Listen up, world. It’s really, truly no longer okay to look like your age. Just appeared on TV: a Pond’s commercial featuring Apples Aberin-Sadhwani, who concluded the ad by saying, “It’s okay to be 40, as long as you look 30.” The minds in this country’s advertising world will continue to throw up precious gems and amaze me with every effort they make.

From Inquirer.net

There’s no higher calling for a woman than being a person who nurtures you, respects you, and looks after you. At least that’s according to the latest ad from Team Manny Villar, featuring Loren Legarda, who’s clawing her way to the vice presidency a second time, and the women in their senatorial line-up. After the women earnestly declare that they will, well, be our mothers (at least how commercials typically portray mothers), Villar swoops in, boasting that he has nobody but the best, most accomplished women on his team.

Yeah, sure, whatever, but your ad certainly didn’t make that clear. All your ad did was to make them look like gentle, soft-spoken people who will love us no matter what we did and patch up our bruises, not fierce crusaders who are fully capable of grabbing the reins and guiding this country out of the muck. You claim you’ve got the best women on your slate? Tell us why and how they excel, don’t parade them around in soft lighting and have them speak slowly and soothingly.

I take offense at so many commercials that it’s practically impossible for me to watch TV without snorting disgustedly or screaming at yet another stupid ad. My latest target: SkinWhite’s ad for their new whitening lotion…for teenagers.

Much has already been said about the Filipina’s unhealthy obsession with skin whitening, and the unfortunate effect that centuries of being under the thumb of some foreign power has done for our concept of beauty–and let’s not forget the ongoing influence of Japanese and Korean pop culture. It’s well known that women are expected to adhere to society’s impossible expectations of beauty. But we could make things a lot easier for future generations of women by boosting their self-esteem, letting them know that they’re all perfect the way they are, and that looking good is perfectly all right, but they don’t have to starve themselves or inject all sorts of unmentionables into their system to make it happen.

I make myself laugh with my own idealism.

Of course no one is going to do that. Playing on people’s insecurity can make a lot of money. Make ‘em feel inadequate, make ‘em feel ugly and you’ll have them eating out of your hand, or in most cases, opening their wallets to give you all the money they have just to make their problems and problem areas go away. And unfortunately, one of the most insecure people in the world is the teenage girl. That may be a funny idea given that teenagers these days are typically described as being full of themselves and overconfident that they’re the most awesome creatures on the planet, but behind that lies the fact that the teenage girl can be eager for approval; she’s dressing up to look pretty, to be accepted, and to gain the admiration of other people. Credit that to the fact that women are raised to be pleasant and agreeable.

So it’s no surprise that women make fine targets for companies peddling products, lifestyles, and images. Just imagine how many women were lured by the glitz of Sex and the City. Blessedly, not all women are influenced by what media and the advertisers say. However, targeting teenaged girls and using their concerns over growing up and fitting in to sell a product is ten kinds of low. It’s hard enough growing up and dealing with uncomfortable physical changes; hearing that you need to change yourself and your appearance just makes things worse, and to recommend using a product allegedly formulated with ingredients to lighten your skin is not just an insult, it’s unhealthy. Of course, I’m not saying that all teenaged girls will be swayed into buying this product. Nevertheless, the concept of a skin whitening lotion for teenaged girls is just irresponsible. It doesn’t make them feel better about themselves nor does it encourage them to take care of themselves the right way. It just makes them think, “Hey, maybe there is something wrong with me and my skin. I think I do need that lotion.” Heck of a way to improve girls’ image of themselves and believe that they’re beautiful the way they already are. Thanks, skin care companies and the dimwit advertisers who come up with your concepts.

And don’t me get started on Palmolive’s Fashion Girl shampoo.

So this commercial has been running for almost a year now, and I wish it would just die a gory death because it’s such a ridiculous ad.

In this ad, Kim Chiu, who’s so dangerously skinny that her arms are probably as fat as my thumb, is saying that the female hair is big and frizzy in the morning. To whoever came up with this ad, I say this: The hair of the girls in the ad isn’t frizzy, not by a long shot. It’s just messy. And if girls have messy hair in the morning, all they need to do is run a damn comb through their hair, not employ Rejoice Anti-Frizz right away. Besides, you don’t know from frizzy, not like the big hair that curly-haired people like myself have to deal with on a regular basis. No amount of shampoo can calm it down; it takes time, effort, and a cleverly maneuvered hair dryer or iron, and even then, our hair is defenseless in the face of humidity. Frizzy is either a hair’s default state or a reaction to excessive humidity, not something that takes place upon waking up in the morning.