Blood On Their Hands

For a long while now, I've been badly wanting to develop a lecture series on tampon ad campaigns. The fact is that they're getting more and more horrific, and I have to attribute this "aesthetic of fear" to intense competition between the feminine hygene companies. I haven't seen such frenzied attempts at grabbing the consumer since the mysterious proliferation of long distance collect call ads (and Carrot Top), which always seemed to be trying too hard for a product that I didn't know anyone used. My parents and friends would murder them if I collect called from the other coast. But tampons, on the other hand, are to most women, necessities, so this is a case of a product that a lot of people use- and perhaps too many makers currently offering this product on the market. So how do you get girls over to your side? It's starting to look like you just scare them.

When I was going through puberty, tampon companies were still playing nice. Ad rhetoric was all about comfort and ease, assuring young teens that tampons were a cinch to get the hang of and that we wouldn't even be able to feel them in our bodies.

But then, sometime around the millenium (perhaps this has some cryptic bearing), I began to notice that the tampon companies were leaving behind the idea of the tampon itself as being a benign, helpful product, and were embracing a more all-encompassing projection of the fear that should be involved while having one's period. Now, instead of comfort being the focus, it was the horror of being in a state of menstration and the way that tampons, including packaging and design, could help to hide this horror from those around us, and, by extension, shield us from further emotional and physical pain (more on this new aspect of physical pain in the next tampon-ad post). If we chose the right one. Thus came the tampon commercial that featured only a teen-y purse sitting on top of an empty desk, while the faint sounds of a teacher lecturing and tapping chalk on the blackboard filled in the background. The point of the commercial was to introduce girls/women to a new, smaller tampon that could fit in the palm of one's hand, so that no one else in her class would know "what she was going to do" when she got up to go to the bathroom. And then pads, tampon's fatter, unfashionable, older sister, even got in on the shame parade. New "silent" wrappers were announced, wrappers that didn't make the old crinkling sounds of their forefathers when one was getting out her pad or rummaging through her purse. The point of these campaigns seemed to be that if your classmates (and I think, obviously, these commercials take classmates to mean "boys"- which is, for clear reasons, a scary mindset to covertly perpetuate) didn't see evidence of a period and couldn't hear evidence of a period, you could go admired through life as though you'd been hysterectomied at birth.

So anyway, I've long been wanting to do this series examining just what is going on in tampon ads, exactly, and what better ad to kick it off than the one that actually made my jaw drop earlier this month, the ad that is so clearly fucked up that I don't really even have to take the time to go into heavy analysis today (which is good, because I'm tired)? Tampax Pearl takes out space in the May issue of Seventeen magazine to let the readers know that they now have another reason to worry when going swimming while on their periods- the original and longstanding fear that someone will be able to see something embarrassing through their suits just isn't packing a big enough punch anymore, I guess. Now there's the bonus fear of... death.

Comments

[Kelsey]

I just finnished reading your book and I loved it! I would love to read more from you! Your weblog is hilarious.

[Eliana Levy]

Hey -- Carrot Top, not Carrothead. As if it actually matters, but I know you like to be accurate.

[andreaa]

i had such a weird feeling when i was writing that sentence that something was off. although i do kind of like carrothead, i am now switching it back.

[cherokeefeather]

Great entry! What won't they think of next? Did you see the commercial for the Tampax Pearls, where the young woman used one to plug a leak in a wooden boat in which they were riding? I couldn't believe it!

[Kristi]

funny that you mentioned your desire for the tampon ad lecture. What's with all the tampon ads having to do with nothing even remontely relating to tampons? I just saw a commercial not 20 mintues ago touting tampons by showing 20 something women laughing and giggling as they shop while presumably wearing their "gentle-glide" tampons. Does this magical tampon make shopping more fun for those of us who don't enjoy trying on clothes and can't find laughter in our lives? If so, pass me one!

[ester]

it's funny, in a way, since pad and tampon advertisers all use that uniform blue liquid to stand in for menstrual blood. the fact that that poor woman is swimming in a whole pool of blue liquid adds another layer of meaning -- a funnier layer, in my opinion -- to that stupid, stupid ad.

[Your Father]

You have the makings of the next Andy Rooney--if only your topics were more universal!

[caro]

excellent point that you're making there.

round here in europe, we don't have those jaws-inspired ads yet (scary!) , but secrecy is big in menstrual products advertising as well. just one more way women are told that something is wrong with their bodies, by default, one more way of making women feel ashamed.

the awful advertisement, the environmental impact and the entire menstrual product industry (total lack of ethics, i reckon) were some of the reasons why i decided to go independent of them and start using a diva cup, a reusable, silicone menstrual cup, manufactuered by a small canadian company, instead. sorry for sounding like an ad, but its a great feeling to not have to throw my money at companies that foster bad self-image in women for a product that women *need*, while reducing waste and being a lot more comfortable (in a purely physical way) than with commercial products, too.

good luck with your lecture, i am sure it's going to be insightful.

[Carl]

I remember seeing this same ad while reading a magazine at the dentist's office. I remember it clearly because this was the funniest tampon add I had ever seen! I think I laughed a bit more then I should have. If nothing else, the ad's do seem to becoming more humorous.

[Rae]

Ben Kweller, the muscician, had a nose bleed on stage and some kind woman threw a tampon on stage and he shoved it up his nose.

lol.

[Alex M]

Hi, I like your article. I am currently working on a documentary on the menstrual cycle and will be discussing the implicit messages in ads like these. Do you know how/where I could get access to tampon/pad commercials, say, if I wanted to use clips of them in my film?
Thanks, Alex, Toronto