Eng - as If His Music Wasnt Enough: Justin Bieber

Tanya Tandon

Ms Lazzara

ENG4U

13 July, 2011

As If His Music Wasn't Enough.

One fine day, I was surfing through YouTube blissfully unaware of the horrors of a male pop sensation. Then, an extremely unfortunate event occurred when my mouse clicked on the commercial for Justin Bieber's new fragrance, Someday. What followed that incident was a day filled with "unnecessary" criticism from me and my friends refraining to talk about Justin Bieber in my presence ever since.

In Bieber's extremely unworldly thirty second advertisement, he smells a young lady's neck not once, not twice, but five times after she has sprayed herself with his perfume. He also flies through the clouds holding this girl's hand, gives her an airborne piggy-back ride, hands over a charm, and returns her to her bedroom, where she once again sprays herself with a blast of Someday. The perfume's tagline is "Never let go," which is a good motto when you are hurtling through the cosmos clutching one of the world's most famous pop stars for dear life.

While Bieber gives a lot of sultry glances, he makes no "inappropriate" actions in the commercial, lingering over his female friend's neck like the most harmlessly inept vampire in history. The message to parents is clear: Justin Bieber may break into your daughter's bedroom, but he'll just bring a wind machine, make her feel like she's flying, and twirl her around a few times before returning her to safety. No cause for alarm, it's a very G-rated home invasion!

Fragrance commercials are almost always extraordinarily bizarre, and this is a hilariously wacky addition to the canon even though it makes me wonder who will fall for something so silly! Then I realize that the real "victims" are his unfortunate fans. Even though they know that buying Someday will not mean that they will meet Justin, they still buy it because the commercial gave them a little tiny bit of hope. This reminds me of a situation eerily similar to mine. I am guilty of being a major Harry Potter fan and I buy a lot of Harry Potter merchandise even though I know that it is priced more than it is worth. It worries me to think how much the media manipulates us through plain and simple exaggeration. I mean we all know that we won't have magic by buying a wand or meet Justin Bieber by spraying ourselves with his perfume yet we still do it!

Another thing I noticed was the setting- upbeat yet romantic music, Justin in his trademark "leather jacket" and the girl in clothes that seemed "sensitive" in a way. The music and Justin's outfit was obviously meant to add to the fantasy since that's basically how one of his fan's dreams could