Birth Control at Wimbledon

“The patch is a small, flesh-colored square that is barely noticeable.”
- Web MD

The Williams sisters were riveting on the tennis court Saturday. I completed a record number of miles on the elliptical machine because I couldn’t stop watching their Wimbledon match (and the TV only works if you keep peddling).

Serena Williams and Venus Williams were joined by Billie Jean King and Martina Navratolova, who cheered them on in the stands. Aside from the amazing athletic feats they have all logged, the social prejudices they challenged have paved roads on which, to some extent, we have all traveled. Billie Jean King “proved” that women and men were equal, Martina Navratolova heroically advocated for LGBT equality, and the Williams sisters broke racial stereotypes in tennis. As if all that awesomeness wasn’t enough on center court, there was Serena Williams wearing the birth control patch in full view.

Media accounts claims that the Williams sisters were conceived after their father hid their mother’s birth control pills, creating two successful unintended pregnancies. Although their mother was resistant to the idea of more children, he had already hatched a plan to raise world class athletes.

When King first graced center court birth control was banned, and when Navratolova reigned advertisements about birth control were still banned from the airwaves. It wasn’t until 2000 that the first birth control brand aired television commercials. Ortho advertised its birth control pills and also now is the only pharmaceutical to manufacture the patch.

This weekend Serena Williams put the patch visibly on the front page of the New York Times. When Ortho first introduced the patch they described it as “flesh toned” and advertised its discreet design. After objections from many women whose flesh is not light beige, the company changed its description. They now describe the patch as “beige”, and claim they don’t produce other colors because beige “best maintained its appearance over the 7-day wear period”. It’s hard to imagine exactly what dye challenge exists at Ortho.

Bandaid has been one of the major marketers of “flesh tone” over many decades, but over the year’s they upgraded their marketing to avoid the term “flesh”. Back in the 1960’s Crayola renamed its “flesh tone” crayon “peach”. In fact Crayola now sells “multicultural crayons” which are intended to represent the flesh tone of people around the world, which apparently is black, sepia, peach, apricot, white, tan, mahogany, and burnt sienna. I never got the multicultural crayons as a kid, we had the sensible-sized crayola box though we all longed for the massive box of crayons with the built in sharpener. I didn ‘t even realize I ought to be buying multicultural crayons for my kids and now I fear they are beyond crayolas. I am determined to get some this summer, however, so I can find out which crayola color matches my skin.

It’s a bit ironic perhaps that the most famous user of the patch is a far cry from the “flesh toned” standard that Ortho had envisioned. Makes you wonder if, in retrospect, Ortho wishes desperately that they had invested in a multicultural branding initiative in the early patch advertising days.

Forgiveness

You blunder. Maybe you said the wrong thing at the worst time, or locked yourself out of the house, or ate donuts instead of hot oatmeal. Or perhaps you blundered onto the front page of every newspaper in the country by writing a best selling true story that turned out to be fake. Maybe you made worldwide news when you secretly leaked confidential government information and were subsequently forced to resign.

If you are Karl Rove, after being forced out of the White House, you simply re-launch yourself as a journalist. Rove is now a Fox News analyst, and a contributor to Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. Last week he was named the number one most influential pundit in the United States by the London Telegraph.

If you are James Frey, author of the bestselling and disgraced novel “A Million Little Pieces”, you simply write another brilliant book. Which is now on bookshelves everywhere, titled “Bright Shiny Morning”.

Rove and Frey did not become different people, they just kept doing the kind of work they were best at. It may not be the path they set out on, but an unwavering belief in their own talent keeps pushing them toward the same finish line.

There is something eerily similar about the top pundits on the Telegraph’s list. Following Rove is Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh. Three out of the top four rated pundits are all college drop-out’s who have a brilliant knack for surviving scandal. Like Rove, Limbaugh not only survived his prescription drug abuse scandal, he avoided both jail and obscurity. His voice is as influential today as during the conservative revolution he helped launch while Bill Clinton was President.

