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.

This is dead well-written and spot-on. Hard to believe that people like that actually exist, but there you go.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been unhealthily into the ninth season of American Idol. I watch the show when it’s on and I pore through the blogs and news sites featuring anything about the show. The funny thing is, I’ve never really watched the show, but this time was different, because my niece’s friend, Katie Stevens, is in it. I’ve seen her perform a couple of times in some productions she’s been and often thought that she had such an incredible voice, which is why it didn’t come as a huge surprise when I heard she was trying out for American Idol.

Naturally, when the new season aired, I was glued to the TV and felt quite pleased when she made it in. I looked forward to hearing how she was doing every week and, also, to her first outing on the show, when she sang the Nina Simone original “Feelin’ Good.” I wasn’t crazy about the song, and it seemed like nobody was totally crazy about her performance as a whole. She was told to go younger and be 17, so she followed it up with Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On.” Still not young enough! Figure out who you are as an artist! she was told. She tried again with Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway,” about which none of the judges were happy.

One of my sisters and I took to dissecting every episode; call us crazed critic-wannabes. It seemed to me as though it’s the pressure to be young that was hounding her, and every week, she did her best to comply with the judges’ wishes, even though it’s evident that her voice and style weren’t young to begin with. They want to turn her into a pop princess when her voice is suited to something else. My sister theorized that because she looked like such a cute little doll, that counted against her, and so she was expected to come up with something sweet. One blog comment somewhere said, “If she went any younger, she’d be singing Barney songs.”

Everybody thought she was a goner when the top 12 was announced, which is why it was a complete shock when Lilly Scott was eliminated. And then the insane, bitter gripefest began, with many of the complaints being hurled against Katie as if it were her fault Lilly was eliminated. Initially, I was incensed in Katie’s behalf–you can tell I’m totally invested in this–and at the same time realized how brave she and all the other contestants were for putting themselves out there, in the glare of the world’s scrutiny. No wonder some celebrities say that they refuse to go online and look up any comments about themselves, because the criticism’s just terrible (which made me think that if I ever got around to writing my ode to Ben Barnes and posting it here to scream out how much I want to meet him and just frickin’ shake his hand, he would never get to read it anyway. Pfft.).

Then I noticed the tone that most people would take when they criticized, not just her, but another young’un like Aaron Kelly. Critics would bash them for appealing to the Hannah Montana generation, that they just got the votes of young people who knew how to text like crazy on their mobile phone compared to the older crowd, that they probably didn’t know any more music beyond Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift, that there should be a higher age requirement to be able to join the competition, that they didn’t have enough life experiences to pour their hearts and souls into their performances. Frankly, I’m not really fond of young people, but even I have to say that those comments smack of discrimination, as if teenagers are stupid people who just get easily swayed by trends and know nothing about music, let alone life. Critics seem to have forgotten that when you’re young, you aren’t necessarily the idiot that adults think you are. I wonder if any of them recognize that they’ve become the kind of adult who puts down and talks down to kids and teenagers.

Last night’s Rolling Stones round had Katie singing “Wild Horses,” and for the first time, the judges were pleased with it. Personally, I was relieved that she finally got an opportunity to belt out a song; I’m not an expert on music, but she does have a big, deep, velvety voice that needs a lot of room to get out. I’m crossing my fingers for her, of course, although I have to say that I don’t think she’ll be the American Idol this year. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since that would let her explore other options that would be more perfect for her.

_{My sister and I noted how vehement we get about criticisms against Katie, and are happy that our niece isn’t planning to join AI. If she did and people begin pelting her with insults, we will go to war.}

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.

Spotted on 24 Oras: Celebrities helping with repacking relief goods in warehouses. Noble and admirable, yes, but for the love of God, could the female celebrities please pull their hair back in a neat, serviceable ponytail instead of flipping them over their shoulders or fixing them every so often and also wear shirts, jeans, or shirts rather than purty dresses?

I hate the show and I hate Willie Revillame, but I have to thank it for throwing up gems like this one.