A friend who is similarly infomercial-obsessed (let's just say we've both seen the inside of a PedEgg) told me about this at a party this weekend and I couldn't believe it. The obvious question: "Where does the fat and skin GO?" isn't answered by this commercial, which appears, like most infomercials, to be aimed at the baby boomers, but it did give us an idea for some sort of invisible Spanx-like invention that pulls all of the skin on your entire body up and into a neat and tidy huge lump on the top of your head, which you would then cover with a hat (hat not included.) By women, for women! In the infomercial realm, nothing is far-fetched.

Watch Women Get Arm Lift & Thigh Lift Instantly [YouTube]
Instant Arm Lift [Official Site]

Talk To The Moose - Gap 2009 Holiday Commercial [YouTube]

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]

You've seen it: a middle-aged mom, presumably moving her son into his dorm room, and the son's nerdy roommate, share a Halls Refresh lozenge and a weird moment of sexual connection. Then her menfolk walk in and are suitably appalled. ("Surprisingly mouth-watering," leers an insinuating voice-over.) The American Decency Association has called the ad "perverse" and its founder explains, rather oddly, that "I believe that an advertisement like this really does grease the skids and does further promotion and legitimization of elderly ones with younger ones — and it's like putting fuel before the fire."

"Elderly ones with younger ones" are also the theme of Cougartown, of course, during which the lame ad ran, and presumably the show's fans were neither unduly shocked nor influenced. But the ad is, certainly, problematic, albeit for a number of different reasons. Slate's Seth Stevenson, while he finds the add bizarre and silly, thinks this is a bit of a tempest in a teapot - that it's in the tradition of recent absurdist candy campaigns and too outre to be taken seriously. The bigger question, for him, is who the hell the commercial is targeting: boys or moms? Candy's aimed at kids, but the spot's placement - and its virtuous lack of sugar - suggest that it's playing to mom tastes, which Stevenson finds duly dubious.

In a way, I'm with the ADA, because the continuing perpetuation of the cougar/MILF thing is indeed creepy. If the ad featured a dad and a young female nerd, it would be universally shunned and it's time we stopped pretending that the reverse is always the stuff of harmless fantasy. That said, the ad's a send-up of the cougar phenomenon's absurdity, and if that's a signal of shark-jumping (or, as Hortense has suggested we rename it, "pulling a Scrappy-Doo"), bring it on.

But what bothered me most was sort of exactly this: this isn't a MILF and a strapping stud: it's a frumpy middle-aged woman and an Asian nerd, shorthand for "NOT SEXY!!!" That's why it's funny, you see: these are two groups whom no one would ever find attractive if not under the influence of the cough drop! (Note the action figures and equation.) That, after all, is what the husband and son are reacting to: not just the inappropriate dynamic, but the fact that these non-sexy types are breaking out of their designated roles. "Surprisingly mouth-watering," is after all, the tag-line. One can only imagine what other treats Hall's Refresh has in store!

Of course, at the end of the day, Stevenson's right: it's just a dumb commercial, and these people occupy Commercial-Land, in which all husbands are single-digit stupid, all moms are knowing, all kids are sassy and precocious, and everyone, given their bizarre enthusiasm for fast-food promotions, is apparently stoned, always. All this, presumably, makes us want to buy stuff. And if that's true, Stevenson shouldn't even question the targeting: we are, it would seem, morons. Who eat cough drops for pleasure.

Can Cougars Sell Cough Drops? [Slate]
Halls Refresh Commercial - Mom [YouTube]

Der Weg Des Geldes [YouTube via Adgabber]

But first: Have you ever been convinced that technology from Europe will make you more beautiful? I haven't. But for some reason beauty companies think women will fall for that shit.

The instant facelift ones are the worst, because they really prey on the aging, as if there's anything you can do about aging. And Sarah's right: If you had money, you'd get surgery, but you don't! So you waste it on stuff that will never work. Sigh.

By the by: I saw this Rejuvenique commercial one night AND COULD NOT SLEEP FOR THREE YEARS AFTERWARD.

Kidding. Sort of. Anyway, Sarah Haskins was asked about all the crazy crap that's marketed toward women. She says:

A lot of people ask me like, how can marketing to women be better? And my default answer is, I don't want it to better, this is my job.

But seriously folks!
She also explains:

I think the big problem, though, stemmed from the fact that everything is - the products are very clearly divided into genders, either because of something with our gender roles, like laundry, or maybe, you know, they find the angle being weight loss, and that's a lady thing, so that goes to yogurt. I mean, that's what the yogurt ads are about, weight loss and, like, regularity.

And:

I was an American studies major in college and we learned about the cult of true womanhood, which was sort of what women were told in the media in like the turn of the century in the Victorian era at that time, which emphasized this piety and purity and submission and domesticity, and how the women sort of control the hearth. And from that, you know, they control the home. And I think the legacy of that has not changed. It's still with us in the media and we've just added to it. Certainly a lot of women's products are still like, do it for your man.

And now I think what's been added to it in a modern mix is this all sense of like, fem-powerment - like you go, girl. You are jogging, you know? And that shouldn't be our prime goal: jogging and going to yoga class without having cramps.

She also admits she likes the Geico commercial where a cash stack with little eyeballs sings to you. It's a gender-neutral idea! But, she says: "I don't think anything — when it's going after women particularly, in trying to frame them in a certain way to make you buy the product — is really going to not be ridiculous in some way." And the proof is in the Target: Women pudding.

