Commercials seldom sell me anything. We don’t watch TV much anymore, preferring to control the images and pursue our obsessions by Netflix. After watching all seven years of Star Trek Voyager and half the French movies of the last decade, it seemed time to check out broadcast TV for an evening or two. What we ended up watching was, sigh, more Star Trek (Next Gen, this time) on something called MeTV. That’s when I fell in love.
No, not with Data. With the commercials. Specifically, with all the commercials for E.D. prescription products. (If you don’t know what that is, think Bob Dole.) The guys in these commercials look great—slim, intelligent, relaxed, successful and, well, juicy. Like, maybe you wouldn’t even care if they had a problem or two, no? But it’s not the guys I’m so in love with.
It’s the image of the women “in their lives” that blows me away. These women look like no other media image I’ve seen. There’s always plenty of fairly good looking if weather worn guys in the movies, but they usually have arm candy young enough to be their granddaughters. (Don’t these over the hill actors ever feel just a teensy bit silly and embarrassed?) But where have you seen a decent looking, tastefully dressed older guy lusting after (gasp!) a woman about his age? Oh, thank you, thank you advertising agency!
What I especially like about these women is that the air brushing isn’t obvious—they have lines around their eyes (albeit nice straight ones, not crinkly puffs), they don’t appear to be wearing Miracle Bras, and they’re relaxing in tasteful settings with guys who look happy. Sure, there’s no teenage kids begging for the car keys or slamming doors, we don’t see what the women look like first thing in the morning, and they’re not standing at the refrigerator gulping a pint of ice cream. They’re not annoyingly slim, but they certainly aren’t plump.
It’s fantasy land, but it’s a tiny blow for women who aren’t on their first round. Oh my gosh, it might be possible to be desirable after, say, 25 years old.
And if it’s all too much, you can always wait for the ads telling you how to get Medicare to pay for your electric “scooter”…
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