Category Archives: video

ad for anorexia

05 Sunday Jul 2009

Posted by in food & drink, health & happiness, rants, video, wtf?

≈ 27 Comments

This ad has been showing on Spanish television for awhile now and, everytime I see it, I get really annoyed. The girls are saying “I’m smarter than hunger” (hunger = hambre) and with close up shots of their eensy-weensy bums they encourage hungry women to eat “30 delicious calories” of puffed corn crap with virtually no nutritional value (1 cake; Calories: 30, Total Fat: 0.2g, Carbs: 6g, Protein:0.7g). I doubt most women would fall for this bullshit, but what about impressionable teenage girls? Which I am sure is Bicentury’s intended target market.

I admit that I tend to find most advertising geared towards women offensive, but this one takes things too far by appearing to promote anorexia. There’s no mention that this product is an occasional snack option if one is on a weight loss programme. The ad just blatantly flaunts stick-thin models boasting about how they beat hunger. Sick.

In reality, a nice crisp apple would make one feel less hungry than two air-puffed corn cakes.  Same calories, but with way more natural goodness.  Here is the nutritional content of an apple…

apple

I rest my case.

belong

26 Tuesday May 2009

Posted by in culture, dance, video

≈ 13 Comments

When I was 16, and had already been living on my own for a year, I ended up transferring to an “alternative” highschool in Winnipeg which had an open curriculum and very liberal-minded teachers. At the time I was working evenings and weekends at Canadian Tire to pay the rent (no help from family) and living with my boyfriend Brian. One of the perks at this highschool was that we could sign up for theatre and ballet productions we wanted to see as the school was given comps to distribute. I always signed up for ballet tickets as I still had dreams back then of becoming a dancer (comtemporary, not ballet). Thus I got to see Baryshnikov shortly after he defected in Canada and did a short tour with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I also got to see the premiere of a ballet by Norbert Vesak called What To Do Till The Messiah Comes, which included a pas de deux called Belong. I remember watching it and thinking I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life and was surprised at the end of it to find my face wet with tears.

Something reminded me of this ballet yesterday and so I looked it up and here it is performed by Evelyn Hart and David Peregrine of the RWB. They were not the couple I’d seen back in 1973, but they went on to make Belong their signature piece and in 1980 won the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria. You can see their performance above. I still think it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.

(best if you full-screen it and turn up the volume)