The Commercial Break

Whilst I have gained patience and become more tolerent of many of the foibles of my newly adopted homeland, I do still have a few major bugbears.  The commercial break is definitely one of them.  One year on, I still find these continuous interruptions drive me to distraction. As far as I am concerned the commercial break is one big turn-off.  In fact, there has been many a time when towards the end of a film or TV show, as the time between the breaks decreases from 7 to a mere 3 minutes,  I have reached the end of my tether. Forget the flipping ending…I can’t be bothered, and I give up and switch off.  It’s that bad.

And, for those uninitiated in the delights of American life, the commercial break will burst onto your TV screen without warning, at least 50 decibels louder than whatever you happen to be watching.  The subject and content of these commercials may well surprise you.  Well it surprised me and I thought I was an open minded worldly wise individual. The amount of advertising for medical and pharmaceutical products here is phenomenal and these Americans are not backwards about coming forwards, you will be spared no details. Do I want to watch advertisements for products that will “enhance” my love life at 2.00 pm in the afternoon?  Not really.  Do I want to hear about regular and irregular bowel movements whilst I eat my supper?  No. In the same vein, do I want to watch lengthy commercials for prescription only drugs that go on forever listing every possible contra-indication and side effect including imminent heart seizure, kidney failure, and very occasionally death: I’m not a medical practitioner.  Sell the drugs to the professionals, not me.  After all what has a doctor spent ten years in medical school training for, isn’t he/she the one who’s qualified to tell me what I need to make me better or shall I just do a bit of self-diagnosis following a five minute TV ad or a three page spread in a magazine?  

And it’s not just TV advertising that drives me nuts. Buy a glossy mag out here and you play a guessing game of spot the genuine features and articles.  You can pay $5 just to read page after page of adverts.  The newspapers are the same.  The LA Times on a Sunday is so heavy it takes two of you to carry it back from the supermarket; but the whole bundle is double the size it needs to be because of the adverts and promotional inserts. Oh and the coupons of course.  Americans just love their coupons.  Every time I go the supermarket I’m asked if I’ve got my coupons.  Americans like to think they are getting a good deal, well I know a good deal when I see one and it doesn’t involve spending Sunday afternoon cutting up bits of newspaper then wasting fuel by driving all over town clutching my coupons just to  save a couple of bucks in seven different stores…

And talking of food…....I’m sure the food production companies are in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry ( in fact having studied a vast amount of food labels and seen some of the ingredients I'm actually convinced they are one and the same thing).  For the first 40 years of your life they entice you buy all this rubbish to eat, then for the last 40 years of your life they sell you all the remedies to counteract the effects! Brilliant idea!  

My least favourite ad on TV at the moment has to be the Jack in the Box fast food guy smugly telling weary mom  unpacking grocery bags that rather than spending $200 on the weekly shop, she should have just gone to Jack in the Box and spent $3.99 on his double burger, fries and soda meal. Hold on if she’s got a family of four and they all go to Jack in the Box, then that’s $16; but that’s only one meal a day, so if you times the $16 by three then times it by seven for the whole week, I actually think Mom’s weekly grocery shop was quite a good deal.  Of course the advertising guys behind Jack in the Box aren’t expecting their audience to think like that.  In fact, no TV production team over here ever expects their audience to think.

Take the car adverts.  Super car whizzing round the hairpin bends on snowy mountainside.  Little caption comes on screen. Professional driver. Closed circuit. Do not Attempt.  Funny that - I wasn't going to.  I knew it was an advert.  I’m not that stupid….

How – and why - on earth does your average, intelligent American put up with being patronised like this? Come on guys,  enough is enough. I’m going to start a campaign to get rid of  crass adverts, I just need to publicise my cause and get noticed by a wider audience....how can I do that? I could always make a commercial I suppose….