Tuesday

Maybe I’m just a little grumpy because I woke up an hour and a half earlier than I would have liked, or maybe I’m just turning into a Grinch, but the barrage of “holiday” commercials is really getting on my nerves. I found it annoying before, but this morning … well, this morning they’re pissing me off with the implications of stupidity and greed amongst holiday shoppers and gift receivers.

So far this morning I’ve seen commercials implying that men must buy diamonds for the women in their lives for Christmas, an expensive car will get a man a little nookie for the holidays, and everyone’s entire December will be made whole and shiny and wonderful with new jeans and sweaters from a wonderfully inexpensive chain store.

Ok, I like the chain store, but…

All the jewelers’ commercials waving diamonds and baubles and necklaces that will be worn maybe twice a year are downright insulting. There’s a commercial for a store that might be local to Northern CA (I’d never heard of it until we moved back here) where this woman wanders through a cocktail party admiring the obviously expensive bracelets and necklaces of other guests, who proudly boast, “He went to (insert name of store…I’m not giving them publicity)!” At the end of the commercial she walks up to her husband and shoves crackers or shrimp or some other party food into his drink and walks off in a huff.

Eh? Because he didn’t just go out and spend the mortgage on something shiny? Did she ever tell him she wanted expensive jewelry? Was he supposed to just guess? “Well, she’s a woman, so of COURSE she wants diamonds and gold and silver!”

And there’s those annoying annual commercials for a national chain… A kiss begins with… Sheesh. Granted, those necklaces they push every year are not my taste at all, but they charge a chitload for something I can go to WalMart and get for 80% less. Or a kiosk in the mall. Or even JC Penney, because they seem to always have stuff at 50% off.

Then there’s the car commercials. Too many to count this year. Using the keys to a BMW as mistletoe. Cadillacs with a Christmas-y backdrop. Buy a Lexus, she’ll love you! In fact, if you don’t buy her the fully loaded bank buster dream machine, she’ll feed you gruel and warm water for dinner for months… Ooh yeah, surprise her with a car! Surprise her with a $900 car payment every month for the next five years!

I know people have been complaining for years about how commercial the holidays have become, but cripes. Do advertising companies really think men are stupid enough to believe they have to buy the really expensive shiny thing to rock her holiday world? Or that their wives would really want them to spend $75,000 on a car for her that she didn’t even get to pick out? Maybe she’d be perfectly happy with the sub $20K compact on the lot across the street. Or hey, maybe she’d be happier still with the perfect book and bath oils selected from her favorite stores. A CD of favored music.

But damn…that would mean he’d have to pay attention to what she likes to read, and how she likes to relax. And we all know that men can’t handle that.

Yeah, insert heavy rolling of the eyes.

And yeah, it seems to me that most of these commercials are aimed directly at men, as if they’re too clueless to have really good gift ideas all by themselves. Gosh…what did men do before TV? Or before advertising became the driving force behind network TV?

Holy crap, did they have to stop and think?!?!?!

And a note to advertisers: Hey. People are not stupid. Men are not clueless and women are not greedy. Well, most women aren’t. The insinuations just make me want to throw things at the TV, and stop buying anything you make.

Except the Cadillac XLR.
Yeah, I’d buy that.
If you drop the price by $40,000, I’d buy it.

But…sheesh.

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