God, Jamie. I Hope That Shit Is Making You Rich

Of all the stuff going on in my life and in the world the thing I really have to (really, I HAVE to) talk about today is Jamie Lee Curtis and her newest commercial running on the TV about Activia, which is a brand of yogurt that has a whole lot of probiotics or something like that in it and is supposedly good for your digestive system.
Now, okay, Jamie Lee Curtis has always seemed to me to be a sensible, beautiful woman who has tackled the aging process with grace and dignity and honesty rather than with plastic surgery and Botox but my opinion of her just fell through the basement after watching this commercial for about the first, second, third time last night.

Here's the set-up for the ad: Jamie is sitting at a table in a restaurant with three EXTREMELY normal-looking older women. Older as in probably approximately Jamie Lee's age but without the benefit of excellent make-up skills, access to designer clothes, and Pilates instructors. Jamie Lee smiles big for the camera and announces...oh hell, y'all, just watch it. It's only 31 seconds long.




I have so many problems with this ad that I'm having a hard time organizing my thoughts.
The first and main one, I suppose is very idea that four women would go out for a girl's night out TO DISCUSS A FUCKING YOGURT PRODUCT THAT MAKES YOU POOP!

Really? Who came up with this concept? Is this supposed to make us women over fifty want to go out and buy Activia? Because we can relate so much? One of the women in the group says, "Just because we're over fifty what does that mean? That we're DONE?"

And what the fuck does THAT mean? That we over-fifty women are done pooping? Because if it's supposed to mean that being over fifty means that we're done having fun and living life, I think this commercial would point to just that- if we're on the TV it's because we're talking about yogurt that makes you POOP! That if we over-fifty women go out on the town it's not to drink martinis and have what would actually be a good time, but to discuss the merits of a poop-inducing product?

I sort of want to shoot whoever wrote that ad. I sort of want to get up in Jamie Lee's face and say, "Really? How much are they PAYING you because this is crap. Crap that makes me not want to ever buy the product you're shilling because this crap is demeaning to women."

Yes. I said it. It's demeaning to women and it makes us older women look like we have nothing better to talk about on a night out on the town with other older women than our digestive systems and that we would go to all the trouble to put on make-up and BRAS and go to a fancy restaurant and order a giant bowl of some pasta-looking product and then sit there with Jamie Lee Curtis and drink our water (either it's water or giant glasses of vodka and it would take more than one of those to make ME talk about my pooping on a nationally-aired TV commercial) and discuss the merits of regular digestion and then eat that stuff for the camera.

Good god. As if women over fifty don't have enough trouble with our self-images.

You know, I read a little piece the other day about how Bruce Springsteen's writing about women is sadly short of complexity. How his women are either girls who need rescuing or the eternal "Mary" and I came away from that thinking, "Shit. It's Bruce Springsteen. How politically correct does he have to be? His songs, his words, his take on the world."
And so I would never have thought to be offended by Springsteen's lyrics. In fact, I love them. I also feel that his songs are humanly representational- neither male nor female. We can all relate to the longings and the pain and the fear and the joys he expresses in his songs. So I was a bit put-off by the author of that little essay and wondering why she'd bothered.

But this ad was written and targeted directly at ME, at women my age. It stars a woman who has posed nude-ish and un-airbrushed un-photoshopped on the cover of magazines to prove the point that real women not only have curves but cellulite and bulges and wrinkles and gray hair, which, for a woman in Hollywood, is a brave thing to do and which I admired her for.

And now this. This piece of film (and oh yes- you can go online and see the thrilling backstory of how they got these three women- real life best friends! to fly to LA and make this commercial with the amazing star JAMIE LEE CURTIS!), this thirty seconds of complete and utter disrespectful dreck is airing every five minutes and all I can think of is how much it insults me and how much I hate it and maybe I'm making way too much of it but fuck it. That's me.

I went out for a night on the town the other night. I put on make-up. I wore a bra. I had drinks. I had dinner and it was fabulous. I also had some creme brulee and coffee. I listened to music. I visited with my husband and two of my daughters and other people who were there to eat and listen to music and visit. I even danced. But not ONCE did I think about my digestive system. Not ONCE did I consider eating a fucking yogurt out of a fucking plastic cup and making a face while doing so resembling that of a woman in joyous passion.

I was told that I was beautiful. I felt for a few moments as if maybe, even though I am in that over-fifty category, I wasn't completely done. With any of it. Not of fun nor of life. It was lovely.

All right. That's all I have to say about that. But seriously- what do YOU think? Am I making too big a deal out of this? Yes. I know I am. But does this commercial push your buttons the way it pushed mine?

I'd like your take on it.

Meanwhile, happy Sunday from the Church of the Batshit Crazy. I just ate eggs and grits and sausage and biscuits and I ain't worried about my poop one bit.
Of course no one is paying me to worry about or talk about it either one.

Which makes me pretty darn happy to be just a regular older woman in this world who has better things to worry about, better things to do and better things to eat than a cup of friendly flora wrapped in non-fat yogurt and then to talk about it as if it were the Fountain of Youth, the Holy Grail, and the Answers To All My Prayers wrapped up in a cup.

Yours truly...Ms. Moon