Since when did "fake" become a good thing?
When I was growing up, no one wanted to be called a fake. No one thought that it was cool to be anything other than who you really were. It was even the anthem of the 70s: "Coke ... It's The Real Thing." Come on, sing along with me! "I'd like to teach the world to sing ... in perfect harmony ... I'd like to hold it in my arms ... and keep it company ... It's the real thing ... what the world wants today ... That's the way it'll stay ... with the real thing."
How less-than-prophetic these words sound 30 some years later. Obviously, it hasn't stayed that way. And it's not what the world wants today. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
Now, it seems, almost nothing is real. Today, walking home, I saw that someone was putting fake plastic bricks around some landscaping (the fake-dyed neon orange mulch) in their yard. Honestly, they looked nothing like bricks. But someone was obviously convinced that they somehow looked good.
I had to run into Wal-Mart the other day, while waiting for my daughter to pick up a prescription. Now there is a culture of "fake" if there ever was one. It really kind of sickened me to be in there for an extended period of time. And I was seen by someone I knew. I hope that person didn't think I was a regular there. (Maybe she is hoping the same thing?) Let me just say that no one (at least not my daughter) "runs into" anyplace, and especially not Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon. So I had plenty of time to look at things and try to get my head around why people would want to shop there.
Sorry, I have no answers for you. Honestly, as I was browsing through the aisles I looked at a lot of items on the shelves. Most of them were plastic. And made in China. Those that weren't plastic were acrylic, which is of course the same as plastic. And again, made in China. I thought Wal-Mart was the All-American way to shop? But try explaining to a seven-year-old who is being bombarded with all of this brightly colored plastic stuff, that you refuse to spend any of your hard-earned money in such a place. It's pretty close to impossible.
I had to run into Wal-Mart the other day, while waiting for my daughter to pick up a prescription. Now there is a culture of "fake" if there ever was one. It really kind of sickened me to be in there for an extended period of time. And I was seen by someone I knew. I hope that person didn't think I was a regular there. (Maybe she is hoping the same thing?) Let me just say that no one (at least not my daughter) "runs into" anyplace, and especially not Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon. So I had plenty of time to look at things and try to get my head around why people would want to shop there.
Sorry, I have no answers for you. Honestly, as I was browsing through the aisles I looked at a lot of items on the shelves. Most of them were plastic. And made in China. Those that weren't plastic were acrylic, which is of course the same as plastic. And again, made in China. I thought Wal-Mart was the All-American way to shop? But try explaining to a seven-year-old who is being bombarded with all of this brightly colored plastic stuff, that you refuse to spend any of your hard-earned money in such a place. It's pretty close to impossible.
I know my kids are going to start rolling their eyes if they read this, but one of the trends that really disturbs me is how our society is completely faking out babies. First of all, there's the fantasy that is known as "natural" childbirth. Yup, "natural" childbirth has come to mean--instead of natural as in unmedicated, minimal interventions, at home, in the position of mother's choice--no, today it means only that the baby comes out the stupid old-fashioned way instead of being cut out of the mother's abdomen. No matter that there are close to a zillion unnatural interventions along the way, starting out with the ubiquitous epidural that doctors and hospitals have somehow convinced modern mothers is a normal part of "natural childbirth" in this day and age. And oh, yeah, there's the fact that you are pretty much expected, via the magic of ultrasound, to know the baby's gender, name, and even many of his or her physical characteristics long before he or she ever considers making an appearance in person. Then there's the artificial baby milk that we all are convinced, due to the power of advertising, is almost as good as the "real thing." Urrrrgh.
It gets worse as the baby gets older. Instead of giving them baby-sized servings of the same food that their parents are eating, an entire industry has sprung up around baby foods. One of my biggest beefs (excuse the pun) is the fact that babies are expected to eat little star-shaped corn puffs flavored with some kind of banana extract--purportedly "natural," kind of like the childbirth thing--and that's supposed to pass for feeding them "bananas." Last week I heard two moms discussing these little fake-foods and telling each other how their kids just love the Gerber Graduates banana snacks, but they won't eat a real banana. Hmm. Those false perceptions of taste start very early in life.
But it's not just things. It's people.
Not only are we being given false perceptions of what food is supposed to taste like, but we are constantly bombarded with fake perceptions of beauty and what women (or even men) are supposed to look like.
People are not even anywhere close to real. We have hair colors that are not found anywhere in nature. Acrylic fingernails. Fake boobs, fake butts, fake lips, fake teeth. We can be photoshopped to the point where we're not even recognizable any more. Have you seen the Dove "Evolution" videos? Or Jean Kilbourne's series of videos, "Killing Us Softly"? I love the part in the "Killing Us Softly" link where Cindy Crawford is quoted as saying she really wishes she looked like "Cindy Crawford" ... in other words, what passes for Cindy in the magazines.
I will admit that I enjoy feeling like I look good. And I do color my hair occasionally--usually a color pretty similar to what I remember as my own. But I am always amazed to see women with really improbable hair colors (and I'm not even counting old-lady blue in there), inch-long fake fingernails, artificially white teeth, and whatever other accoutrements are required these days. I suspect I probably don't even know all of them.
That was proved to me last night when I caught a glimpse of a commercial where you could order artificial butt-padding underwear. I think now I've seen everything. And of course there is the WonderBra which is, I suppose, the poor girl's replacement for breast implants. Or maybe just the old-fashioned girl's. Every other commercial on television seems to be for either a plastic surgeon or a weight-loss program. And if one of them fails to work, you can call a lawyer. That's who's doing the rest of the advertising.
It sure ain't the 70s anymore. Some people might think that's a good thing, but I'm still on the fence about it. Sometimes, I think I'm just getting too old for this world.
I will admit that I enjoy feeling like I look good. And I do color my hair occasionally--usually a color pretty similar to what I remember as my own. But I am always amazed to see women with really improbable hair colors (and I'm not even counting old-lady blue in there), inch-long fake fingernails, artificially white teeth, and whatever other accoutrements are required these days. I suspect I probably don't even know all of them.
That was proved to me last night when I caught a glimpse of a commercial where you could order artificial butt-padding underwear. I think now I've seen everything. And of course there is the WonderBra which is, I suppose, the poor girl's replacement for breast implants. Or maybe just the old-fashioned girl's. Every other commercial on television seems to be for either a plastic surgeon or a weight-loss program. And if one of them fails to work, you can call a lawyer. That's who's doing the rest of the advertising.
It sure ain't the 70s anymore. Some people might think that's a good thing, but I'm still on the fence about it. Sometimes, I think I'm just getting too old for this world.
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