Saturday, 15 October 2011

In Praise of the Ultimate Suburban Ad.

There’s been a lot of ad-bashing going on this week. Kaetlyn and I have been engaged in little else than mutual congratulation on the back of it for several days. So far, so good. But I thought a degree of balance was called for, so I searched the data banks to come up with

JJ’s VERY FAVOURITE AD.

Imagine the scene. A table laid out in a kitchen setting. Everything is orderly, pristine and brightly coloured. We’re meant to believe it’s a typical suburban eating area, which it isn’t of course. It’s what everybody thinks is a typical suburban eating area if you’re playing the role of the typical suburbanite properly.

Sitting at the table are three people: a thirty-something dad and two kids aged around 7-11. Standing at the cooker is a thirty-something mum. They, too, are orderly, pristine and brightly coloured – so orderly, pristine and brightly coloured that they’re completely unreal. Nobody looks like that in the real world. They’re what everybody thinks is a typical suburban family if they’re playing the role of typical suburbanites properly.

But here’s what makes them really stand out. They’re rampantly expectant and orgasmically ecstatic. Sickeningly so. Nobody looks like that in the real world – ever. Not unless mum has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Culinary Excellence, the kids have found the stash of Christmas chocolate, and dad has just felt the first stirrings of Halle Berry crawling up his trouser leg.

And why? Because mum, bless her sickly, artificial little mixed fibre socks, is about to serve them with some processed crap consisting of Mechanically Recovered Meat (for which read ‘rubbishy old leftovers’) doctored with a cocktail of artificial chemicals, including the notoriously unhealthy Monosodium Glutamate, that will microwave in less time than it takes to peel a proper potato.

And the underlying message? This is the way to make your family truly happy and the world a better place, so go out and buy some now or you’re failing in your suburban duty.

You wouldn’t think people would be taken in by it, would you? Wrong again.

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