This entry will have to be done without the aide of a video because I can't remember what company (or whatever) released the ad and searching Youtube came up with nothing. So I shall just have to describe to you what I saw and why I am irrationally pissed (like I do).
It was a public service announcement this time, rather than an ad for a product and it went something like this:
A girls' soccer game is happening and, therefore, girls are playing soccer. Suddenly loudspeakers around the field start shouting stuff like "Is your body ready for bikini weather?" and "Wearing too much makeup prevents face rot!" and "Probably some stuff about impressing guys!" Then half the soccer players turn into fourteen year old prostitutes and wobble off the field in leopard print platform shoes while the other girls look confused because the game isn't over yet. Then an announcer says something about "When they're being barraged by messages like this, is it a surprise that more girls drop out of sports by some young age than boys do?" and then something about girls not reaching their full potential because of that.
Okay, look. Playing sports is not what makes a girl reach her full potential. How dare you imply that I will never be successful as a human being because I'm a chick who never played sports? I hate sports. I'm not a competitive person. That doesn't mean that by age fourteen I was prancing around in leopard print platform shoes and enough makeup to poison a small animal.
I wore makeup to school exactly once; I was in seventh grade and some girls were making fun of me because I didn't wear makeup. So the next day I came to school with some smeared on hideous green eyeshadow, because I thought that somehow that proved my theory that wearing makeup every day is stupid (I don't quite follow that logic now, but it made sense to me at the time). Then the girls made fun of me for wearing makeup wrong. Whatever.
The point is, the ad implies that if you don't play sports you'll turn into a mini whore and that's bullshit. People are who they are; I knew plenty of girls in high school who played sports and then, off the field, looked and acted a lot like the little hookers from the commercial. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
I've never been one for dressing skanky and wearing too much makeup (and somewhere out in the world there is televised proof that I can't walk in high heels). I've also never been into sports. That doesn't mean that I'm a failure as a woman, or that I can't reach my full potential because I was never involved in wearing a uniform and trying to prove I'm better than people who wear a different uniform by throwing and kicking stuff. I'm not good at competitve sports. I'm not good at competitive anything. I'm good at writing, I'm decent at singing and I'm a fine baker. My hope is that someday I can make a living as a writer, and I'm slowly working toward that goal.
On the flipside, girls who play sports may become failures in life just as much as anyone else. Sports don't make you a better or more successful person; they make you a sports player.
Anyone, I repeat, anyone, can be a success and anyone can be a failure, regardless of what they do, how they act and what they look like. The commercial makes sense on the surface (I guess; my gut reaction was to find it offensive but I can see why people would find it convincing) but if you really start to think about it, it means nothing. Every circumstace is personal and cannot be generalized the way the ad generalizes them. Sure, maybe some chicks who used to play sports and quit to go be mini whores would have had better (or whatever) lives if they'd stuck with the sports. But I firmly stand by my belief that people are who they are and they're going to continue being themselves regardless of what choices they make. If they're failures, maybe they would have made the choices that led to them becoming failures regardless of whether they stuck with soccer or not.
Reaching one's full potential has nothing to do with sports. It has to do with work and effort and planning and knowing what steps to take to get to where you want to go. A person can do that without having ever stepped foot on a soccer field. A person can also do that while wearing platform shoes and a pound of lipstick.
Hell, a person can do that while playing soccer in platform shoes and a pound of lipstick. I might actually watch that game.
Be seeing you.
-Sally
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