Cutex Coral Ice - Every woman's fantasy....?

Lady stuff news now, from 1957! Listen up. Ladies have weird fantasies, if Cutex's marketing team is to be believed! It's the Late Fifties, persons! That means the Swinging Sixties are just around the corner! Women are becoming more empowered or something, but not really. There's nothing that lights up a girl's imagination like a new color. Have you heard, girls? There's a slightly new shade of pink available! Find a wall and run straight through it to your local drug store shrieking for the new cosmetics or you'll murder everyone in the place!

Every girl's fantasy. A new shade of pink. A reflective krinkly void (probably aluminized Mylar), and a tiny man imprisoned in a block of ice. Am I right, girls? And hat (which I have just been reminded is call a "boater"), designed by "Mr. John".

A guy who calls himself "Mr. John" designs hats? I must have had him confused with the "Mr. John" who spearheaded the engineering team behind the Saturn V rocket, or the other "Mr. John" who composed all those symphonies about valkyries. But nope. Apparently this "Mr. John" was a no-holds-barred hat-designing superpower who took a straw hat, and had the insight to  wrap some pink stripes around it. Thank God you're here, Mr. John. What would humanity do without you? I'm sure your hat designs were among our achievements inscribed on the Voyager golden record.

But back to the weird little scene in this ad. Is the man in the icy tomb supposed to show us that the color of the woman's outfit has turned him on to the extent that he's frozen? I thought fire was supposed to represent sexual ardor. Ice is usually used to symbolize hostility, or lack of affection. Maybe the pink color is supposed to be the only thing cool enough to put this horn dog on ice? Do women want that? Clearly the woman in the ad isn't trying to AVOID men's attention. She's all tarted up in the swimsuit and the revolutionary hat and several pounds of eye makeup. Why would she resent the attention of the guy in the really nice suit? She wants him to want her, and she wants him to be punished for wanting her? She wants him to lust for her, and then she wants him to suffer? Hate and yearning rolled into one poisonous Cinnabon  of confusing misery. Hmm. This ad betrays a pretty effed up portrayal of a woman's fantasies. I'm afraid to admit his is starting to make a lot of sense.

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