And by hot air we should means all that universe comprised between frippery and junk.
Anything may be found between these extremes and if we don't want to get lost into it, we need to focus on one aspect.
Our eyes today are set on the 'Medellín Cartel' side of TV ads.
Even the least intelligent of chimpanzees, if placed in front of a TV, may notice that in car ads cars go about in completely deserted, nice and smooth streets, where there are no traffic jams and no pedestrians whatsoever. But we never notice that there are no traffic policemen, which is actually a nice touch of truth.
Even anosmic people notice that perfume ads have raspy sensual male or female voices in the background and that those voices always pronounce the usual French sentence with a heavy English accent. French sentence in an English accent - how terribly snob.
When a house appears on TV, be it Italian or foreign, a variety of detergents are used: these houses are a furniture showroom from a distance and a nasty colony of germs if you have a closer look. Leaving aside the fact that life is a nasty colony of germs and that total sterility is extinction, one might have the impression that real life almost never is what one sees on TV during those ads that are too often interrupted by programmes.
Should we report awful ads? Of course we should.
But here's a modest suggestion: also take notice of what is good. Notice well-done ads as well. True, we will not find The Good News anymore, not even in the parish magazine, but we should also stop encouraging the fact that the only things that make the news are disasters, catastrophes, disgraces, cataclysms, slaughter and massacres.
This way we can be spared a visit to the psychologist, who keeps repeating that we should think positive.
Elisabetta Galli