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I posted a few days ago about Ellen DeGeneres as the new face of Cover Girl. Today, Jezebel addressed the suggestion that Cover Girl’s choice of representatives is more pandering than progressive. Says a commenter on Jossip, also quoted in the Jezebel article:
“Unfortunately, I think describing P & G as ‘progressive’ is a bit naive. Cover Girl is among the least expensive of major drugstore cosmetics; one could easily argue that marketing to black women is a cynical attempt to make poor people buy their cheap product. Are KFC and McDonald’s progressive because they use black people in ads? As for being ‘gay-friendly,’ I think the fact that Ellen DeGeneres has a popular daytime talk show with the right kind of demographics is why she’s in their ads. Capitalism trumps prejudice every time, if the price is right!”
First, I think the comparison between Cover Girl’s marketing and McDonald’s is unfair. Cover Girl has used the same “easy, breezy, beautiful” taglines and design to all their advertisements, regardless of whether the model in question was black or white. McDonald’s tactics, however, see a marked difference depending on the race of the people in their ads. (Though I can’t for the life of me find the ad with the black grandson praising his Southern grandma for her down-home cookin’, only to find it’s from McDonalds. My crack team is scouring YouTube.) That, my friends, is pandering. Representing your product in the same manner regardless of a model’s race, age, weight or sexuality is not. And you know, right now, with how little such a thing really is happening, it is progressive.
In regard to Ellen being chosen because of her popularity, regardless of her sexuality – isn’t that a good thing? A woman was chosen for her fit with the brand image and the perceived sellability, dare I say her qualifications, rather than some inherent trait that really has no bearing on what sort of person she is. Now the latter would have been pandering. (Hmm, and vaguely reminiscent of a certain VP nomination.) But her sexuality being neither a contributing nor detracting factor, something that the company neither shied away from nor wanted to exploit – progress! And, with the current popular attitude towards gays, maybe even progressive.
I’m sensitive about a lot of things, but I can’t find a reason to call foul on Cover Girl for this one.
Though I am loathe to link to anything with ‘OMG!’ remotely near the title, I just heard from Yahoo’s pop culture blog that Ellen Degeneres is the new face of CoverGirl. It won’t make me buy their makeup, but it’s still pretty awesome that a major cosmetics company is using a 50-year-old lesbian woman (and damn funny lady) for their spokesperson. Truly times have changed, and for the better.
But my favorite part of the article, quoting Ellen: “I am here to set the record straight right now. I am not pregnant. It just turned out to be a bump. I went and had it checked out.”
Bless you Ellen, for being a glimmer of sanity in that vast universe of tomfoolery and nonsense.
Can someone explain to me while AIG is still running ads? I guess you don’t really plan for a company to teeter on the brink of collapse, and these things are bought in advance – but I still squinted at the TV when it tried to sell me AIG car insurance. Couldn’t they have asked for a refund? I hear they need the money.
(As a side note, I think my favorite part of that article is a man named Peter Peterson who is quoted saying, “My goodness.” It’s the little things in life.)
EDIT: According to Fox 5 News at 10, the government is bailing AIG out with $85 billion. Nevermind! I guess they do have money to spend.
Bless Kaiser Permanente and their “Kid Wisdom” video. It’s not entirely clear what they’re selling, but they are accomplishing the revolutionary task of encouraging healthy eating and activity in children for the sake of their current and future health with gentle humor and free of criticism. Props.
I don’t entirely get this Lysol toilet disinfectant liquid ad. It begins as most antibacterial products do, showing you how gross your (insert household surface here) is through blacklight-esq illuminated points – in this case, neon green squigglies. Gasp! You can’t let your family be exposed to such harmful bacteria.
Only the bacteria in question is on the inside of a toilet bowl.
Aside from the occasional item that falls into said toilet bowl by an ill-placed shelf in a very small bathroom, I’m not especially concerned about my toilet being clean enough to eat out of. As long as it’s white and doesn’t smell I really think it’s satisfactory.
