I HATE Adverts!

I used to hate adverts. Now they’re not aimed at me they’re even worse.

Last year my PC developed a malware infection that proved remarkably hard to shift. No matter what site I clicked on I was being offered diet pills and underwear that I really didn’t think was gender appropriate. After a few frustrated weeks I installed Adblocker.

Around the same time, for entirely unrelated reasons, I pretty much stopped watching live television. Aside from occasionally catching the news almost everything I watch is online, and even then its usually on Netflix or iPlayer. The upshot is that, aside from when I watch the occasional episode of something on 4OD, I just don’t see TV advertising.

This is why it came as such a culture shock to me when I was forced to sit through twenty minutes of adverts at the cinema the other day. By God, it’s worse than I ever remembered! The feeling I experienced was not irritation, or anger, or even boredom. I can only describe my feelings as profound despair.

What an appalling, witless void of banality! What utter contempt for the audience! So much money, and seemingly quite a bit of talent, wasting on this empty worthless crap! What hope is there for humanity if this is what we’re willing to sit through, let alone if people think that the lifestyles and behaviours, the sheep like conformity and self involved bullshit shown in these adverts are anything that anyone would ever aspire to?

I know, I know, I’ve just described everything that advertising has always been. Still there was a difference here, and it wasn’t simply down to my lack of exposure to advertising over the past year. The adverts have changed because the times have changed, and people aren’t really bothering to advertise to me any more. I’m 30 and I’m single, and because I’m a male people aren’t using that fact to try to sell me ice cream or white wine (I know that sounds sexist, but that’s because I’m describing sexist advertising). I don’t have any kids, I don’t have any plans to buy a house soon and have no particular need for the more advanced financial services. I’m not young enough to be wowed any more by incremental advances in technology – the existence of smartphones at all is still a technological marvel to me. I have higher aspirations than recovering from a hangover by sharing Doritos or Nescafe with pre-added whitener (urgh!) with my smug hipster friends. No-one even wants to sell me cool stuff any more because I’m too old to be a good advert for it, and I’m too young to be sold stuff that isn’t cool, or mid life crisis stuff. I know what I want, I have the means to afford it and the only things I desire are achievements, not possessions.

It’s strange. On one level it’s nice, but on another level I feel kinda disconnected from the world around me. Like I’m wrong. Like I don’t have the right aspirations, and ideals. Like I don’t fit in.

This is the hold marketing has on us. This has shown to me the extent to which our society is defined by this bilge that is shoved down our throats. I am delighted to finally have the opportunity to cut myself off from it to this extent. I urge you to do the same!

Will everyone please shut up about Miley Cyrus?

According to today’s Guardian, “it seems impossible that anyone with the faintest interest in popular culture could have missed either the song [Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines] or the controversy”. Well, I guess today is the day that I found out I’d finally lost interest in pop culture, because the only reason I was in any way aware of this song (or Mr Thicke) was because of the utterly tiresome Miley Cyrus twerking “controversy”.

Anyway, apparently the song is very controversial, because some people think it promotes rape. Only other people say it doesn’t promote rape, and that the song only sounds as if it’s promoting rape if you assume that the woman Thicke is singing about has not given her consent. In the context of the song consent is apparently ambivalent.

The reason I haven’t tried to get any clarification on the exact details of this situation is that I don’t care. No-one has actually been raped, the song isn’t explicitly about rape, and I can think of at least half a dozen songs that I’ve heard which do explicitly feature rape, and even condone it.

This is just empty meaningless controversy, designed to stir up some shit to sell some records. The media is more than happy to play along as they can fill some column inches or a few minutes of airtime, stir up some manufactured moral outrage, yell “Ban this sick filth!” and get some attention of their own and increase their sales.

It’s the same with Miley Cyrus. I’m of an age where I was, until very recently, more aware of her dad than I was of Miley. Now, everywhere I turn she’s shoving her bits in my face. I’m actually fed up with it. I know you’re all grown up now, and having tits and being able to show them off is a new thing for you, but seriously, they’ve been around since the stone age and literally billions of people have them. Get over it.

It’s not “empowering”, it’s not “post-feminism”, it’s the same old tired, cynical exploitation of a woman’s body in order to sell shit. I really don’t think the fact that Miley Cyrus herself is complicit and consenting in the exploitation changes much. She's not the person being exploited (whatever Sinead O'Connor thinks), it's everyone who pays any attention to it. It’s not that I find it particularly offensive even, so much as it’s just tiresome. Are we really, in this day and age, going to dance to this tune again? It’s not like she’s even the first Disney star in the past decade to go wild once she came of age.

