That’s Disgusting!

My faithful readers will recall a blog a few weeks back in which I outlined things that make me smile. Those are the slices of life that give us pleasure and satisfaction.  Well, on the flip side are those instances that do the opposite – the bits and pieces that lead us to “what were they thinking?”  Here are some items and situations that either provoke eye-rolling or cause is to recoil in disgust.  If I’m being overly sensitive, you’re probably right so don’t bother pointing it out.For example, a new children’s game was advertised just the other day.  It features a plastic toilet, with pop-up fecal matter.   I know, right?  I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Several smiling, happy children were circling the gameboard “toilet”, giggling with delight as the brown, sausage-like game pieces flew into the air.  I can only assume that a precocious group of 8-year-olds have taken over creative control of this toy manufacturer, and there are no adults left on the premises.  All reason and sense of propriety have left this company by the back door.

Close to the top of my list of ad teams that should be publicly flogged is the one that came up with the “ . . . . . pox”. You know that candy commercial, which I thought had died a merciful death in obscurity, but no, it’s back.  The young couple is behind the bleachers, his face covered with colorful candies.  She asks if it’s contagious, takes one and, well you know what happens next, because that’s the moment where my stomach lurches.  I’ll admit that I tend to be a bit squeamish about such things, but really, eating something from another person’s face?  What are we, cats and squirrels?  Truth be told, I’m not totally comfortable with dogs and cats slobbering all over human faces. When one considers what companies spend for “creative” people to design their commercials, shouldn’t they expect more?  In that same vein, there’s a new one for a dip.  The guy takes some dip on a chip and it spills down his shirt.  The girl scoops it up and eats it.  Ok, slice of very distasteful.  Please just wipe it up and throw the shirt in the wash, like most of the civilized world would do.  I don’t believe that anyone has eaten food from clothes, theirs or others, since, well, probably prehistoric times.  Not even cave drawings include this scenario, and they’re remarkably telling.

Some of the bleach commercials started out quite cute.  The little guy in the bathroom tugging at his belt, calling to his mother, “We have a situation here” brings a smile.  Much is left to the imagination, which is fine by me.  However, the newer ones for a carpet cleaning service feature another little person being called away and dashing off through a puddle of . . . . We didn’t need that visual really, did we?  The same company has another ad that starts out amusingly.  A young man is doing a dance move that goes astray and he inadvertently strikes himself in, shall we say, a vulnerable spot.  Another young person sitting next to him sprays a pink blast onto the floor.  That commercial just misses the mark.  The commercial for allergy medicine, where the lady sneezes and blows whipped cream all over the windshield is quite funny.  This one is somehow isn’t. It has something to do with pacing. The commercials featuring a pedestrian on the curb when a car drives by and splashes them is typically hilarious – mostly because it isn’t us.  There’s a very, very fine line between humorous and downright disgusting, and the pink goo on the carpet is just one more instance where the ad team overreached.

I believe that I speak for the habitually queasy here when I say that some stuff, and that includes most bodily functions, should never be presented to, or perhaps foisted upon the viewing public. Little children and animals are adorable, but only to a point.  After that, not so much. We don’t need to see dirty diapers or extended bathroom scenes unless much is left out of sight.  We don’t need to see folks in scenes of prolific perspiration.  It never produces pleasure to see the back of someone urinating into the bushes.  Why include that?  It’s an affront to nature as well as to viewers everywhere.  Those boxing scenes, where one gets beaten to a pulp – don’t need to see or know .  The minute the first drop of blood is spilled, shut it down and have the narrator tell us the results.  “The Crusher really did a number on Fixer Fred.”  Ok, we know who won.  That’s it. Fini.  Remember the good old days when Westerns featured a shot of the gunfighter with pistol going off, then we saw the body at a discreet distance.  We knew he was dead, but no pools of blood on the ground, no head blown off, just a body at two hundred paces. If he was dying, we’d have just a head shot and some agonized final words – then the head would slump listlessly to the side and the eyes would close.  That’s all we need.  Are you with me? In fact, as a general rule, we don’t need to see extensive head wounds, bullet holes in bodies, slash marks around the neck, blood splattered all over the wall. When the detective says to the victim’s sister, “You don’t want to go in there.”, that’s good enough for me.  The camera shouldn’t go in either.  We’ll trust that it’s a mess. What I really appreciate are murders where the body is dumped in the river or dropped overboard two miles out. It’s neat and tidy.  All we have to endure are bodies looking a bit like Madame Tussaud had a go at them. We don’t need to see bodies left in the woods that the crows were attacking.  That’s just revolting. Or surgical procedures with real, live internal organs, heart pumping, stomach digesting, etc., etc.  When I see the doctors and nurses in surgical garb, head shots only, that’s as close as I need to come.  I’ll just let my imagination take it from there.

While we’re on the that topic of disgusting, I’d like to add a “Regurgitation Amendment” to the Constitution that prohibits viewers of film and television from ever, ever seeing someone being sick on screen.  There’s no dramatic effect to be gained.  It doesn’t add to the story line or the narrative. It merely drives us to bathroom stops of our own. If you come across a dead body, or see brutal violence, hold it in until you get home and we viewers aren’t there.  If you’re having a reaction to something you ate or drank, run a dark, undisclosed location with Dick Cheney as fast as you can, and be sure to lock the door to prevent the cameras from following.  In all honesty, the last place we should ever see cameras is in a bathroom, public or private. This business of people finding a body on the sidewalk, followed shortly by them going behind a car to be sick, is totally unnecessary. If you can’t handle it, you shouldn’t be out on the street, and this fully applies to police personnel. That should be part of a homicide detective’s training.  Course No. 207 – Viewing the Body Without Barfing.” As an alternative, I propose that film and television producers could just give us a text box like the old silent films, saying things like, “Gretchen dashed to the bathroom, was violently ill, and, having had some time to regain her composure, has emerged looking a bit more presentable. We resume the action at that spot.”  There, the ugliness is gone, my intestines are at equilibrium,  and we’re all better for it.  I say, for all of us reflecting on the unpleasantness we’re forced to watch, “we’re thinking  . . . .NO.”