Must We?
It’s enough to make a woman look forward to menopause.
Bayer Consumer Care, the maker of Midol, has given us superheroes for the 21st century. The Mighty Midols are a trio of animated wondergirls out there fighting the monthly fight — sort of the Charlie’s Angels of Feminine Hygiene. They roam the bandwidth at Alloy.com, giving PMS the smackdown, battling Bubba B. Bloated, Gut Wrenchingcramps, and that ruthless gang, the Maxi-Pads. It’s a real “you go, girl!” kind of thing.
“We wanted to send a message that you can have your period and still hang out with your girlfriends at the mall,” says brand manager Heather Shirley.
Alloy is a teen site, but I took the Mighty Midols Quiz anyway. (The multiple-choice answers are insidiously violent, by the way. PMS branding? Hmm.) Turns out I’m Marissa “Cramp Killer” Midol, not Mimi the Water Retention Warrior or Maya, PMS Predator. Marissa’s a “majorly risque, buff explosives and weaponry expert” with buns, abs, and guts of steel. Yep. That’s me.
Do you find this gross? Is it making you cringe? It’s the marketing, not the menstruation, which disturbs.
In my day (read: the mid-‘70s), we didn’t have cartoon characters, for God’s sake. We had nuns.
My middle-class Catholic school had a fifth grade rite of passage with more status than graduation: sex ed. Of course, we never called it that. The class was called “Becoming a Person” — in itself enough to give any fifth-grader feminist leanings. The textbook had butterflies on the cover, and illustrations of ovaries (I think of it every time I see the Dodge Ram logo) and fetal development inside. We were emphatically not allowed to read ahead.
It was about sex, of course, but the teachers danced around that whole nitty-gritty with weeks of boring discussion on personal hygiene. Showers, deodorant, mouthwash, blah, blah, blah. (In retrospect, it could have been a sampling field day. Can you picture that sales pitch to the Mother Superior?) By the time we got to the sex, we were down to boys in one room and girls in the other, and we girls had to pass the hurdle of menstruation first. I don’t know what the boys discussed. Mars, I guess.
It was awkward, of course, and then it was awkward that evening when I mentioned it to my mom (who was pregnant at the time) and even more awkward later when, you know.
Friends and I were still skittish about it even when we were old enough for college welcome packs, always good for a free tampon or two. We were happy to have them, of course; we just didn’t see them as a source of great entertainment.
Maybe that’s what has me squeamish about The Mighty Midols: Personal hygiene is not proper fodder for entertainment. (I’m not talking about scatological humor — it was my rant, after all, that two versions of Gas Putty was one too many, not two too many.) And these days, marketing is grounded in entertainment, especially marketing to teens. It puts hygiene brands between a rock and a hard place.
Don’t get me wrong: I rolled my eyes as much as the rest of you at all the “not-so-fresh-feeling” conversations on douche commercials in the ‘70s and ‘80s. That was a crappy model for Bathroom Marketing, too. It’s a tough assignment, selling products that people use in the bathroom. That’s why we end up with such bizarre TV spots as June Allyson playing shuffleboard in an adult diaper, and little cartoon women quilting toilet paper (or even worse, cartoon clouds “puffing” it out). This may be one unforeseen advantage of the Internet: You can talk about personal hygiene without blaring it across the living room at dinner time.
Midol’s own Web site has a much tamer approach. There’s an education guide for teachers and parents, with glossary, activity suggestions, and advice on handling tough questions (along with a list of questions real kids have asked a school nurse). “Although students should always be encouraged to discuss sensitive issues with their parents or other family members, many students feel they have no one in whom to confide, or who will answer their questions in a non-judgmental way,” the site says, then goes on to answer them in just that fashion.
Call me dull, but I prefer this straight-faced approach. It’s frank, but it’s discreet. It’s not like the old days, couched in euphemisms that could confuse even the Hot Flash crowd, never mind pubescent teens. But it doesn’t flail around like a buxom, big-shoed cartoon girl zapping away at Monsteruation, either. Blech. It’s too bad the Mighty Midols invade midol.com this summer.
Until menstruation stops being a bodily function, it will always be a highly personal, awkward subject better approached by a caring adult than a buff weaponry expert.
I guess times haven’t changed that much after all.
