October 11, 2006 Music » Hot Pop

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Watching Channel Zero 

It's all zits, skinny black pants and ... family planning?

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click to enlarge WACK IN BLACK Audrey Hepburn
  • WACK IN BLACK Audrey Hepburn

I'm rarely offended when a classic rock & roll tune turns up in a TV ad. True, it's a cheesy move advertisers use to infuse nostalgia into their otherwise antiseptic products. Once A Tribe Called Quest pitched for Sprite, that was more or less a wrap on the issue. But The Gap ad with Audrey Hepburn dancing to "Back in Black" has crossed a line. Who, exactly, is their target demographic? Are they hoping to reach teenage girls watching Turner Classic Movies while listening to classic rock? I hope AC/DC doesn't own its own catalog. Because if it does, and it sold one of its signature tunes so that high school chicks can buy cigarette pants, then the band is on the Highway to Hell.

Channel surfing in the wee hours, you're likely to have seen the infomericals for Proactiv solution featuring acne sufferers Jessica Simpson, Vanessa Williams and company. Saturday morning, I woke up just in time to hear P. Diddy say of Proactiv, "It moisturizes my situation. It preserves my sexy." I think I speak for everyone when I say that we could all use something that moisturizes our situation and preserves our sexy. I mean that.

But the commercials that have me scratching my head are the new Boost Mobile ads featuring Nick Cannon. I hate to get on people (with the exception of Britney Spears, who's so get-on-able). Cannon's music is suspect, but he was good in Drumline and Love Don't Cost a Thing. Anyway, the Boost ads feature Cannon being catered to, hollered at, and loved up by a posse of three hot young ladies -- which is probably not that far removed from his real life. Fine, right? It's just that last year, Cannon had a hit record with the anti-choice themed "Can I Live?," featuring North Cack's own Anthony Hamilton and Tatyana Ali playing a mom who has second thoughts at the clinic. The message, apparently, was that young women shouldn't have abortions just in case they may be carrying an unborn movie star. To borrow from another ad campaign: anti-choice -- okay, baller-ific sex life -- also okay. One guy promoting both -- that's priceless.

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