Saturday, 8th September, 2007

Filling Your House With Crap

consumerism adverts rant

Don't ask me why I was skimming through the shopping channels late last night — I was probably bored or something — but between the compilation CDs and the George Foreman grills, I suddenly found myself gripped by an advert for bid tv.

Not gripped as in "Wow, this is a stuning piece of moving image that pushes the boundaries of television genius". Gripped as in "OMG, this is just wrong".

It starts off quite innocently. We see a man, standing on his own, in a large spacious flat — tastefully decorated in soft, neutral colours — a flat that I'd quite like to live in, truth be told. The light, the sense of space, the uncluttered joy of bare plaster walls and smooth wooden floors.

Rather lovely, no? I can just see myself swishing around that space in a Scarlet O'Hara tent-sized frock, or lounging on the sofa wrapped in silk-nightdress elegance. All it needs maybe, is a massive Rothko on the wall, and a rug so you don't chaffe your elbows when you're having 'fun' on the floor.

But our man here doesn't agree. No. He's more of the opinion that a room like this needs to be filled with STUFF!.

"Things! I must have THINGS!" he screams, as — through the magic power of his television remote, he starts adorning every visible surface in our minimalist utopia with the trappings of twenty-first century life.

Wheeeee! Look at him go!

With a few deft flicks of his remote-ladened wrist, he's safely escaped from the challenging nihilism of an isolated existence, by wrapping everything around him in consumer goodies.

Now though, the space is too pretty-pretty for him. He looks like a tramp in a shopping centre — all these lovely things around him, and he's wearing dowdy crap.

So he turns the remote on himself...

Oh look! How hi-fucking-larious. Do you see what's happened there? He's only gone and managed to cover himself in women's clothing — which is a wrong and therefore inherently funny thing for a man to do.

Seriously — I laughed so hard I did a tiny poo.

But it's OK, because as soon as he realises his mistake, he flips the remote again, adorning himself in proper men's clothes, and plonks himself down on his chair in front of his new telly. Upon which he promptly switches on bid tv, so he can buy more stuff.

...

Obviously, there was a little kneejerk reaction from my brain the second I saw them using 'Bloke In A Dress' as a 'funny' plot device. It does (you might have noticed) eternally piss me off when advertising/tv companies do this.

But that's not really why I got a bit angry about this ad.

It was the sense that it was trying to convey — that life is empty without things.

"You cannot be happy" it seemed to say, "unless you have STUFF around you. Your life is incomplete unless you embrace the inner consumer in you, and flood every inch of your home with the right nick nacks and gadgets."

"Is your kitchen worktop lacking a George Foreman grill? Then you are an empty husk of a man — a souless shell, waiting to be filled."

It depresses me, really, that it would appear that the absolute pinnacle of human achievement — given thousands of years of civilisation — is the act of Shopping. The whole point of existence (this advert seemed to suggest) is to buy things.

Not "creating things", or "inventing things" ... "buying things".

I mean, yes — fair enough — have stuff. But here is a guy (a ficticious advert-type guy admittedly) who devotes himself to creating a space, through shooping, in order to perform his favourite activity — which turns out to be shopping.

I dunno — it just struck me as a very futile and pointless way of life to aspire to.

I am out shopping

photo makeup

/me invokes the Princess Rule™: Everything that is evil and wrong becomes OK when Siobhan does it.

The irony wasn't lost on me BTW — although it only really struck me just after I'd hit 'Send' on my phone. I was far too caught up with the fact that I'd actually gone out of the house, into shops, and bought make-up and dresses. The last time I did that was about two or three years ago.

In my defence though, there is (I feel) a big difference between buying some things because your old stuff is used up and/or broken, and buying things just to fill and empty space.

Unless, of course, "having nothing to wear for next weekend" counts as an empty space.

Gutted and Filleted

The reason I went out shopping earlier (BTW) wasn't anything to do with having a gap in my life that needed to be filled by the act of "owning stuff", it was because I needed something to wear when we go out to Pink Punters next weekend.

Because my crossdressing tends to take place mostly at home these days, my wardrobe falls mainly into two categories: (1) the stuff that's quite blokish and unisex anyway, that I often wear to work or the pub, and (2) the stuff thats a bit more for 'special' occasions¹ — the ridiculously big dresses, the wedding dresses, those two EGL outfits that came from china, that sort of thing.

The tiny amount of clothes that I have that I would be seen out in a tranny club in though, well, I've kinda worn them too many times already — either in photographs, or at Angelic/Sparkle.

Really, my 'going out' wardrobe is that small. Two or three outfits at most

What I really wanted, you see, was a little dress that I could wear over the top of a pair of jeans (which I believe was fashionable a few months ago) — one that was cute and a bit glam, but not glam enough to extend into my usual Ridiculous Ballgown Territory™.

Normally, I flinch at the idea of buying clothes in shops, but I managed to rope in the assistance of a couple of friends, with whom I spent most of the early part of the afternoon trawling round all (six) shops in Lancaster. There was some nice stuff, but nothing seemed right.

I was rather overjoyed though, to find The Most Cute Little Black Dress Evah™ in New Look. Lovely satiny thing, with an Empire Line waist (which I never would have thought worked on me, but it so does) and an equally surprisingly-suiting puffball skirt on it.

(Not quite sure how well it works with jeans though. That might need some experimentation)

"So, you've found the perfect dress," I presume you are thinking. "You look adorable in it. So why 'gutted'?"

My tits stick out the top of the neckine

Were I some svelt twentysomething with real boobies, it would be fantastic — I'd have a stunning cleavage going on. But (obviously) I'm not. I'm a mid-thirties bloke with two chicken fillets sticking out the top of his dress.

I've tried squishing them down, to no avail. I've tried wearing one or two things underneath the dress (a little vest top and a blouse) — neither of them looked anything other than ridiculous. So I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to (a) get some smaller falsies, and (b) do something that I've never done before, because I've always been too scared of the pain...

...tape my cleavage.

I realise other trannies do this, of course. Karol has a fantastic cleavage, and my friend Stef has an equally impressive pair of puppies. Me though, well, even in men's terms I'm very flat chested — I just don't know if I've got the pecs to pull it off.

I'm therefore about to start Googling for cleavage taping techniques, in the hope that there's some magical trick behind the process. But while I'm doing that, does anyone have any really good advice for how to squish your non-existent manboobs into something that wouldn't look out of place in a Wonderbra advert?

¹ Oh, use your imagination

Being skinny is such a curse, is it not?