on throwing the rules of taste and decency further out of the window than usual - the use of babies and kids.
I have just seen two ads featuring these younger members of our society and both have forced me to put my plans for dinner on hold. The first was for an air freshener. Now I know what an air freshener is for, I'm sure most people do - it is pretty much supposed to do what is says on the can! Why, then, do the admen insist on featuring a toddler sitting on the bog, post crap, shouting "Pooh! It stinks!" before mummy arrives to aerosol the arsehole and mask the offending odour? Yes, that is indeed one use for an air freshener but I am capable of grasping the concept without having to watch a toddler, in the lav with his pants round his ankles, screaming that shit stinks!
The second ad was for a nappy. A baby was lying on his/her back (don't ask me, they all look like sexless bulldogs at that age) and mummy was changing the nappy. So far so good. The voice-over then announced that this product absorbed "more pooh" than ever before. Look, dickshit, I may not have children of my own but in my 46 years I have just about managed to garner enough information as to the use of a nappy to render your description surplus to requirements! I think the words "more absorbant" would suffice, thanks very much.
It is all because it is ickle kiddies and teensy-weensy, gah-gah, goo-goo, wittle babies involved. The mothers of these things spend their lives up to their elbows in their shit and piss and so become immune to them, in much the same way as a cockroach would become immune to radiation following a nuclear attack. The destruction of their olfactory and visual senses leads them to regard the excreta of their spawn as actually rather cute and something to talk about. We've all experienced it. You're out at a restaurant and one of these earth mothers pipes up "Oh yes, little Johnny did a really firm pooh yesterday, didn't you darling?" Do me a favour love, keep it to yourself. The advertisers, of course, seize on this and so we are all supposed to regard foecal and urinary outpourings as "cute", so long as they are from little ones. Well, that is ageist, as I see it.
How about they start advertising Andrex by featuring a fat, sweaty bloke crouched on the bog on a Sunday morning after he quaffed 15 pints and a curry the night before? The sound of something like a flock of sparrows taking wing is heard, along with a passable impression of the Glenn Miller Orchestra and the bloke groans "Ooohh Jeeeessuus, fuck!!" Then the slogan: "Andrex!!! - For Those Big Jobs!!!"
No? Well how about Kleenex recruiting a teenager who is filmed, trousers round his ankles, frantically beating his meat in his bedroom while flicking through the underwear section of a Gratton's Catalogue? His whimpering, moaning climax could be accompanied by the voice-over: "Kleenex - Copes With The Biggest Wankers".
Adverts for Lillets and the like would be a little different, wouldn't they? A woman leaving behind the blood-stained sheets in her bedroom as she races to the bathroom, blood streaming down her legs, while trying to ram a tampon up her chuff? "Bloody Hell?? Thank Fuck For Lillets"? Come to think of it, that would be slightly preferable to the current tampon adverts which seem to imply that if you use the product you will miraculously learn to hang-glide, parascend and play tennis!
Sorry, but shit is shit to me. I'm not particularly bothered who it has come from. I shall, therefore, banish ads featuring the bodily functions of babies and toddlers to Grantham.
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10 comments:
Good thing that you switched off before the ads for loan consolidation and personal accident lawyers then - that might have upset you.
Dear Vicus,
No, not at all. I can see absolutely nothing morally wrong with glorified loan sharks trying to entice gullible, desperate people to sign up for a giant, "consolidated" debt which will last until the day God brings them merciful release from this mortal coil, all of it being secured on their homes which will be snatched away at the merest hint of a repayment problem. (See http://granthamnewtown.blogspot.com/2007/03/picture-this.html)
The advert for air freshner is truly hateful. I find the voiceover for the little boy even more annoying than having to watch him sit on the bog. The way he complains about running out of air freshener - "it's all gone, it's all gone!" makes me want to throttle him.
Mind you, I dislike children anyway, so, er, just ignore me.
I knew there was a reason that I let cable lapse (aside from being stony broke). I have enough of the biological gooey messy effects of life with a not-completely trained two-year old on my hands (and I am indeed, counting the days) that I don't need those sort of announcements either.
