‘But ahl nivver let thee down, lad. That bruise is terrible, but it’s nowt that a camomile tea poultice won’t fix.’
The scene that follows, in which the father uses his caring and sharing voice for three consecutive hours while the rest of father’s ballet group look on with worried faces, will be considered one of the most scarifying in the history of cinema. Audiences will hide their eyes as the father lectures Batboy Elliot on the limiting nature of traditional sport, and the need for him to express, if at all possible, a wider selection of masculinities—all while dabbing tenderly at the bruises with a weak solution of camomile tea.
Viewers, though, will endure it all, just in order to see the uplifting final scenes in which Batboy Elliot’s father becomes reconciled to having a sports jock for a son, finally seeing him rise to become host of The Footy Show, his proud parents cheering as part of the live studio audience.
And, as the final credits roll, we’ll see Batboy Elliot’s favourite team, the West Tigers, winning the NRL grand final. Needless to say, the film is set in the distant future and has some fantasy elements.
It’s three in the morning and I’m considering purchase of the BodyFirm ToningSystem—a complete exercise regime which does not require you to leave your couch. The BodyFirm—according to the TV ad—consists of a series of electrical pads which you place strategically about your body. These send small electrical shocks into your muscles causing them to flex with an involuntary spasm. Voilà. Constant and slimming exercise, all achieved while you are simultaneously eating chips and drinking beer. In the wider community, I believe they call this multi-tasking.
Even better, if you use your credit card and ring NOW NOW NOW, they send you the BodyShape belt—a sort of elasticised strap that vibrates whenever you stop sucking in your belly.
Have you noticed how some men always have their chests puffed out and their stomachs held in? Until now I’d thought they were merely pompous gits, but—a revelation—under that suit there’s a vibrating girdle. I’d like to buy one—designed to hold everything in place under whatever enormous pressure. After all, I already own a pair of Levi 501s, in size thirty-six, which is operating in much the same way.
I focus back on the TV. The next advertisement offers a system of tapes through which I can learn various things WHILE ASLEEP. It makes me wonder: what if I purchased both products and left them connected all night? I could go to bed a fat, ignorant drunk, and wake up thin, gorgeous and with a working knowledge of German. Sehr gut!
Hope springs eternal at three in the morning, but questions do arise. I spot an advertisement for scissors, but why, exactly, would I want a pair of scissors so strong that I can cut through a pair of men’s shoes? The picture shows a woman armed with the scissors. She cuts through paper, then a cardboard box, then picks up a pair of men’s shoes and briskly slices off the toes. She smiles sweetly at the ease with which the task is achieved. Why does she do this? Has she caught him, the bastard who owns these shoes, sweaty and red-faced, with a twenty-year-old accounts manager perched naked on his knee? Has he stopped wearing his BodyShape girdle, and this is his wake-up call? Has he been learning Swahili at night just to annoy her? Or is she merely barking mad?
On late-night TV, conspicuous consumption has given way to ridiculous consumption: the purchase of goods so useless they’ll need to be either hidden away or thrown away. There’s the Hot Dog Maker which, completely unlike a saucepan, can heat hot dogs. There’s the Bench-Top Pizza-Maker which, completely unlike an oven, can make a pizza. And there’s even a prawn shell remover which, completely unlike your fingers, can shell a prawn. Each device, the advertisers claim, is a significant advance on whatever preceded it. Indeed, hearing their claims, it is uncertain how the human race survived up to this point.
Here, for instance, is the sales pitch for the Electric Omelette Station which, completely unlike a frypan, can cook an omelette: ‘Who knew frying eggs could be such a wonderfully indulgent activity?’ begins the advertisement. ‘Introducing the five gorgeous pieces of Electric Starr’s Electric Omelette Station, designed to impress you as well as every admirer who will suddenly become interested in the art of cooking.’
A picture forms of a gaggle of people surrounding the chef, jostling to have a turn, so excited are they by the Electric Omelette Station. ‘Please let me have a turn, Mum,’ whines one teenage girl, as she elbows a transfixed grandfather out of the way. A sullen thirteen-year-old boy thumps aside his mesmerised aunt: ‘I don’t know what has come over me,’ says the boy. ‘Suddenly I have an all-consuming urge to cook.’
No doubt the explanation lies in the further description of the product: the electric double-burner unit features non-stick die-cast construction, on/off indicator lights, and what is described as ‘a chrome finish with 24K gold-plated accents’.
Up to now I thought ‘a gold-plated accent’ referred to a Toorak matron bunging on a posh voice, but I now see I was mistaken. You can imagine the sort of praise the inventor must have received around the office. It takes some effort to replace a single frypan with a five-piece set—and yet still achieve the same omelette sitting on the same plate.
I make a cup of coffee and return in time for another set of ads—all of them for hair removal products. How can that be? Is Australia’s problem with unwanted hair bigger than I’d imagined? Or is it the time of day that’s to blame, with advertisements aimed at the after-midnight werewolf market?
I recall that a good friend of mine once purchased one of these TV offers: the SoftPluck, a hair removal system in which each hair is removed so gently ‘you’ll hardly notice’. This, according to my friend, was code for ‘brutally wrench out each hair in turn until your eyes are streaming, and the air is rendered thick with the sound of wailing’.
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