"Fast" Girls

I was screen snacking yesterday and took a bite of some stories about VW's "Fast" campaign for the GTI. Apparently, the notion that young males in their late 20s (the ad agency's target demographic) might be thinking more with testosterone than with sensitivity is both baffling and threatening. I don't know about you, but DH and I laughed our butts off. But we--well, I--might be in the minority. Talkback about the campaign included a couple of outraged "I was thinking about buying a VW, but now I NEVER WILL!!" comments from some pissed-off women. Okay, girls, get your panties out of their twist and relax. Number one, it's a commercial. Number two, it's not aimed at you. Number three, who hasn't dated a guy who valued his car/stereo/pick your obsession more than his current relationship? This is a young guy. He's not thinking with his relationship brain here. He just wants to go fast. I laughed for the same reason I laugh at the closing credits of Comedy Central's The Man Show and the Swedish bikini team. It's called satire, people. Comedy that makes a broad point broadly and instructs at the same time. It's demeaning if you have a loose grip on your own identity, perhaps, but acknowledging that a 20-year-old blonde supermodel with implants looks a hell of a lot better in a string bikini than I do (and would thereby draw more drooling and wolf whistles from the testosterone- steered crowd) does nothing to diminish my brainpower or accomplishments. Or negate that DH would much rather get me naked than he would "Ingeborg" with the icy-cold brew. Wanna talk about demeaning? How about Lifetime Movie Channel's endless offerings of women-in-jeopardy films? You know, the ones where two-thirds of the action details horrific abuse, and in the last third she fights back. Have you ever wondered why so many of them finish with a showcard detailing what happened to the jerk? Because the real justice isn't dramatic enough to show. But watching her go thirteen rounds with an abuser is A-OK and somehow uplifting, now, isn't it? David Segal was right when he claimed that the politically-correct environment was death to comedy. When everything's sacred, nothing's funny. I side with Jonathan Swift. If you can mock it, you can change it. That includes testosterone-fueled boyfriends. Let him go fast, for Pete's sake. There's nothing that says you have to ride shotgun with a guy who'll never let you drive. Shoot, buy your own turbocharged fun, beat some 2 Fast 2 Furious moron off the line, and make him cry. That's what I did. And I did it in my VW.