But the ad does have a little girl in it. I guess the product could appeal to mothers whose children insist on drinking out of/splashing their hands in/otherwise touching said toilet bowl. Then I’d want it squeaky clean, too.
High fructose corn syrup is doing damage control! Those bastards. The propaganda bandwagon seems to be composed of a series of commercials – I’ve caught two so far – and a website, Sweet Surprise, dispelling all those nasty rumors about HFCS. In one, the scene opens on two picnickers, one of whom is eating an ice pop and offers a bite to her BF. He refuses, citing HFCS – but when she challenges him on it, with the perfectly natural recitation of “High fructose corn syrup has no artificial ingredients, is made from corn, and is equivalent in calories to table sugar.” The other is two moms chatting at a pool party. One mom starts pouring punch, and the other gives her passive-aggressive jab of “Oh, you’re not really concerned about your kids’ health, are you?” When mom #2 gives her the ‘bish, plz’ look and asks why she says that, and the other cites HFCS, once again she can’t quite back up why HFCS is bad. Cue another totally conversational recitation of “HFCS has no artificial ingredients, is made from corn, and like sugar is fine in moderation!”
At which point I must raise my hand, and ask: Where is the argument for people who knew what their issues with HFCS were?
And also what mom thinks liquid sugar counts as ‘moderation’, but that’s a totally different can of worms.
First: How is HFCS not an artificial ingredient? I’m not totally up on the process but I think there’s a bit of man-made intervention in extracting and concentrating liquid sugar from corn. It is, at least, something I’ve failed to encounter when eating a cob. Some clever advertising wordsmiths can probably argue that HFCS can be an artificial ingredient without containing any artificial ingredients, and since the ads only say it doesn’t contain any artificial ingredients… etc etc. Sure, fine. Still, highly processed, even if they haven’t thrown anything in to make it moreso.
Second: My issue is, in fact, that HFCS is made with corn, so thanks for pointing that out guys. Out of all the sugar sources in the world – cane, beet, maple, etc etc – why try to squeeze blood out of a stone with corn? Because there is too. damn. much. The Farm Bill subsidizes corn production, meaning farmers get a set price for their product regardless of market demand. So if you know how much you’re going to get, and it’s not going to change, why not grow more? So Americans are left with more corn than they can eat, and while, as a friend pointed out, exporting to Mexico would be awfully nice, what with the corn shortage there that led to tortilla prices skyrocketing to the point of unaffordability, we turn it into other things instead. HFCS, ethanol, animal feed (resulting in the need for antibiotics, but still, another issue…).
From pbs.com:
“While Americans have been eating sugar in one form or another for centuries, the influx of high-fructose corn syrup into everyday foods—even those not normally associated with sweetness—has helped boost overall sweetener intake by 19 percent since 1970. As a result, Americans now eat about 523 more calories each day. And about 76 of those extra daily calories come from sugars and sweeteners like HFCS. At last count in 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that Americans eat 79 pounds of corn sweetener per year—a four-fold increase from 1970.”
HFCS is cheap. It’s not much for companies – who, pre-60s, did just fine without sugar in their unsweetened products – to throw a little HFCS in there and get a bit of the crack addiction effect. And thanks to that, I can’t buy a loaf of bread anymore. It is a long and arduous task to find a single one (even whole wheat, even though those are often highly processed and just dyed brown, but again, another issue entirely) without HFCS in it. My toast does not taste sweet. I don’t want it to be sweet. Yet HFCS is there, in all its pure, empty-calorie glory.
Also neatly addressed by the quote above is the last point: HFCS is indeed equivalent in calories, and empty nutrients, to sugar. Yet because it’s so cheap, it pops up more than sugar ever dead, so we’re eating it more, and we’re getting fat. Now, I believe in America’s spirit of determination, and I’m sure they could get fat without HFCS. But it’s not really helping.
But until any altruistic billionaires start buying air time for King Corn to compete with Sweet Surprise, I’ll just have to hope everyone else knew why HFCS was bad news, and is less than persuaded by the ‘Aw, you don’t know what you’re talking about’ argument.
