I [Heart] Soap Commercials

There's this thing that happens to me infrequently.

It's an Ah-HA moment. I named it that because that's what I say internally when such a thing happens (suitable substitutions: Oh . . . God, and Eureka). Sometimes, if I'm alone, I say the internal part aloud. Ah-HA! You can see how this would scare people.

This thing, it's like Buddhist Enlightenment with that signature Luke twist. Rather than feeling, in the Zen sense, like one who has no head, as though one is everything and nothing simultaneously, I just notice something obvious.

It's like fitting a final piece into a particular corner of my perceived reality. It's the piece that brings it all in and lays it all out. The discovery piece. Not like the final piece of a jig-saw puzzle, that's way too pedestrian, you see that coming.

This thing, it always sneaks up, like finding a use for the reverse-Z shaped piece in Tetris. The piece you never can find a place for until that one time it brings the house down.

Like a couple months ago, when I realized Idaho bordered Utah, which is why there's a BYU-Idaho and why Boise has such a large Mormon population--then blogged a thousand words about it. Ah-HA.

This thing, it leaves me feeling like an existential detective. Connected.

Of course, in the process of revealing this connectedness to the world, I realize it's something that everyone else already knows. Suddenly this detective has been playing Tetris on level 0, and the z-shaped piece turned out to just be a straight piece. Then, unlike enlightenment, I usually feel bad and chastise myself. "Of course it borders Utah, ass." That's how I know this isn't for real enlightenment, you're not supposed to feel stupid afterward.

***

All of which is preface to the fact that it happened again this morning.

Clarity. The Ah-HA. Perfect lucidity at the confluence of worlds. For a brief moment in my parent's drizzly shower, the fetters of this life fell away and I touched the infinite. It was soapy.

It began, as everything does, with a nagging problem.

Soap commercials.

For all the diversity in advertising, the embracing of hip-hop culture by big, waspy juggernauts from McDonald's to S.C. Johnson Wax, I've never seen a black man in a soap commercial. Ever.

Not one single African-American male ever. . . I'm pretty sure.

And my memory is excellent for things that don't involve spacially arranging places on a map or long division.

As I began to realize the gravity of this, my face screwed itself up. The back and forth motion of Dove Moisture Bar to left underarm slowed to a halt. I stood like that for a while, then remembered something.

Pretty much everything I know about African-American culture I learned from the Wu-Tang Clan and Dave Chapelle. I lament my ignorance, but those are really the only outlets available in Spokane. The Rza and the Gza are solid day-in, day-out. They're the bread and butter. Dave is streaky, but always comes through in the clutch.

On cue, in the shower, there it was.

The spoof of Trading Spouses. Chapelle, as the displaced black husband, looks right into the camera, "White folks don't use wash cloths."

Meaning black folks do.

There it is, the conundrum and every advertising executive's nightmare.

Let's run it down: Soap company A wants to reach out to everyone. They've already got the aging, white, stinky organ sacks, they need to hit other key demographics. You could spend a lot of money researching buying trends among endless permutations of consumers. When you were done you'd have exactly this: To appeal to everyone between 5 and 45 in one fell swoop, you have to appeal to Hip Hop culture. It's pervasive, it's all encompassing, a Rock the Vote special featuring P Diddy told me so. P. Diddy himself has as much sway with Young Republicans as--erring on the side of caution--Dick Cheney.

You want young white kids to pressure their parents into buying your soap? Put Li'l Flip in a shower with a bar. Tell him to lather up.

Problem: Li'l Flip is black. Washcloths obscure your soap.

Solution: Make Flip groom like a white guy, just for 15 seconds.

New problem: Flip becomes an Uncle Tom and you--the benevolent parent company who just wants to swaddle the world in warm, soapy, affordable hugs--are his master.

To that there is no solution, so you cut your losses and hope everyone buys your soap because that toned and ruddy brown-haired wasp is so enjoying lathering herself.

All of this I assume because, not being a black man myself, I don't know how I'd react to seeing another black man go washclothless. I know how Dave Chapelle would react. Maybe he's not representative.

Am I being stereotypical? Yeah, I'm trying to think like an Ad guy. Advertising is a recognition game. And in a world where people gladly assume the rolls clothing/electronics/lifestyle companies give them--where homogeneity is pervasive and fought for tooth and nail--the difference between stereotype and archetype is trifling. They engender each other. They are, essentially, aspects of the same thing. Yin and yang--which gives me an idea.

New Solution: substitute Flip for an Asian person, Dan the Automator for example.

New Problem: his turntable wouldn't fit in the shower.

Seriously, find a commercial that's marketing to young people. If it has an Asian person, he/she will be behind a turntable with big ass headphones, always.

Every commercial you see is nothing but groups of people-cum-stereotypes representing the archetypal this or that. The archetypal Riot Grrrl. The archetypal chic urban [black] businessman. The archetypal college kid. That's all advertising really is, getting people to identify your product with their kind of people, in the hope that they'll eventually identify it with themselves.

Proof: any McDonald's commercial (excluding Chicken Selects campaign). Skateboards, turntables, fashionhawks, dreadlocks, and, of course, hella Asian kids with hella headphones behind hella turntables--not a McRib in sight. Just hella BMXers doing hella back flips. I'm lovin' it.

We're consumers, that's how we define ourselves. We need you to sell to us, for what else is there? If you can squirm your way into our lives at a definitional level--if you become part of our self worth--then we're yours for life. God knows I will be. When it comes to soap, that's a lot of consuming.

Especially when it's Dove.

Am I being too simplistic? Probably. I have a tendency to oversimplify. But you're not allowed to judge, that was my Ah-HA moment and it felt holy.

Konichiwa Bitches.