Now apparently Lily Allen’s new video has been accused of racism. Cue more manufactured outrage. STOP IT!!!! Stop legitimising this nonsense. The more people talk about these songs or videos the more exposure they get, the more people listen to their music and watch their videos and the more money the makers receive. It’s not rocket science.

There is a time and a place to make a stand. The BNP, the EDL, blackshirts, homophobes; people who are making a serious intervention in British public life. Not Miley Cyrus and Lily Allen.

These people aren’t politicians. They aren’t trying to reshape the society they’re in, through their art. They’re pop stars and they’re trying to make money by selling sub-standard music to the masses. When they cross a line the best course of action is to simply personally boycott them. Don’t start a campaign to boycott them. Don’t write letters of complaint. Just don’t give them your money. If we don’t allow a controversy to grow there’s no benefit in shock tactics, and the lost sales will outweigh the sales gained through free media attention.

In short, all this tiresome, offensive crap might end.

Hollywood’s Relationship Reality Check

Ok so with this column I’m going to attempt to not let it turn into another one of my rambles (but I’m promising nothing). Something has been on my mind recently and that’s the portrayal, in Hollywood, of relationships since the 90s. You only need to look at posters of movies starring Matthew McConaughey from this era. These would usually find him smiling and leaning dreamily against an object or a person (Yes I’m referring to Failure To Launch and How to Lose a Guy In Ten Days).

These films genuinely give you the impression that relationships are easy, lack depth and follow a formula. The plot goes as follows: Guy meets girl and they are effortlessly happy (to the point they are giddy) until one overly dramatic setback leads to them separating, only for some overblown gesture to reunite them and for everything to end happily ever after. This is just not the case in reality. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t subscribe to the whole self-indulgent Sex and the City approach of cast over-analysing the trivial and I’m not a pessimist when it comes to relationships but to say that any long term liaison is without struggle is just naïve!

OK, so I’m single at the moment (surprised?), but many of my friends have girlfriends or boyfriends (or both) and are very happy I might add and I feel I have been in enough relationships to know that this idealisation is poppycock. Yet, modern day screenwriters and directors have consistently propagated this myth. The truth is in order for a couple to be successful there are many factors which are pivotal and people’s attitudes can and will change over time.

The two movies I mentioned previously, Failure To Launch and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, in addition to having ridiculous movie posters are also riddled with clichés and with contrived plots. I should point out I am not bashing McConaughey, I think he’s starred in some great movies since (such as Mud and Killer Joe) and has proved with the right material he is a genuinely a talented actor but his work from this period was that of someone on autopilot. Failure To Launch sees McConaughey’s parents hire an expert (can you call Sarah Jessica Parker that?) to pretend to fall in love with him to motivate him to move out of their home but shockingly she falls in love with him for real and in the end they by a boat to live on and sail away together. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days sees McConaughey paired with Kate Hudson. In this Oscar worthy script Hudson’s character is a journalist trying to write a column about getting a man to break up with her in, yes you guessed it, 10 days and ironically (oh the irony) McConaughey’s advertising executive makes a bet with his colleagues that he can make any woman fall in love with him. I know what you’re thinking an astonishing plot.

All that said there are some recent movies out there which I think genuinely do justice to the complexities of modern day partnerships. Three of my favourites are 500 Days Of Summer, One Day (based on the David Nicholls book of the same name) and High Fidelity. In the case of “500 Days of Summer”, the couple, (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel) fall in love but their relationship doesn’t work out in the end and that’s life because sometimes things just don’t! In the case of One Day we have two people who genuinely love each other but are victims of circumstance because despite being compatible relationships have a lot to do with timing (well plus the fact that Jim Sturgess’ character acts like a moron for a large portion of the film). High Fidelity I pick because if girls genuinely want to know how many guys think and feel in a relationship watch this movie. John Cusack’s character’s journey of self-discovery, reflecting on exes, really makes you think about the way your former partners can be romanticised and idealised.

If you watch some of the classic movies made prior to the 90s (Casablanca or Gone with the Wind?), the central relationships are full of depth and pathos but also don’t work out. Key to any convincing screen relationship is having three dimensional characters (Just look at Scarlett O’Hara and Rick Blaine) who go through genuine turmoil and whom you invest. The majority of modern romantic comedies fail to achieve this.

I guess what I’m getting at is relationships are tough. Sometimes they’re successful, rewarding and life enriching but they don’t always last forever. We all need escapism from time to time but Hollywood needs a relationship reality check.