A few months back I was approaching a busy intersection when a billboard caused me to become even more of a road hazard than normal. An herbal store had thrown up the words “Breast Enhancers: Buy 2, Get 1 Free”. I stared at that sign, my foot on the accelerator, while my daughter yelled, “Red light, Mommy! Red light!”. Luckily, we averted any major disaster once I was able to avert my eyes from the sign. But I couldn’t help wondering, where does the third one go? And if you give it to a friend, wouldn’t she be lopsided? Once I realized they were referring to bottles of pills, it made more sense. But I still wish I had had my camera.
It reminded me of a recent poster up at the hospital where my husband works, promoting an “Elder Abuse Workshop”. When I teach a “writing workshop”, I teach how to write. When my daughter takes a “Drawing Animals Workshop”, she is learning how to draw animals. When one takes an “elder abuse workshop”, what, exactly, is one learning how to do? It’s amazing how people can say the exact opposite of what they mean without even realizing it.
McDonald’s does this, too, much to their own detriment. They proudly state that their burgers are “made with 100% pure beef!”. That’s like saying my chocolate chip cookies are made with 100% pure vanilla extract. Sure there’s vanilla in there somewhere, but that’s not the only ingredient. If they were to say their hamburgers are made entirely “of” 100% pure beef, that would be one thing. By saying their hamburgers are made “with” 100% pure beef, though, they’re implying there’s a whole lot of stuff of the non-cow variety in there. From what I’ve read, their hamburgers truly are pure beef, though they taste absolutely nothing like the pure beef patties I have in my freezer. That’s why I have a craving for the golden arches, and not for my own cooking. But if the hamburgers are pure beef, they should get their prepositions straight and say so, rather than leaving the door open for very different interpretations.
And then, just last week, I turned on my computer to find this brilliant headline blaring on Sympatico’s website: “Gender linked to prostate risk”. I am glad they offer news bulletins like this every so often, because otherwise I might hear about the high rates of prostate cancer and worry that I may one day fall prey to it.
Then there are the ads that stop you in your tracks because you just can’t believe what you saw. Over Boxing Week, when out with my daughters, I saw a large billboard comprised of a collage of good looking girls, who appeared to me to be around 13-15, doing things like swimming, gazing in the mirror, and playing in a band. The slogan of the ad was “try being your own girl”. And the product being advertised? Birth control pills. That’s right; the way young teenage girls should assert their newfound independence is by having sex.
I’m quite familiar with the argument “they’re going to do it anyway, so they may as well use protection”. However, that is totally irrelevant here. The ad is not mentioning safe sex; it is encouraging kids who may not otherwise be having sex to have it by equating birth control pills with a hip lifestyle.
And Janssen-Ortho, the company that is plying these pills, also pointed girls to their cool website, directed at those “13 and over”. Nothing like starting them young to consider these pills their friends, I suppose. I know they make a perfectly legal product and thus have every right to advertise it. But that doesn’t make it morally right. As far as I’m concerned, no one has the right to tell my 12-year-old daughter or my 14-year-old niece that having sex as a young teen is hip, cool and fun, and it infuriates me that a company would think this is appropriate.
I don’t want either a third breast or a prostate gland; I don’t want to learn how to abuse my elders; and I would really like the McDonald’s ingredients thing straightened out. But those ads made me laugh. This ad made me scream. And I hope that company hears it.
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