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Beauty Contraptions [Current]
Why Marketers Are Wooing Women All Wrong [NPR]

Earlier: All Sarah Haskins posts
Condoms, Cleaning Supplies & Crap: A Q&A With Sarah Haskins

A second commercial depicts moms moving their sons in, but again, no dads. We can't find online — but will be psyched if you can — a third spot in which Mom buys her son everything he wants and needs for college, including a fridge to hold his... soda. Is Wal-Mart specifically targeting the single mom demographic here? Or do they just assume that taking care of kids' college furnishings — like making dinner — is a woman's job?

Perhaps new research from the Wal-Mart Institute of Shoppingology (that is, a survey released by Wal-Mart on Tuesday) offers a clue. The survey says mom and kids have similar fears about college — top concerns are having enough money, doing well academically, and dealing with stress. What do dads worry about when their kids go to school? We don't know, because Wal-Mart didn't ask them. Clearly Wal-Mart thinks moms are the ones buying the weird brightly colored storage containers to go under their kids' beds — and the "fun and lightweight compact fridge" to help students "avoid the dreaded cafeteria by keeping healthy drinks and snacks handy." Right.

Interestingly, Target moms appear to have partners, but they don't help with childcare. Let's watch a recent Target ad, starring "Lisa":

Lisa's dude shows up to make out with her (if she chews Orbit gum), but he isn't around when she's pushing that stroller up the hill. In another Target ad, Jennifer's "lover" will pet her cats (gingerly), but he sure won't entertain their (or her?) son while she tries to do yoga. Target's basically painting a picture of a woman who has a man in her life, but is still primarily responsible for raising — and shopping for — her child.

We're sure Shoppingologists at Wal-Mart and Target have done their market research, and perhaps determined that women make more child-related purchases than men do. But would it kill them to depict — or survey — a few involved dads? If they'd asked my dad his biggest fear when I went off to college, I'm not sure what he would have said. But my biggest fear was that he was going to give me The Talk on the drive up. My solution: a half hour out of LA, I sweetly asked, "Dad, what's postmodernism?" That kept us busy all the way to the Bay Area. Now where's our commercial?

Walmart "College Dorm Room" 2009 TV Commercial [YouTube]
Target "Jennifer Shops Target" 2009 TV Commercial [YouTube]
Target Commercial July 2009 [YouTube]
Walmart Survey Reveals College Freshmen And Their Moms Share Surprisingly Similar Fears About Transition To College Life [iStockAnalyst]

When I was a kid, there was a famous ADT commercial that involved sketchy looking criminal types describing how they broke into homes at night to steal jewelry boxes and such. I can actually remember most of it word for word: "I can pick most locks with a credit card! I know when you're home, and when you're not! If I had a family, I'd protect them...from guys like me." This is mostly because my sister and I, for some reason, thought this commercial was funny, and we used to recite it as a joke. Maybe we were trying to allay our own fears of a break-in, or maybe we just thought the fake criminals weren't too scary at all.

But now the trend doesn't seem to be aimed at protecting "your family" as much as it seems to be aimed at protecting women. The major ads for Broadview Security Systems (formerly Brinks) all feature a white, middle class woman or young girl at home alone, going about her business as she's unknowingly being stalked by a creepy, creepy guy who watches her from behind a window or a fence. In each case, the man busts down the door or the window, and is immediately scared off by an alarm system and a quick call from a male security agent. Here, a woman is nearly attacked by an ex-boyfriend:

And here, a mother and daughter are threatened by a sketchy man with clearly bad intentions:

When I brought these commercials up to my boyfriend, he shrugged, as I suppose many people will do, and said, "They're just trying to sell security systems." But when I watch these commercials, I'm taken aback by the overly simplistic resolutions: these door-busting men aren't your garden variety jewelry thief—they want to hurt these women, and to me, at least, it seems doubtful that an alarm would stop them after they've just broken the damn door down.

Maybe (probably?) I'm overreacting here, but it seems to me that these commercials are not selling security systems as much as they are selling a culture of fear: you need to protect your house because these bad men are out to get you—when your husband is gone, you are weak and alone and nobody will stop the bad men from hurting you or your daughter unless you wire your home. Your ex-boyfriend is out to get you, the man jogging down the street is out to get you, and as a woman the only thing you can do is make sure that you set that alarm and hope it scares him away. They certainly achieve their goal of unsettling the viewer about the safety of their own home, but more than that, what they speak to an even scarier idea: the notion that a woman is never safe, as long as she is alone.

Update: Sorry, guys, the weather is apparently melting my brain: Margaret covered this way back in December. Different commercials, but same overall message. Sorry about that! If nothing else, we've learned that even though the company has changed its name and put out a brand new set of ads, their underlying message remains the same.

Earlier: Brinks: Home Security For Modern Day Damsels In Distress

Yes, "husband doofiness" can put a real strain on a marriage. And, just like we discussed yesterday, can you imagine what would happen if you replaced the man in these ads with a woman? If the wife were portrayed as the bumbling idiot and the husband was constantly rolling his eyes? It would be so very 1950s, and so very offensive. Even stranger is how in beer and deodorant commercials, guys are fun and carefree — because they're single. In diamond commercials, men are romantic and loving. But in household product commercials? Men are ignoramuses who must be saved by savvy wives.

Anyway: Hey! Look who's one of 10 Screenwriters to Watch!

Sarah Haskins in Target Women: Doofy Husbands [Current]
Emily Halpern & Sarah Haskins [Variety]
Earlier: All Sarah Haskins Posts
Condoms, Cleaning Supplies & Crap: A Q&A With Sarah Haskins
Related: Channeling Stereotypes Of Men & Women On TV