You can judge the inclusiveness of a
society by its diaper commercials. I believe Shakespeare said that. Or maybe it
was Groucho Marx. I always get the two of them mixed up.
Anyway, back when I attended a segregated
public school for cripples in the 1960s, there was a kid who was about 12 years old but he wore diapers.
Everybody knew he wore diapers even though nobody ever talked about it out loud.
Everybody always whispered about it when the kid passed by. The kid walked on crutches,
and he was always kind of slumpy and gloomy. People probably thought he was
like that because he was carrying around a load in his diaper. But it was
probably because he was carrying around a load of shame because he wore diapers but he wasn't a baby. He was experiencing the heartbreak of
incontinence.
There were no diaper commercials back
then to make someone like him feel hope. But today you see commercials where happy, confident adults are playing
tennis and riding horseback while wearing diapers.
That shows how far we’ve come as a society. Being
incontinent doesn’t mean you have to hide away anymore. Life is still full of
possibilities.
Of course, those commercials also show
how far we still have to go. All the happy, confident people in those commercials
are old. That implies that we of the continent majority will accept you and your
diaper wearing as long as you are old. But if you’re young and incontinent,
well, there are no happy, confident role models for you. And the reason they’re
happy and confident isn’t because they aren’t incontinent anymore but because
they’re not afraid of springing an embarrassing leak. In other words, they feel good about themselves
because they bought this product that empowers them to pass as continent. The subtext
here is that springing a leak is still something to be ashamed of.
I’d like to see commercials where a
happy, confident father walks his daughter the bride down the aisle when
suddenly he springs a leak for all the world to see. But keeps strutting proud
because so what. It’s just a leak. What’s the big deal? Better yet, it would be
so cool if the young bride was the one who sprung the leak but still kept moving
forward.
When I see commercials like that, I’ll
know we’ve found a cure for the heartbreak of incontinence.
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