March 1999 target audience by Leslie Harpold |
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What are you losing?
In the newest trend to advertise products to consumers they can't get
without a doctor's prescription, Merck picks up where Eli Lilly left off,
pushing Propecia, a hairloss drug on the unsuspecting paranoid masses.
Lest we forget that we are a culture who believes in the magic bullet so
thoroughly that we will put anything in our bodies in order to be more
attractive or have better sex regardless of the consequences, I almost can't
blame them. What's interesting about this particular pharmaceutical wonder
though, is that there's clearly a tradeoff that has to be considered.
"A small number of men experience
certain sexual side effects, each
occurred in less than 2% of men."
The part about "women who may potentially be pregnant" not being allowed
to take it or handle broken tablets because it causes a "certain kind of
birth defects" must not seem as daunting, because they are considerate
enough to flash that on the screen as well as reading it over the little 30
second film which I call "How Baldy Got his Groove Back." So, clearly a
decision needs to be made by those men losing their hair, risk continued
hair loss, or risk losing projecting an image of being desirable.
Basically I have no problem with Propecia itself - and I find it rather
amusing that men are now being turned into the vain, self-conscious,
insecure people that women are. As we know, advertising is based on
fear, and the more fears they create, the more product they move.
See Buddy there? Looking in the mirror? He has a fair amount of hair, but
the mirror is showing him that he's mere millimeters away from joining the
clean pate club. This scene is clearly an homage of the 80s classic
"The Best Little Girl in the World" where the anorexic protagonist
stands in front of the mirror well beyond anything we could call thin, but
sees a rotund reflection. See Buddy going to work? The same demons haunt
him in the workplace elevator. He may be getting older, less attractive,
his mack star is fading and he needs a little help. Clearly Propecia is
the answer; after all, it claims to have stopped hair loss in 83% of men
and even encouraged regrowth in many cases. How can he lose?
Finally we see Buddy at home, back in the mirror, inspecting his noggin --
now full of hair and feeling confident, Propecia having assuaged his
hallucinations, he is now able to see the hair that was there all along.
He looks good too, as the saucy redhead who just can't keep her hands off
of him reinforces. Like most women, she's not looking at Buddy's eyes, or
face or butt, or wanting to chit chat and see if he's a decent human being
who might make her laugh now and then, she wants what every woman I know
wants: to touch and enjoy a full head of hair! (Ladies, back me up on
this.) Right? All that business about us telling you we think balding can
be sexy or we like you for who you are is a lie, right?
We don't care who you are or what you're like, as long as you have a
healthy looking head of real hair to make all our girlhood dreams come true.
in the junk drawer:
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