Picture it: An ad airs on television with a nice, middle-class woman grocery shopping with her young daughter. The woman's arm is in a sling, and a concerned older lady asks her what happened. "Oh, rollerblading," the woman replies. The butcher inquires if it was a skiing accident. "Um, mountain biking," is the quick and uncomfortable correction. The kid stocking the shelves asks the same question and gets yet another answer.
The woman continues to shop, and bumps her cart into another woman's. This woman, too, has a sling on her arm. They look at each other. They have a moment of realization. They are abused wives, going about their daily business and being forced to lie about how they sustained their injuries, and now they are being confronted with their own deception and excuses. It's a haunting public service announcement about domestic violence -- except it totally isn't.
Because it's an ad for EFFING BATHROOM CLEANER.
"Hard water stains, huh?" the second woman asks. "Yes, because if my tub isn't clean, my husband beats me," is surprisingly not what the woman says in this Lime-A-Way commercial. Instead, the idea is supposedly that the woman has been scrubbing her hard water stains so hard that she ... broke her arm?
What the hell?
"Give your arm a rest!" the announcer cheerily commands, because Lime-A-Way is apparently better at cleaning hard water stains than other cleaners, so you won't have to spend all day scrubbing your bathtub. Despite the fact that you have a child and apparently do other chores such as grocery shopping, you are also chained to your bathtub until every square inch shines like a sea of diamonds.
Ads for household cleaners aimed solely toward women are bad enough, but once you add a weird domestic violence subplot, you quickly veer into "worst commercial ever" category. I'd rather have a million Hardee's Biscuit Holes or Burger King blow job ads than have to watch this ridiculously tin-eared commercial ever again. All I know is I have never been more okay with leaving my hard water stains just the way they are.
Here's the ridiculous ad below:
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-26-2009 @ 10:56AM
skim said...
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And a woman who hurt herself from cleaning just hurt herself from cleaning.
Btw, an arm in a sling doesn't have to be a broken arm.
Reply
7-26-2009 @ 10:58AM
Mike said...
Did your Daddy touch you when you were little? Buy a Tivo.
Reply
7-26-2009 @ 11:43AM
bjacques said...
I thought exactly the same thing when I saw this ad. It's disturbing. I kept waiting for "The more you know..." to flash across the screen with Rhiana talking about the importance of not hiding domestic violence.
Guess I won't be buying whatever it is they're selling here.
Reply
7-26-2009 @ 1:14PM
CParis said...
I immediately thought it was a PSA for domestic abuse. We've seen enough episodes of cop shows, hospital dramas, women's movies of the week to equate a woman waffling for a bogus excuse for an injury as cover for being assaulted by a "loved one".
7-26-2009 @ 11:36AM
miller980 said...
I've seen this ad many times and never once equated it with "domestic violence." I think you might be in the minority (aka a minority of one.)
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7-26-2009 @ 1:45PM
Butters said...
Wow! How do you get domestic abuse out of that ad. Even when I watched the ad after reading your article I couldn't see any relationship to domestic abuse.
I am guessing that you are projecting your own issues onto this ad. Or perhaps you watched to many 'movies of the week' or soap operas and you now have to inject drama into even the most innocent of situations.
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7-26-2009 @ 4:41PM
Axel Harris said...
Gonna have to disagree here. Arm injury and embarrassment about injury on a woman does not automatically equal domestic violence. Someone get this writer a jump-to-conclusions pad.
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7-26-2009 @ 8:35PM
Man said...
I honestly thought the ad was joking about masturbation, like the two other ads you mentioned I thought they played up the sexual angle not the abuse angle.
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7-26-2009 @ 8:37PM
Man said...
I honestly thought the ad was joking about masturbation, like the two other ads you mentioned I thought they played up the sexual angle not the abuse angle.
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7-26-2009 @ 9:41PM
Joshed said...
I thought this was written by a woman.
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7-26-2009 @ 9:44PM
Joshed said...
I think you may have over reacted, and maybe need to find another hobby than reviewing commercials.
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7-27-2009 @ 3:15AM
jim said...
Wow. Yeah, they hurt their arms from scrubbing. It has nothing to do with domestic violence. People joke about hiding injuries all the time. Were you just looking for something to get offended at?
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7-27-2009 @ 2:10PM
anik said...
"Ads for household cleaners aimed solely toward women are bad enough, but once you add a weird domestic violence subplot, you quickly veer into "worst commercial ever" category."
Who added the weird domestic violence subplot? You did!
Reply
7-29-2009 @ 3:33PM
T said...
I saw this too, and dedicated myself to NEVER buy anything from this company again. Ridiculous
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