Rector's Reflection—6 Pentecost, Proper 9
July 4, 2010

Anyone who has watched television with me and seen my reaction to the Charmin bathroom tissue commercial will tell you that I am not amused. I have watched the evolution of the red and blue bears from clownish woodland creatures (you can understand why I am personally insulted) that discover you can use fewer sheets of Charmin to inquisitive woodland creatures that examine bear bottoms looking for residual hunks of Brand X tissue (something Charmin, evidently, would never leave behind) to happy, cavorting woodland creatures who dance across the TV screen while the voice-over says, "Enjoy the go." Ugh.

Well... it seems that the trend in TV commercials with scatalogical themes is expanding. Over the weekend, I watched as a really cute two-year-old boy strolls through some urban plaza dressed in a white shirt and new denim Pampers. The narration, which you are to understand as his thoughts, is a man's voice with a French accent that put me in mind of Pepe Le Pew. The toddler ends up climbing into a Lincoln convertible as the words "The coolest you'll look pooping your pants" appear across the bottom of the screen. Again... ugh.

Now I know some folks think that the Charmin bears are cute, and you cannot deny that the Pampers boy is adorable, but for the life of me I cannot understand how (or why) we have gone from touting the fine features of a product—i.e. soft, absorbent, etc. in these two cases—to what amounts to touting the stuff for which the products are made. Why, you might ask, in a world beset by oil spills, terrorist attacks, financial crises, and the ever-popular climate change, would such a silly thing as TV commercials disturb me? Good question. Actually, it is not the commercials themselves that disturb me as much as it is the desensitization that they represent... and desensitization makes it possible for us to accept lower standards, outrageous behaviors, and "new normals" that would have been unimaginable even ten years ago.

Think about it. Have you ever been to an allergist and had those wretched scratch tests that reveal what part of the environment is making you sneeze your head off? The point of identifying the substance that is wreaking havoc in your life is to find a way to 'desensitize' you so that you can tolerate the allergen. When it comes to society, however, subtle shifts in language and tacit permission to allow the reduction of taste to the lowest common denominator don't necessarily prove us to be more tolerant as much as they can make us indifferent or even antagonistic to standards.

It's little things like these two commercials that call to mind for me the words of St. Paul. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he notes that the Corinthians say "All things are lawful," but, he cautions, not all things are beneficial. "All things are lawful," but not all things build up. Just because you are able to do something is not a reason to do it. Just because you can say 'poop' without fear of censorship is not a compelling argument for saying 'poop.'

I know that the future of Western civilization isn't threatened by such silly things as TV ads... or is it? Very few great cultures have been great on Tuesday and extinct on Wednesday. Many have been victims of their own subtle shifts away from the values and standards that made them great in the first place... shifts that made them vulnerable to all kinds of assaults.

I can't hold Kimberly-Clark or Proctor & Gamble solely responsible for the death of good taste. They just cashed in on an unfortunate trend that is pushing the limits of gross. H.L. Mencken once observed that "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public," and he said it even before 'poop' hit the airways. What a visionary.