And who needs to advertise tampons? For fuck's sake, it's not really like we have a choice about it (til it's all over, anyway). Wasted marketing money. Tbtlbleah!
Dear Betty,
First of all, welcome to my personal Hell! We are obviously as one on this. I can't say that I dislike children, however. I don't dislike animals either or people with genito-urinary problems necessarily - it's just that........well, you obviously know.
Hello Foilwoman,
Thanks for taking a break from the Terrible Twos to join me in the sad vacuum which is my life. Good luck with the little one - you've then got Threenagers to come!
Good point about tampons. It'll be oxygen next!
Another 16 years and they can sod off to college. Keep laughing.
Reg: My mother just sent DestructoGirl (the two year old) a card for Easter with $20 inside and a note saying "[DG's name]: Please don't break more of your mother's things. Especially the things that came from my mother. Love, Mormor [Grandmother, in Danish}. P.S. At least try not to break anything. Ha! Who am I trying to fool?"
Unfortunately, my mother regards my trials and tribulations at this time as payback that I richly deserve. And my best friend keeps muttering under her breath "I used the birth control. I used the birth control."
Ah, Foilwoman, those 30 seconds of fun. Bet there are times when you wished you'd kept your legs crossed and said you had a headache? Little ones, eh! They break your house and before you know it they'll break your heart. Still, I'd swap with you if I had the chance. Sadly, you have to have sex, apparently, to have children!!
It's not just toddlers, by the way. Have a look at what a Destructor Woman can do............
http://granthamnewtown.blogspot.com/2007/03/breaking-up-is-easy-to-do.html
I couldn't agree more. The advertisements are hateful, AND unfit-for-purpose.
You don't get people to pay attention by giving them "the Fear" in the first two seconds of your ad.
I'm not a suggestible type, but when this despicable flavour of advert comes on, I swear I get a whiff of the horror being invoked.
Children do smell. There was a time many years ago when I had to take my younger sister to an after-school class, at an infants school. The place reeked, of that lovely mix (50/50) of concentrated disinfectant and concentrated urine. You'll notice that's two appalling, cloying stenches, not zero. These things NEVER cancel out, they team up. A dark symbiosis.
It didn't help that the building was symmetrical, with entrance corridors facing one another across a large hall. At the side of each entrance were the bogs, with no door to the area (of course, each cubicle had a door). This guaranteed a constant througflow and circulation of festering piss fumes, in all weathers and whichever way the wind blew.
Each advert of this type gives me just a shuddering microsecond of scent-memory. Thanks, guys.
Also, when it sings "A kan do it tewww, wiv KANDOO", I am inspired to violence, just for a second. No particular reason, just an instinctive twitch and snarl.
What an irritating little bastard: Show off by having a shit, then claim (with clear pride in the creation) that it stinks, not merely smells, mind you, but it STINKS, THEN you get all bigheaded about being able to wash your hands / wipe your arse with some branded scourge! Rubbish haircut, too.
I know what you are thinking, I shouldn't pick on him like this. Your concern does you credit, but it's ok - I reckon I could take him in a fight - unless he lets one go, I'll be fine.
I don't particularly dislike children, but what's the point in not having any if terrors like this can interrupt your evening without warning regardless?
Damn you, advertisers.
Oh, and the wanking advert idea rang a bell. Have a look at this....
(Entirely NSFW, home, in the company of anyone, ever).
Hi Loz
I share your pain. I have similar nightmarish scent flashbacks whenever I smell Brasso. I used to sit next to a kid in school called Greg Ducker and he always smelled of Brasso. He was a lad who, in his mock O-Level biology exam, was asked to draw "an annotated diagram of the male reproductive system". I vividly recall the teacher handing us back our marked papers and commenting to Greg: "What I had in mind was an INTERNAL diagram!" His effort was, it has to be said, very impressive, although a tad exaggerated, I fear. Sadly, he got more marks than me!! I never could spell the correct word for "bobby's helmet".
That, by the way, is one scary cartoon - there IS someone out there more disturbed than us!
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