So my Japanese partner says to me, “You learn about a culture from its television. My maid does nothing all day but watch Kapamilya (ABS-CBN). Isn’t it ironic that they’re just beginning to show liquor commercials again just when we’ve decided to observe something else ^_^ ?”
Anyway, today I am going to perform a great service for all you compulsive consumers. I am going to watch television all day, and shine insights about some of the commercial ads that we have today.
My name is Michael, and I may be gone for a little while.
_____
Here are my top 4 male deodorant commercials that caught my attention the fastest, and kept my attention to the point that I would finish the commercial and even look forward to watching it again (Okay, I’m cheating a little. This is really a requirement, but I’m typing this one out of sheer boredom):
Axe Click (4th)
This quirky commercial is about Ben Affleck with his ego running about in the city, meeting women of various professions and ages, and driving all of them wet – with perspiration. It begins with a truck passing by Ben (drat. The truck driver missed his target) and him looking all smug.
While frolicking around town, he meets various women (and man). Nurses, waitresses, soccer playing teenyboppers, even a bald African-American boutique salesperson. For a blind lawyer, Ben’s a lucky bastard.
As a testament to his hotness (and male dominance behavior by showing off), he brings his clicker and counts just how many individuals (I’m referring to these people loosely now) were smitten by him. *Click click click.*
And who could forget this suggestive snippet?
[link]
Rawr. Two clicks for that. *Click click.*
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t gender oppression end sometime in the golden 50’s and the swinging 60’s, when valiant valkyries burned their bra’s in an act of defiance (maybe against the sun, because the heat makes their bra-wearing uncomfortable)?
And because of that, we now have equal gender voting rights, equal opportunity employment, and spring break wet t-shirt contests. (*Click click!*)
As if women who advocate feminine empowerment didn’t gasp as to how a multinational fast moving consumer group corporation would fulfill men’s fantasy (tsk tsk, men. *shudders*) of having women irresistibly flirting with him, and ultimately treating these smitten kittens as objects that you can merely count and tally with a clicker, Ben ends his day when he enters a small elevator in a bar and pompously shows his haul to your average Joe elevator boy.
One hundred and three women ogled over my rugged good looks and fantasized me naked. I’m sure Jenny won’t mind.
I can’t think of a pun right now, but the gist (as if you don’t know) was that Ben got out-‘clicked’ by the Joe, because he sprayed his Click before he started his day. End of story.
Rexona First day Funk (3rd)
The trend with our local male deodorant commercial ‘revolution’ (aghast! I still cannot get that Powerboys’ “wala ba kayong mga kamay?” commercial and catch-phrase out of my mind!) started with this retroesque commercial-cum-jingle-cum-cult phenom.
It’s basically an account of how the new guy went about his first day, chumming up with the professor, high-fiving with his newfound friends, actively reciting in class, shrugging his shoulders when he didn’t know the answers, and being a responsible student by erasing the whiteboard.
Had the new guy didn’t sniffed on his crack that he mistook for his powdered talc before he went to school, this entire surreal ditty wouldn’t have happened. How else would you explain the Olympian god-sized hallucinations of Parokya Ni Edgar band members giving advice on his first day in college?
I like the fact that funk here (and in the entirety of this commercial for that matter) both meant first day retro grooves on how to gel well with everyone, and first day body odor.
Rexona First Day High (2nd)
I also like the concept that they improved the First Day Funk commercial into a semi-sequel wherein they featured archetypes of typical highschoolers, complete with their Sentai colors. Pre-teens would finally feel that they could relate with these archetypes (no wonder the film version of this was a box office hit) whenever they put on their deodorants.
Wait, wasn’t the nice guy a freshmen college student already in the canon, prior to this?
Axe Vice (1st)
My number one has to go with Axe Vice. What initially caught my attention with this was that it deliberately wants to be different from all the other commercials (well, here in the country at least). It’s like a danish, densely sprinkled with dry male grunt sesame seed elements: the gritty hard-boil noir feel, with its pouring rain in an eternal dark, starless sky (except for one road chase scene), and the long, drawn-out introspective and pessimistic speeches by that Morgan Freeman look-alike detective, spraying monologues after monologues of clichés.
No other commercial catches the male fantasy in the male product category than this commercial. What typical Joe wouldn’t want to be smothered by hot women to the point of obsession? (That cheap pass for a luxury cigarette Hope wouldn’t pass for a close second. It’s pure delusion brought about by chain smoking. Try snapping your finger at that, hah!)
You can't escape it. It's like a thick fog in London, swirling all around you. It permeates the theme and gives it depth. This commercial exudes the message “fatal attraction”.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
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