theology&geometry

There are two Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee commercials on fairly heavy rotation around these parts. These commercials are horrible. They have always rubbed me the wrong way and I have spent more time than is probably wise trying to figure out why.

I can’t seem to find clips of either ad, so I’ll attempt to describe them.

Commercial one
Mousy-looking blondish lady in glasses and pantsuit does voice-over about how when people come to her with questions, she needs answers, and doesn’t have time to go asking around at multiple companies. Then there’s a couple of scenes of her on the phone. One time, she says, “No you can’t expense your haircut!” and the other she says, “You’re not keeping the rental car, so who cares if it’s blue?!” Each time she uses a really bitchy voice. It’s the kind of voice that I might tolerate from a friend but I sure as hell would not want to hear from my company’s human resources rep. In fact, if an HR rep used that tone with me, I would file a complaint. With HR? Hmmm. Anyway, near the end of the ad, you see the lady walking with a smug grin past a young man who is looking at her like he is trying to flirt something fierce and she is deflecting those advances. It’s gross. “I need a company that can do it all. Kinda like me,” her voice says as she smirks. Even though all she’s done is throw out some mad bitchface over the phone.

My complaints about this commercial: The commercial presents itself as a serious take on issues that matter to insurance holders, yet you’ve go this extremely unpleasant woman sniping at people over the phone about completely ridiculous issues. Expensing a haircut? Is that supposed to be a freaking joke? Is this commercial about insurance — which is monstrously expensive and sometimes completely worthless — joking? I mean, I have BCBS of TN and I have gone round and round with them over the coverage of Holden’s birth. They finally rejected my third appeal in January — six months after I submitted it and three months after Holden was born — so that I finally have to accept that I must pay for my prenatal care and birth completely out of pocket since they refuse to cover my midwife in network (despite having covered her for someone else in Memphis with the exact coverage as I have). I mean, that would be a serious question an HR person might have to battle with BCBS about. But the color of rental cars? That is completely tone deaf. And I’ve already mentioned the lady’s tone and attitude. The commercial needs to decide if it’s trying to be funny or trying to be reassuring. Because right now it’s just being really annoying.

Commercial two
Long-faced brunette lady looks one bad day away from tying herself to the railroad tracks. Type on the screen tells us we’re at the home of a freelancer in Germantown. The lady tells us via voice-over that she has a full-time job and then she goes to work. We see footage of her feeding her three children. She says, “When I’m not thinking about presentations, I’m thinking about check-ups, glasses, and a health plan that gives me choices.” We cut to her driving her children around in a mini-van, and pleading with her son, “Please stop picking at that.” Ew. And then we cut to her saying into the camera, “If you don’t watch it, you could drown in a car pool.” The lady’s kids express their displeasure at something and she sighs heavily. I fully expect her to put a gun in her mouth at any moment.

My complaints about this commercial: Jesus, the first one was annoying but this one is just brutally depressing. This woman seems extremely stressed out, which is to be expected of a working (single?) mom with three kids. But she just seems completely devoid of all joy, like a smile has never cracked the veneer of her face. That’s bad enough but where I get really confused is when she asks her kid to stop picking at his arm. Is that some weird foreshadowing about how they are going to need to go to the ER with an infected arm? That’s not even the worst part. “If you don’t watch it, you could drown in a carpool.” WHAT?! That is fucking dark. The way she says it, you kind of get the feeling that she thinks a lot about Susan Smithing those kids. But here’s what I don’t get: She’s a freelancer. Do freelancers do a lot of carpooling? Or does she consider carting her kids around in her minivan a form of carpooling? Can you do that? Anyway, what does that meeeean?! Even if it means, “you can get bogged down,” it is a deliriously morose way to put it. But then again, this lady seems like a real fucking drag.

Take the two ads together (I never see any other BCBS ads around here so I have no additional context; can anyone in other markets add to this?) and you sort of get the impression that BCBS’ world is populated with really annoying working women — the smug type and the very sad type.

Am I the only one who completely loathes these ads? I think they strike a weird tone and transmit a message I’m uncomfortable with, even if I can’t even really tell you what it is. I was prepared to crown them both Failures of Advertising, but I’ve gone and written a blog post about them, so who gets the last laugh, really?

When my friends Brandon and Amanda moved into their new apartment, they came upon an April 4, 1950, issue of The Commercial Appeal, and they were kind enough to let me get my grubby paws on it. The thing is quite yellowed and brittle, and has a tendency to shed bits of itself as you flip carefully from page to page. It’s fascinating stuff; the pages are absolutely chock full of tiny briefs and stories mixed with ads and cartoons and testimonials and photos of beauty queens.

Check out this masthead (fun fact: “masthead” means the staff credits/info box and NOT the nameplate/flag on the front page and I will remove your kneecaps with my teeth if you argue with me about that):

Look at those cheap mail subscription rates! A month for a dollar! Crazy!

Look at those phone numbers! So devoid of digits! Crazy!

Look at all those bureau offices! So numerous! Crazy!

Look at this crazy cigarette ad!

Does your throat feel smooth as a baby’s ass? That’s because you’ve been sucking on a Camel!

Check out this crazy mix of news! A snuff factory! Chilly nights that require topcoats! Topcoats, can you believe it!?? (Also, was “cloudly” a word in 1950 or did I just copy edit this paper FROM THE FUTURE?!)

