ATTACK OF THE PERIOD

When I started this, I didn't think I'd come across an ad for tampons that so heavily references classic horror movies. We're in black and white, we're slowly zooming in, there's someone relaxing by a pool being waited on by a man in a white suit. It all feels very Twin Peaks/Psycho. Then, SUDDENLY, we are perverts, watching a lady through a lace curtained window in her bedroom. We zoom in on her and discover the inevitable. She is unable to blow dry her hair because her LIFE. HAS. STOPPED. The score is terrifying. If this lady doesn't blow dry her hair, she will DIE. The fan has stopped mid blow, with bits of paper flying frozen in front of it to tell us that it was once full of life, cooling down this poor woman's room. Now, it is shot from a low angle, and looks like it could turn savage, and attack the woman at any minute. Finally, there's the classic black and white shot of the woman blinking in slow motion, her eyes full of despair. This shot could have been taken directly out of any Alfred Hitchcock film. This woman's life has stopped because she has her period.

BUT THEN, Tampax fulls her life with colour and motion. She blow dries her hair with what looks like a hint of a smile! The fan oscillates, and now the pieces of paper tied to it to notify people who don't have any senses that it is working, are coloured! The woman strolls merrily out of the house wearing more colours than an extra from the Wizard of Oz, and joins the weird pastel outfitted Twin Peaks people at the pool. She's got Tampax, and with Tampax, it's like you don't have your period!

Tampax is saying that their product is convenient and easy to use. It's a product that you won't even know you're wearing! That's great! So far we've learnt that tampons are definitely the way to go, because there's just no room to wear a mattress in your underwear. But let's think for a second. A woman who's life stops because she's got her period isn't going to stop because she's not wearing a tampon or a pad, this is an ad from 1997! It's going to stop because she has unbearable cramps and a hideous migraine that is making her hallucinate. I just don't know anymore.