Suck It, Australia

This commercial won’t stop playing. Every day, if the TV is on, then so is this crap, and I was sick of it the first time I saw it. Suck it, suckers!

Let’s start by stating the obvious: It is a lovely commercial. You could not ask for anything better cinematography-wise. I suppose the director being Baz Luhrmann has something to do with it. So, bravo.

I am pissed off by many commercials. I despise the ham-handed sex politics that pollute all ads, from floor wax to BMW’s. Men are stupid. Women are harpies. Wives live to humiliate husbands. Husbands are cartoonishly hopeless. Kids sure are rascals. Little fuckers.

The Australia commercial just plays to the newest tripe: Working women are no fun. And shouldn’t be working. And should be in Australia, swimming in a hole. She’s lost in a sea of responsibility, answering work calls in the pouring rain, answering lover calls in the dead of night, still at the office, buried in work. And the lovah? Oh, he needs a “break”—of course he does. This bitch works too hard. Yet he’s still calling her later in the commercial, just to ask in a peppy tone “How was your day?” When she tells the truth (it sucked, sucker!) he lays on the guilt again (O, I guess it’s never gonna change, is it?).

The remedy, it seems, is a walkabout. In expensive-ass Australia. A place most people can’t even afford to fly to. So, in order to go there, she’s kind of has to have a job that could pay for it, right? Possibly a high stress, demanding job? Perhaps. But it gets better. They swim in the clearwater, Australian swimming hole amidst a flurry of shiny bubbles. They smile as they frolic. So happy! And he says “I’m glad you’re back.” Aren’t we all.

Because vacations last forever. She’ll never have to go back to that high anxiety job to earn that money to pay for that trip…or at least a return ticket. Right? So, I guess he’s happy with her “in the moment” but when they pack up, leave all the half-used suntan lotion in the hotel room, and drag their sorry asses back to the airport, won’t they just morph into the same busy, gainfully employed, enviably well-off assholes they were before? Or does Australia claim to change entire lives? Come on a walkabout…and come back an unemployed, homeless happy person? Or, heyyy, maybe a happy, childful homemaker who is available for her man at all times?

Ultimately, the commercial makes me hate Australia. Thanks for making me feel:

1. Like a half person.
2. Poor.

Balls!