Tuesday, October 16, 2007

I Hate Commercials

(but I'm feeling better about Heroes this week.)

A few questions/observations for the people who are supposedly trying to get me to buy stuff.

Career Builder - So, only men have careers? Well, that thats hardly a convincing argument for me to to buy what you are selling. ps, when I have to fucking pause the damn commercial to be certain that there is indeed a woman or two in the background, you might as well have not have them in there. (Except for the sake of those actresses' careers.)

Ah, yes, Ritz - "We have women in our commercial. But they don't talk. The guy in the lab coat does."

30 Days of Night - Women are good for screaming. And being bait. And giving the camera soulful looks. And occasionally saying that stupid thing that you know is going to bite the person who said it in the ass later. (I don't know if the movie is actually like this, I just thought, considering recent denials and conventional wisdom that women don't go to the movies, that it was worth pointing out that this is how it's being sold.)

Subway - Women talk! About their looks.

iPhone - Dear Apple. I really love your products. I usually love your commercials. So I just have to ask: Do women not own iPhones? Because that's would be news to my mother.

NBC comedy - All our shows are about men. Except for 30 Rock. Which is Tina Fey's show. But look! A Baldwin!

ER - Wow! A woman! Who isn't just a mother but a doctor too! Yeah, I can't imagine why ensemble shows are popular among women.

Journeyman - Man saves woman. Hey, aren't I watching that show already?

As for Heroes

Bad things:

Micah.

Micah's bratty cousin.

Mr. I'm going to bully you into going out on a date with me. Claire letting him.

Stalker Dad. Keeping secrets again.

Crying "I'm helpless without a man" girl gets to add hopelessly naive to her resume.

Two grown men putting a little girl in danger.


Good things:

Micah's other cousin. She has a female friend! And she beats the guy who threatened her - and it wasn't with sexual assault.

And a big congrats to Heroes for handling the New Orleans bit much much better than I thought they would.

And hey! a girl talks to Claire with the intention of being nice!

Matt's (not) kid gets a mention. And hey! He didn't just spontaneously generate into this world

Crying "I'm helpless without a man" girl has an actual skill! It may not be a superpower, but it's useful.


Next week: Kristen Bell - yay!

2 comments:

Amy Reads said...

Hi Mickle,
And a big congrats to Heroes for handling the New Orleans bit much much better than I thought they would.

It's true! I, too, was Quite Surprised at the delicacy with which they handled Hurricane Katrina and the Aftermath. Bonus that the cousins' house actually looks like houses in New Orleans (not a French Quarter house, but a standard, suburban, residential house). The one complaint I had was the use of "county" as a designator for location. Louisiana does not have "counties"; it has "parishes." No New Orleans native ever would say "people in this county"--she would have said "people in this parish," or, better, "people in Orleans" (or Jefferson if she lived there, or even just Lower Ninth to designate the area).

Although If I Recall Correctly, their house is in New Orleans East, which is just "The East."

Now of course I am not This Nitpicky about representations of my hometown, but the county/parish thing is a very sloppy mistake I didn't expect. The rest is just my contrariness :)

By "crying woman," do you mean Maya??
Ciao,
Amy

Mickle said...

(sigh)yes. (And I'm not referring to the black stuff.)

Which is likely unfair to the actress and the character as she really would be, but seems to be what the writers think of every time they try to write a scene for her.

I mean, yeah, she's gotta be all confused and depressed and stressed out, which tends to bring on the crying. But she's also taking a lot of risks. She's got to have more guts and maturity than they keep showing her as having.

And good point about "parish" versus "county". One of those things that I didn't catch, but like to think that I would have caught if I was a writer and had time to reread and rewrite. :)