The games drug companies play
IT'S BEEN 10 years since we started letting drug companies advertise their drugs on TV. Let's ban them again. You don't agree? Then you don't watch much football.
A football game is a three-hour nightmare. It is almost as bad as the drug marathons during Matlock reruns and Oprah. First, let's look at the football advertising "demographic," or what we call a "person," that advertisers are going after. They appear to be talking to a man. He is a guy with the trifecta of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and hair loss.
They are trying to sell him insurance, because he has none, but he does have plenty of body odor. He drives trucks to the top of mesas, where he blares "This is Mah Countreeee" on his radio. He drinks heavily. To shave, he requires a system of blades designed by NASA. What kind of hair does this poor guy have, anyway? It can't be only on his face!
So? So now we tell him that some woman out there is so interested in him that he needs to buy a magic pill for you know what.
I've been watching too much football, I know. But I think they are prescribing the wrong medicine for this guy. He does not need to cure his ED. He needs medicines that don't exist: medicines that make you stop scratching yourself. Medicines that make you forget the adjusting your body craves. Medicines that make you stop thinking that ED medicine belongs on the television that you watch with your kids.
We also need medicines for football commentators that would help them to make any sense whatsoever. My long-suffering husband has begged me to stop repeating what they say because this ruins the game for him. Remember, I don't comment, I just repeat their words exactly: "Tom, they'd better score some points if they want to win this game!"
Of course, all advertising is deceptive, so maybe drug ads are no different.
After all, herds of beer drinkers rarely attract enthusiastic young women. Antidepressants don't actually make you want to take your dog for a really long run. Feminine products do not make you have intimate conversations with your mother. Deodorant is not really for odors caused by playing manly sports like football. Most body odor comes from sitting around watching TV in your own body fat and advertisers know it.
But once upon a time, only a decade ago, we could watch TV with our kids and not have to explain ED to them.
We filled their heads with violence, yes, and sugar cereals. Not satisfied, we had to add sex to the picture. Even the Powerpuff Girls have a character that is all vamp body with no face. A million kids a week tune in.
So maybe we have to start small, with just banning drug ads. We could have a 10-year rule about laws. Ten years is long enough to find out that a law was a really bad idea. Let's try 10 years off, then we can decide if we really want to bring them back.
Of course, by then maybe I'll be singing a different tune. I'm lucky to be so young that I'm married to a guy who earns his body odor honestly, drives a sedan, and is insured.
Men don't know that this trifecta is pretty much what we look for.
Well, that. And no hair.
Monique Doyle Spencer is author of "The Courage Muscle: A Chicken's Guide to Living With Breast Cancer."
