Generation X

The new Dove Hairspray ad features the late great Jane Jetson. Questions, like a well-passed bowl of noodles, flow around our dining room table.

"Hey! Jane Jetson and Burma Shave, aren't they the same generation?"
"Naw, she's a Flintstone. Who would-a guessed she'd be featured as an inamorata?"
"Sex symbol ! Her? You've gotta be kidding."
"What's up with advertizing these days? Getting cartoon characters to shill for them. That's low, man."
"Yeah, but that Dove ad pulled a whopping 67% approval rating."
"Well, I think it's wrong to make a cartoon into a sex symbol. Isn't that wrong?"

The conversation broke up as the table was cleared and dishes were stacked into the dishwasher. ' Holy Cow,' I thought. ' Thank goodness no one asked for my opinion. Who the heck is Jane Jetson, anyway? I don't remember her at all.'

If the kids had gotten wind of this, a collective sigh would have followed and in unified voice, they all would have said: "Oh Mom, you're so out of it !"

Heck. If advertizers are going to go straight for the jugular of the aging Gen X set, I wish they'd pick a more recognizable character. Someone like Hedy Lamarr or Claudette Colbert or . . . .
Generation X © 2005 Chaeli Sullivan