Sean Hannity started his career in scandal when he was fired from his first radio volunteer job at UC Santa Barbara for allegations of gay bashing. Hannity came under fire for hosting two shows featuring a book by conservative Gene Antonio, who argued that AIDS could be spread by casual contact like coughing and spitting. Hannity subsequently promoted himself as “the most talked about college radio host in America” and got hired at a much more prominent radio station that ultimately led to his Fox News career.

Hannity has ambition that is nothing less than making “Hannity’s World” a reality. In fact, Hannity has even launched his own dating service called “Hannidate”, so that conservatives can find each other and make new families. Perhaps as a result of his early gay scandal, Hannidate includes same sex love arrangements. It was hard for me to believe that Hannity was interested in matchmaking for lesbians, so I did a quick lesbian search on the site. My match was a woman who enjoys watching roller derby as well as listening to talk radio, “especially Sean Hannity whose voice encouraged me to embrace my sexuality”. I don’t know how to respond to that, except maybe to forward it to a lesbian comic like Kate Clinton to see if she might find it useful.

The one sure thing is that we will all blunder, big or small, on or off the airwaves. In the end it’s not always the blunder that matters, it’s where we allow the blunder to take us that is, perhaps, the true revelation.

Coming up tomorrow: I write about the top women pundits.

Taco Blitz

Happy Cinco de Mayo.

When I was a kid I thought this was a national holiday. We always had a school celebration and a huge festival in the park. Now I’m lucky if I get to honor the holiday with a taco dinner. Today my family is seeking out a taco truck in honor of the “Carne Asada is not a Crime” movement in Los Angeles.

A new taco controversy has hit the national media by storm, thanks to two schoolteachers with a knack for marketing. The LA Times, the New York Times, Time Magazine, NPR, Slate, and more have all converged on the story about the effort to run taco trucks out of business in LA County by criminalizing the activity and increasing fines.

If you’ve ever eaten a meal at a taco truck you understand the impetus behind the save the taco truck campaign in Los Angeles. Motivated by complaints from restaurant owners, local city council officials have promised to crack down on taco trucks vendors, whose food trucks attract a loyal following. The rules say the taco trucks must move every hour, which few abide by. The new hefty fines and criminal penalties promise to put many taco trucks out of business, which is a tough regulatory pill for local residents to swallow. When I lived in Washington DC I used to follow my burrito truck around downtown even in winter months.

It’s easy to underestimate the taco truck culture. The LA Times covered the issue last week and spoke to government officials behind the crackdown, “To me it is surprising that these young people are taking such an interest” said Maria Cerdas, a deputy for Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke. “I did not foresee it’.

The LA Times published an editorial titled “Long live the taco trucks” and noted food critic Jonathan Gold published a list of his favorite taco trucks called “Keep on (taco) trucking”.

Two local schoolteachers, Aaron Sonderleiter and Chris Rutherford, were the brainstorm behind www.saveourtacotrucks.org. They were soon joined by other taco truck lovers who used new media such as Facebook to broaden the movement. Marketing has included a poster drive, a petition, and a day of action (we were all supposed to visit taco trucks on May 1). I’m not sure if these two schoolteachers had help with their marketing plan, but they’ve followed a classic formula: easy to understand (and catchy) messaging plus action for supporters to take plus a human interest angle for reporters.

Supervisor Gloria Molina is on the defensive, telling reporters that “we’re trying to create a better and more livable community”. Molina’s policy director, Gerry Hertzberg, told the NY Times that “the trucks had become ‘a big quality of life’ in some neighborhoods”. The media coverage, however, has not found community voices in opposition to the trucks, but rather has quoted local business owners worried about competition. The big showdown is May 15 when the new law is slated to take effect.

If the supervisors had underestimated the organizing prowess of taco truck lovers, the media blitz should prompt them to re-evaluate the situation. The story has a life of its own (and some catchy slogans). If I were advising the supervisors on media relations I’d recommend they move decisively and quickly on a new strategy.