Our Daughters, Ourselves

Onslaught.

It's an award-winning short film from Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. The tagline: Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.

I don't have a daughter. But I do have a niece. And more painfully, I have a mirror.

I don't like what I see in it.

Which is ridiculous. I am not hideous, deformed or even just plain ugly. But sometimes I think I am. In the mirror, on the scale, trying on clothes, just walking around. That little voice in my head: You're fat. You're getting old. Is that a wrinkle? A new gray hair? Is my neck starting to sag? My eyelids droop?

I'm 38 years old and in pretty good health and shape for my age. I could stand to lose a few pounds--for my health--but I'm certainly not falling to pieces like some decrepit old house.

And what if I were? Is it no longer possible to approach 40 without Botox and a plastic surgeon on speed dial? Is youth our only currency?

These are not just the narcisstic ramblings of one neurotic type A personality, but thoughts that most women I know share. After all, we're all subjected to this barrage every day.

The film is a 60-second, turbo-charged distillation of everything advertising and the beauty industry have to throw at us.

Very cleverly done. It captures our crazy-making beauty culture perfectly. There's even a split second image of a woman kneeling before a toilet, presumably on the verge of purging.

Read Advertising Age's review of the ad--including appropriate calling out of Unilever for also producing Axe body spray and Slim Fast.

Public reading and writing service announcement no. 554:

Words like "synthesize," "synergize," "utilize" or any "ize" for that matter, do not make your writing more magically delicious. They do not make you sound bolder, cooler, smarter or more interesting. But they do make you sound lamer and cheesier.
So please don't sprinkle these words throughout your compositions like so many pieces of Lucky Charms. They're plastic, artificial, crappy little colored marshmallows--not gold nuggets.

And they rot your brain. Or at least your teeth.

Signed,

One cranky writer

Things I won't do for the sake of the environment

Yes, it's spring, and I've finally crawled out from hibernation to add a new post to my "new" blog.

The number one emailed article at the New York Times today is about a couple and their small child going to eco-extremes in a year-long experiment in living green. To wit: they will not buy any food that hasn't been grown within a 250-mile radius of NYC and they will not buy anything besides that food. They will also not use any carbon-fuelled transportation (elevators included) or produce any trash (they are composting IN their apartment). Among the food items that are banished (or will be once they run out): olive oil, balsamic vinegar and spices! They dine by the light of candles and one fluorescent bulb. And scooter or walk to work and everywhere else.

I admire their commitment (and of others who are doing similar things), I do. I've been singing the praises of the environmentally-enlightened (and rightful U.S President) Al Gore since 1992. I am honestly seriously concerned about global warming, and as anyone who knows me will tell you, I consider "skeptics" to be the equivalent of people who still believe the earth is flat.

But it's hard to walk the talk.