Has anyone else noticed the horrendous amount of entertainment and advertising focusing on pregnancy and child rearing? I know, there have always been commercials for Luvs and Pampers since the disposable diaper first started piling up in landfills. There was a salute to pregnant actresses at the Oscars this year. Movies like Knocked Up and the Brothers Solomon line the shelves of the local Blockbuster. Every third commercial has either a pregnant woman or a new born in it. What happened at the last high powered advertising meeting? I think I know:
Advertising exec #1: Consumer debt is at an all time high. Everyone wants to pay off their debts before buying our new cheap shit from the Wal Mart. How can we get the customer base to buy again?
Advertising exec #2: Maybe we should try to convince them to breed, then we can drain their wallets while they raise their children and get a whole new crop of consumers.
Advertising exec #3: Brilliant. It will also boost sales of various shitty body sprays because men watching commercials filled with pregnant women and newborns will be hard pressed to perform and secure their own immortality through procreation and hitting themselves in the chest with doorknobs.
Advertising exec #1: I'll run the slicks tonight.
Also, for some reason, I believe that all this pondering of conspiracy and advertising trickery has made me sterile. Either that, or someone really needs to bring back the sun.
4 comments:
Every time I see someone with a baby--no matter how cute it is--I thank the god that doesn't exist that I never had one.
Ditto for commercials that tell me to buy stuff. It just makes me more stubborn and determined to live below my means.
How in the world have you been my dear friend? I owe you dinner!
Honey, I think you need a vacation, or less time around my nephews. Either way.
-thewife
Sadly we will never see truth in advertising. The best we can hope for is a moderately passable facimile of truth in advertising.
What we get is a hot young white woman pushing her babie down the immaculate aisles of a pristine-hard wood floor Wal Mart that doesn't exist. Her buggy shines like new platinum and the sartorially resplendent manager, keen and tall, assists her with everything she needs.
The truth is something closer to this:
A nappy haired pick-your-race woman, wearing sweats and flip-flops, with one baby on deck, one in the buggy, and two boogery nosed gremlins hanging off the side. The walkers are fighting over who gets the toy in the bag of cereal mom picked up, not realizing that generic cereals don't come with toys. Mom can't afford to buy the real thing in these hard times, which is for the best because, thanks to Wal Mart and their price demolishing ilk, American companies cannot afford to produce anything anymore so there is no name brand cereal to buy. Do you want your chinese cereal with lead or without lead? You don't get to choose. And where is the stock clerk to help mom find the diapers she needs? Probably in the stock room smoking weed and banging another stock clerk.
Oh, yeah. Solar Babies was awesome.
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