TVSquad

Being a married man, I look at pretty girls a lot like diabetics look at chocolate cake: delicious but deadly. That doesn't stop me from looking, though -- a lot. In fact, a quick read of my history as a blogger here at TV Squad reveals so many references to how hot different girls on television are I'm surprised that I haven't been protested by the National Organization of Women.

That's why I'm so surprised that I'm writing this particular blog. All of my history and biology point to me absolutely loving the RGX Body Spray Girl. I don't though. I can't stand her.

In my greatest geek crushes post, I revealed two very important aspects of my personality: 1) I'm a geek and 2) I'm into dark featured girls (like Morgan Webb). If you were to apply simply the latter predilection, the RGX Body Spray Girl is a perfect fit for my "type." She's like Morgan Webb without the blocky shoulders (the feature which my wife points out every single time she catches me watching X-Play).

Let's take another look at the RGX Body Spray Girl:

(Just so you know, there were about ten sentences that I wrote and erased to go here describing "what I would do to this girl, based solely on her picture". All of them were hilarious, sad, and creepy at the same time. You can read them all in my upcoming book Things too Creepy for me to put on TV Squad; it's eight thousand pages long spaced out over eleven volumes. Take that Proust!)

The point is, just going by her picture, she's super hot in that dark-haired Veronica-vixen kind of way. As sexist corporate spokesgirls go, she's right up there with the GoDaddy and Doritos girls. (By the way, the GoDaddy link is mildly NSFW, but worth it for the completely hilarious and apparently unironic flash intro to the site)

But now take a look at her actual commercial:

How is that supposed to make me want RGX? The whole point of a commercial is to make you want to buy a product so that you achieve the lifestyle promised to you in it. Look at beer commercials. They all have one simple message: hey shlubbo, drink this beer and you can come live in a world filled with funny animals, memorable catch phrases, and hot girls that find your lack of muscle-tone charming. It's a simple fantasy, but it's been working since the dawn of television (or maybe even longer, I'm sure there's some hieroglyphics somewhere that read: schlubby Egyptian, Barley-Drink, Swedish Bikini team).

Let's examine the message of this particular commercial. She says she doesn't like "arrogant" guys, but I believe that as much as I believe it when my wife says she thinks "abs are the result of a guy too concerned with his own body". Yeah right.

Here's what I think the commercial really says: "I'm that b*tch you knew in high school. You remember, don't you? Senior year, you had a crush on me and sent me that nice note which I laughed about at lunch with all my friends. Thanks for that, it was really funny. Anyway, you should know I only date douchey frat-boys. That's right, if a guy isn't driving a BMW that his dad bought him and wearing a Polo shirt with the collar turned up then I'm not really all that interested. I know you hate those guys from the center of your soul, but that's the only way you have even a glimmer of a chance with me. Lucky for you, there's a brand new product that can actually turn you into that guy. Buy it, try it, and maybe we'll talk."

They couldn't have gone more wrong with these spots if they called the product "RGX: Douchebag."

You might be thinking that I'm reading too much into the commercial. Also, if you've got any background in psychology, you might be thinking that I need to spend a long time with a shrink going over my very evident "women issues".

You've got two valid points there, but look at this from my perspective: this series of commercials is dividing the world into two types of people, "winners" and "losers." The winners of the world are confident and strong and capable of getting a girl like the RGX Body Spray Girl. The losers are the rest of us. Well listen up "winners", as Robert Carradine said at the end of Revenge of the Nerds, there's a lot more of us than there are of you.

I'm a nerd and I'm proud... I don't want a product that will change me from geeky internet loser/comedian Jay Black into some power-suit wearing, Details Magazine buying, trendy micro-brewery going, way-too-loud on a cellphone talking D-Bag, even if it does get me this girl. What I want is a product that claims to change the world, magically or whatever, into a place where that girl would be interested in me despite the fact that I'm still a geek!

Look at this spot by TAG Body Spray:

Now here's a commercial that gets it right. The guy in it looks as dorky as I do. The spray does nothing to change either his person or his character. All it does is magically make women want to sleep with him. The women aren't challenging or intimidating, they're caricatures of male fantasy... which is exactly what I want!

I know that this essay can be read as written by someone who obviously dislikes strong women. That's not my issue here. I like lots of strong women (Captain Janeway, Seven of Nine, Princess Leia, and, I'm sure, lots of other non-SciFi examples). My issue is that this commercial posits that strong, attractive women are only into the kind of jerks that I used to hate in college. And while I know in my heart of hearts that this is probably true, I don't understand why a commercial, the place where comforting lies live, is trying to make me remember this fact four times an hour during SportsCenter.

So please, makers of RGX Bodyspray, do the right thing here. Make this commercial: guy is typing at a computer, perhaps working at a blog about television or writing jokes or whatever. He looks around... oh no, there's no girls here! He takes a bottle of RGX Body Spray out of a gift-bag his mother got him for his birthday. He sniffs at it, unsure. Then, with a "what the heck" shrug, he shoots a little puff of it on himself.

WHAMMO! The whole scene changes! All of a sudden, his room is a hot club filled with big-chested, toned girls that are all eying him like he was Y: The Last Man. Finally, they're unable to resist any longer and they all pile on top of him.

Out of this hot human pyramid shoots the guy's hand holding the bottle. Then the announcer says: "RGX Body Spray, change your atmosphere".

It should be a lot like this commercial...

... except, you know, less gay.