I had to watch this commercial a few times to really get a feeling for it; my first reaction was, "creepy, but I get it," though on subsequent views I started getting creeped out to the point where the joke simply wasn't funny anymore. I understand the point of the commercial: you'll pay the price if you don't know what kinds of chemicals you're spraying in your house. But I'm really tired of the "advocacy" that relies upon humiliating women to push a point (see also: PETA).

Why couldn't the dirty bubbles get drunk on their own chemicals and trash the bathroom? Why couldn't they leave graffiti all over the shower walls? Why couldn't they "move in" and start stinking up the place? Why does a woman have to get in the shower and get naked in front of a bunch of pervy bubbles, who essentially tell her she deserves it for putting them there in the first place (sound familiar?) so that Method soap can scare us all into switching over from Scrubbing Bubbles? The woman is seriously humiliated by the bubbles, who compliment her on her "core" and scream "Loofah! Loofah!" over and over again as they watch her wash up. It's supposed to be funny. So why does it make me feel so gross?

Perhaps I'm missing something. What say you, commenters?

Get Naked, Say The Pervy Scrubbing Bubbles [AdFreak]

Of course, the latest Pine-Sol ad is a spoof, and a fun one: a film noir-style vista, sweeping score, a mysterious mansion, a glamorous woman ascending winding stairs. Then we see it's "the Pine-Sol lady," Diana Amos, apparently there for an assignation with a hunk, who's mopping. Then she reclines on a rose petal-strewn bed in couture to watch. That, you see, is the power of Pine-Sol.

As Amos tells<,/a> the New York Times, "We all would like our husbands to mop...This says that real men mop, and it breaks it down to: It can be fun, it can be sexy, and women like it clean." Adds Tom McNulty, author of Clean Like a Man: Housekeeping for Men, "I think women do have a fantasy about men cleaning."

My first thought on seeing the Pine-Sol commercial was that it was like those "Porn For Women" books in which we're treated to pictures of beefcakes cleaning and over which I recently heard a group of ladies positively cackling with glee at a bookstore, so there you are. Todd Wasserman at BrandFreak agreed, although he felt at least half the joke was Pine-Sol-Lady-as -sex symbol. (If pushed, I'd say the irony comes more form the fact that Pine-Sol is the most institutional, least sexy aroma on earth with the possible exception of raw sewage.You'd need a bed of roses, too, just to drown it out. )This has clearly become a recognizable trope that women relate to, or at least know is a cliche. But is it just a joke, or have our social mores intersected so powerfully with biology that this does indeed signal un-ironic modern lust? In any case, housework builds libido - so there's that.

Selling a Household Cleaning Product on Its ... Sex Appeal? [NY Times]
Sure, Pine-Sol Cleans, But It Can Also Satisfy Your Wildest Desires [Brand Freak]
Pine-Sol | "Visitor" [YouTube]

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