Do you think Miss Sanidas was scandalized at being placed so near an ad for a cream that relieves pimple itching?

It’s all a pretty odd mix, and certainly puts into perspective the idea of some golden bygone era of quality, untouchable, objective journalism.

I mean, try this little story on for size:

First of all, mad props for a badass and ballsy headline.

But on to the meat of the story: Yes, folks, those poor white motorists who had every right to arrive at their destination unmolested were undone — UNDONE, I SAY! — by those pesky negroes. It is such a foreign thing to see that sort of language used, and so cavalierly because it was just how things were said and done. It just was. What a world. What an awful fucking world. This, more or less, is why I don’t believe in The Good Old Days. Next time some old timer tries to lament the past and how America has gotten away from its true and noble values, remind that old timer that The Good Old Days were shit for a lot of people.

I’m glad I have a little tangible piece as proof.

(More photos of the paper are here. I will probably add more down the line before the thing disintegrates.)

I like to imagine that somewhere out there in an underground art bunker in Kansas, a plucky collective of socially conscious guerilla artists is concocting outlandishly offensive and nonsensical and misspelled/English bastardizing pay-per-click ads and submitting them to popular websites to call attention to the ridiculous notions being pushed by the weight-loss/body shame industry. I like to imagine that they are inciting a quiet revolution during which the shame we feel when we catch sight of blinking, targeted LOSE 80 POUNDS IN THREE MINUTES WITH THIS SATANIC RITUAL ads will crumble into utter chaos and result in an uprising of stocky but hardy folk, who insist that beauty does not mean your head is too big for your body or looking like a large gust of wind could blow your brittle bones out to sea. I like to imagine.

Nick’s new status message – http://vimeo.com/9194146
Nick: you need to check the link i just posted
me: why doesn’t that lady have a nose?
Nick: fuck if i know
me: that’s the only thing i can think about
is her nose in the salsa now?
nose salsa
Nick: yes, lindsey, her nose is in the salsa
me: nobody nose salsa like frito lay
Nick: see, you could work at an ad agency
design ads and write copy
me: i’m not sure the world is ready for my wit

All right, you beautiful bastiches, let’s get this crazy train rolling again. I’ve had six hours of sleep and I am ready to muffpunch the universe. I mean read this magazine.

Where were we? Oh yes, page 50. OH FUCK, THERE ARE WEREWOLVES. Hang on while I make a pot of incredibly strong coffee to help me cope. … Okay, that’s better. Sheesus, magazine, werewolves? Because vampires are so played out? Teen Wolf, Taylor Lautner, Shakira in a cage, Wolf Blitzer—WAIT WHAT? Oh god, it hurts. Make it stop. I can’t wait until the spread on how mummies are the latest supernatural hotties. The rest of the page is devoted to Spanx swimwear. Because, remember? We love our bodies this month. Even if that means wearing a full-body glove in the pool.

Simon G. has a giant rock for you to put on your finger. I’ve got a finger for Simon G.

More after the jump!

(more…)

… and by “bed” I mean “to my shitty old Dell where Roller Coaster Tycoon awaits!”

I know my Slanket-loving friends (you know who you are) will enjoy this:

HT: EJ

[for Wednesday, Aug. 15]

This image comes from The Male Mystique, this awesome book Sarah brought me when she came to visit last weekend. It’s chock full (whoops, almost typed “cock full,” hyuk) of these cheesy-ass ads from the ’60s and ’70s that could have served, as Sarah observed, as a general character composite for Ron Burgundy.

(Parenthetically, this seems to me to be a perfect illustration of the technique used by Mystery, “The Pick-Up Artist”: Spew some harmful bullshit in the face of a woman and expect her to love it and fawn over you for doing so.)

I want to take this book home to my parents and ask them if they recall some of these ads. It’s hard for me to imagine a world in which some of them would have ever been OK. Like this one:

Oh, the offensiveness goes way beyond the bad design and the terrible rape pun. Shudder.

Project 365

But this one’s more than just annoying and stupid.

Win a ringtone if you can click your mouse button fast enough to unravel this coy hottie’s sweater. Note how both of the unravelers look like your stereotypical unhinged, dark-alley rapist types, and marvel as (you can’t see it here, as this is just a screenshot) the rapidly exposed hottie demurely covers up her bikinied crotch as her sweater dress is removed by said unhinged rapist type.

Wrinkle your brow as you see “your” avatar kicked off the screen and proclaimed a “LOSER!” if you do not rip the sweater off your own personal coy hottie.

Scoff as the ad prompts, “Participation required.” (Yes, for fuck’s sake. We know participation in the idiotic patriarchal paradigm of dominance is required.)

Dry heave as you realize this ad, stupid and random as it may be (and, in fact, especially because of its stupidity and randomness), is indicative of the way our society feels about the accessibility of the bodies of women. If it’s there, brothers, help yourselves. UNLESS YOU’RE A LOSER.

[Who knows how long this ad will occupy the space on this page (I was looking up the lyrics to "AFK" by Pinback), but check it out if it's still there. I have not seen this ad anywhere else. Yet.

UPDATE: As of 1:20 a.m. on 5/20, it's not there anymore. If you see it pop up elsewhere, please do let me know.]