LOOK SLOVENLY, FEEL SLOVENLY, BE SLOVENLY

12/12/09

Two pieces of commercial advertising, the 21st century equivalent of the papal bull or royal decree, that are, or were, prominent during the Christmas season highlight several annoying modern cultural trends. Both these commercials do, or did, appear regularly on the network that I watch most (almost exclusively), CNBC, but I assume they appear with some degree of frequency on other networks, so my readers have probably seen them.

One commercial is for a credit card company that apparently features a very generous rewards program for those it snares in its death trap of perpetual financial obligation. This commercial, which always manages to catch my attention for obvious reasons, features a very comely young woman wearing an extremely fetching gown and reporting to (please let it be) her husband that she has used all their rewards points on the aforementioned gown but that there is clearly something in it for him. This commercial message highlights a number of cultural trends, and one is conveyed by the appearance of this very sharply dressed and coiffed young woman’s (please let it be her) husband. He has about three days growth of beard, is dressed in an old t-shirt, and looks very much like Richard Nixon at home as depicted in Mad magazine, circa 1972. It seems to be very popular of late for men to look like refugees from a Cook County Forest Preserve outhouse while women are expected to look like Grace Kelly in Rear Window. Especially curious is the beard phenomenon. I am not speaking of a full ZZ Top beard, a stylish goatee, or some degree of hirsuteness between the two. Such a beard can look very good on some men, though, in the case of yours truly, it only served to make me look at least ten years older, not a look for which a guy in his forties, which I was at the time, strives. No, we are talking not about a full beard, but rather an “I haven’t shaved in several days” stubble. Apparently, people find this attractive. However, those of us of a certain age and standard of personal grooming find it slovenly, bordering on dirty and unhygienic. Would one go to a job interview with three day’s growth of beard, assuming that one wasn’t applying for a job at, say, ACORN?

Perhaps young women find this particular manifestation of, if you will, disheveledness sexy. But, as the kids are fond of saying lately, “Really?” Perhaps young women like looking at men who have apparently lost their razors, or their will to live, but, once things move to the next level, do they really enjoy having their skin scratched, scraped, and otherwise ravaged by kissing a man who, out of lack of personal hygiene or a burning desire to signal his nonconformity by fitting in with the latest fashion trends, refuses to shave?

The next commercial, which, in addition to a being a clarion call of the debasement of our culture, is a blatant manifestation of many of the things that are wrong with “Christmas,” as currently celebrated, is for an outfit that will ship pajamas to (please let it be your) wife as a present. While this advertiser sells pajamas, one gets the feeling that most of its profits are not generated from the sale of flannels. This commercial seems to promise a man that if he buys his (please let it be) wife pajamas for Christmas, he will fulfill her seemingly never ending desire to prance around the room to titillate him for hours on end. The man featured in this ad gives us a knowing “I’m (finally, apparently) going to get mine” look as his woman, whose stunning physical beauty is, upon a not even all that close look, exceeded only, and vastly, by her rather addle-brained appearance, gazes curiously away from him, seemingly concocting in her rather compact brain imaginative ways to please the man who has so generously purchased her some provocative pjs. He is, you guessed it, sporting a three day stubble. So this fetching, but not exactly executive material, young woman gets the chance not only to please her bindlestiff resembling husband but to get her face and (presumably, if one follows the drift of the commercial, other areas of her body) ravaged in the process. What a thoughtful gift!

A sensible and not overly self consumed observer supposes that it is fine for a man to buy his wife provocative undergarments for Christmas, her birthday, or their anniversary as long as he understands that such a present is a gift to himself, rather than to his wife, and that he better, in addition to the aforementioned piffle, buy her something that she will really like or his objective in purchasing the aforementioned “gift” will never be realized. The previously discussed credit card commercial, for all its shortcomings, at least seems to recognize this apparently utterly manifest truth.