To be fair, Eduardo (and aunt of Eduardo), perfume adverts are not exactly known for that elusive quality we in the business refer to as "the relaxed sphincter factor". This is when something is so unembarrassing that one can relax one's sphincter. Clever that, huh? A really, like, smart linguist must have come up with that one. A cunning one, even. OK, step away, folks, nothing to see here.
Some of us are still recovering from Ewan McGregor's unforgivable plug for Davidoff Somethingorother ("I find myself in an exhilarating journey" – presumably a journey straight to the bank). Even worse was the Chanel sheckel taken by McGregor's former singing mate, Nicole Kidman. It is a proven medical fact that just the memory of Kidman braying, "I'm a dancer! I love to dance!" still causes the innards of all sentient human beings to curl.
Meanwhile, the contributions to the world of olfactory cinema from Sean John/Diddy/Daddy/Swagg/whatever-his-stupid-name-is-this-week are so extraordinary they require their own genre, as Hitchcock's films do, or those of David Lynch, but in a perhaps less positive way.
Predictably, the Biebmeister's contribution to the artform is in keeping with the tradition. It features Dree "yes, the great granddaughter of" Hemingway (truly, Ernest, all of your efforts to achieve immortal artistic credibility were not in vain). If I can grasp the semiotics and subtextual messages in this nigh-on Buñuelian artwork, Justin appears to be suggesting that if you spritz on this offering from the duty free bargain bin he will magically appear in your room, take you into the cover illustration of a 70s prog-rock band's album, reveal he is wearing some very misjudged purple high-top trainers, and depart.
Leaving aside the distracting thought that there is something very wrong about advertising a perfume with the promise of seduction by a child, and then leaving aside the depressing thought that such concerns are a sign of how old I am as I did not have such qualms when I was snogging posters of a barely pubescent Jordan Knight several decades ago, let us focus on the message that Bieber is sending here.
He is making the basic mistake that all celebrities make, namely that it is their fans' dearest wish to meet them. It is understandable that they believe this, and that even their fans believe this, but speaking as one who fell passionately in love with many young men she'd never met when she was between the ages of 13 and 16, I can say with authority that this is not really the case. What teenage and tweenage fans really want is to talk about the object of their desires with fellow fans, obsessively and even fanatically. The object himself is actually irrelevant. He is merely the vessel into which young girls pour all their emotions and desire – not for the boy himself, exactly – but for being part of a community, whether it's a school clique or a Justin Bieber (or Jordan Knight) fan club.
So my advice to Bieber is this: if he really wants to sell his whiffy plonk, promise it can freeze time for everyone but those who wear the perfume. Thus, all Bieber fans can talk for hours on the internet with other obsessives and not have to worry about boring things such as going to school and writing a thank-you note to grandma.
Some of us are still recovering from Ewan McGregor's unforgivable plug for Davidoff Somethingorother ("I find myself in an exhilarating journey" – presumably a journey straight to the bank). Even worse was the Chanel sheckel taken by McGregor's former singing mate, Nicole Kidman. It is a proven medical fact that just the memory of Kidman braying, "I'm a dancer! I love to dance!" still causes the innards of all sentient human beings to curl.
Meanwhile, the contributions to the world of olfactory cinema from Sean John/Diddy/Daddy/Swagg/whatever-his-stupid-name-is-this-week are so extraordinary they require their own genre, as Hitchcock's films do, or those of David Lynch, but in a perhaps less positive way.
Predictably, the Biebmeister's contribution to the artform is in keeping with the tradition. It features Dree "yes, the great granddaughter of" Hemingway (truly, Ernest, all of your efforts to achieve immortal artistic credibility were not in vain). If I can grasp the semiotics and subtextual messages in this nigh-on Buñuelian artwork, Justin appears to be suggesting that if you spritz on this offering from the duty free bargain bin he will magically appear in your room, take you into the cover illustration of a 70s prog-rock band's album, reveal he is wearing some very misjudged purple high-top trainers, and depart.
He is making the basic mistake that all celebrities make, namely that it is their fans' dearest wish to meet them. It is understandable that they believe this, and that even their fans believe this, but speaking as one who fell passionately in love with many young men she'd never met when she was between the ages of 13 and 16, I can say with authority that this is not really the case. What teenage and tweenage fans really want is to talk about the object of their desires with fellow fans, obsessively and even fanatically. The object himself is actually irrelevant. He is merely the vessel into which young girls pour all their emotions and desire – not for the boy himself, exactly – but for being part of a community, whether it's a school clique or a Justin Bieber (or Jordan Knight) fan club.
So my advice to Bieber is this: if he really wants to sell his whiffy plonk, promise it can freeze time for everyone but those who wear the perfume. Thus, all Bieber fans can talk for hours on the internet with other obsessives and not have to worry about boring things such as going to school and writing a thank-you note to grandma.
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