Okay, so I've been ranting about these stupid pap smear commercials (along with the mammogram commercials and prostate commercials) for a couple of weeks now. But every time I see one, and I just did, I get annoyed all over again.
"Wanna do something special for your woman this Christmas? Schedule her pap smear."
Wanna show me that you really care, go get the damn pap smear for me. Lie down on your back, naked, under a paper robe, with your feet in the air and legs spread eagle while a couple of people pry your insides apart with a cold, metal or plastic instrument and jab around inside you with a giant q-tip for awhile. That would show me love!
And seriously, I am not YOUR woman. I am not anyone's woman but my own.
Nor do I need Jack Black's "Boob-saver 5000."
As thrilled as I am that men are being encouraged to get involved in women's lives, I would be much more thrilled if their involvement didn't revolve around making sure my sexual parts remained in working order for their enjoyment because I'm "your woman" or because everyone loves boobs. Why not ask them to get more involved in childcare or household chores or reproductive rights or social, civil, and economic rights or the prevention of domestic violence?
I have to admit that CBS, the network that airs the pap smear commercials, is an equal opportunity advertiser and also has commercials that recommend women make prostate exam appointments for the men in their lives. Oddly enough, both pap smear and prostate exam ads have a Christian and a Jewish version, which I find strange since I thought that health exams are a rather secular thing.
I don't suppose you can make a commercial without it offending or excluding someone. And while I admire the mission CBS seems to be on, the commercials are a bit like watching a car wreck on the highway. That and I can't help but think a pap smear would be one hell of an item to try and re-gift.
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Not to mention that going to the website, http://www.menforwomennow.com/, opens with a, well, stupid-ass video with Kevin Connolly who claims that sending money will "save some boobs." Although he begins his little speech with the fact that sending in money will fund cancer research, he muddies the waters with this comment. Because, after all, cancer doesn't kill women--it only kills boobs, right? And, umm, really? Facebook should be called Boobbook? Women only use FB to show off boobs? No, that's not quite what I've found in my experience there...and I have a feeling quite a few men DON'T get on FB to look at boobs.
ReplyDeleteI'm appalled that the only time the actual WORD "breast" is used as the very last word...in a very very crappy pun. "It's a matter of life and breast." Thanks for sucking at life, Keverooski.