Column

After Effects

Two underwear commercials have been banned. Does it affect world peace or reduce global warming? Not really. But it’s a big blow to an entire industry of creative minds that has been trying hard over decades to show the power of the male undergarment.

First there were the comic-strip superheroes who made it fashionable to wear the underwear on the outside. It’s a mystery why Jerry Seigel and Joe Shushter dressed up their Man of Steel in red underwear. The only explanation could be that Superman was super in everything but had lousy memory.

So each time he dashed into a phone booth to change from Clark Kent into Superman in super-speed, the underwear was the last thing he would remember - which was usually after he’d worn his blue tights. With the world usually in immediate need of his help, it was easier to wear the underwear on top of the tights than take off the entire costume to rectify this one small bit of clothing lapse.

Thus a fashion faux pas became a fashion statement and many more superheroes started wearing their underwear on the outside. However, in some cases, it didn’t really make sense. Like, in the jungles, where it was understandable that the leopard-skin underwear was the only piece of clothing on Tarzan, but one wonders who The Phantom was trying to impress by strutting around among pygmies in purple tights with the underwear worn on the outside.

For some strange reason, advertising of the underwear made this vital piece of clothing a macho factor than a basic necessity. One of the oldest print advertisements I remember in this regard was one in every issue of Reader’s Digest, where an underwear-clad man had one arm around a girl as he pushed another guy into a swimming pool.

Strangely, a lot of underwear commercials in the past showed men swing into action or nonchalantly stroll into high society parties as if struck by Alzheimer’s Disease and hence with no recollection of where they are or whether they’re coming or going.
More recently, we’ve seen even vests or banians having the macho effect on its star endorsers.So Sunny Deol boasts about his “andar ki baat” and Salman Khan jumps into a waterfall because ‘jab jazba ho andar to dikhta hai bahar!”

So, am I missing the point or should I change the brand? But then how does one wear underwear called Rupa or Amul?