For a long time, dads were the eternal punchline of Australian television, and particularly Australian advertising.

A few years back, I wrote a piece I never did anything with, precisely on that topic. It went a little something like this:

Dads! Is there anything they can do? Whether they’re unable to cook food from scratch, sticking soft toys onto the family car or perpetually bemused by the nappy-changing process, dads are a source of constant ridicule in the advertising world.

They’re not even safe in community service announcements (remember “I’m 16, Dad, get over it”?). Shit like this is just as bad for gender politics as ads featuring Mum running the household without breaking into a sweat. Just let the kids change their own nappies, let Nanna make dinner and forget about car insurance for P-platers, and we’ll be sweet.

The year 2009, on the other hand, has hardly been a banner one for the depiction of mothers in television advertising.

There have been some insidious ad campaigns in our time, but I think my all time least favourite is, without a doubt, Telstra's "Call Mum" series.

Here's the latest:



Where do you start? With the profoundly depressing realisation (or, at least, assumption) that mothers countrywide were being neglected by their children that lead to our national telecommunications provider hitching an entire advertising campaign on it?

Or the idea that mums are nothing more than needy losers who sit around their entire lives, waiting to "hear your voice", just ciphers, vessels for ungrateful brats who sing off-tune in the school musical and then jet off to somewhere foreign only to return ten years later wearing worry beads?

They may as well get Bruce Willis circa Die Hard to bellow in voiceover, "ALL SHE WANTS IS A FUCKING PHONECALL!!!"

The campaign is deeply depressing; are mothers, on the whole, so underappreciated that our national telco thinks a) that they need to remind the nation to call mum, and if that really is the case, b) that all you need to do to mend the rift is phone home?

(There have been other variations on the theme, including an utterly devastating one where mum sits obliviously - though obviously harbouring a barely veiled sadness - while dad reminds their tearaway son that, der, it's mum's birthday, and to quickly ring back and pretend he'd remembered all along.)

I expect that Telstra are hoping the above ad will provide an emotional payoff a la, perhaps, the Workcover ads where Dad finally comes home, or the Hallmark one about the old lady next door - instead, every time I view one of the "Call Mum" installments, I feel a deep, thudding depression settling in.

On the other hand, perhaps you love being a mother? Motherhood might be a delightful thing for you - take this Baby Love nappies commercial, for instance. You put all the love and effort possible into your adorable little tyke... only to be sprayed with a massive geyser of shit:




Oh, "mums get it", do they? "Hahaha, oh Jan, remember that time you ended up swimming in diarrhea that one time?"

There, in a nutshell, are the two templates Australian television is currently giving us for motherhood. Try your hardest and you might be rewarded with a cheap phonecall in 25 years or so's time, or try your hardest and get shat on.

Yes, I know, some people put the ads on mute, and some people don't even watch them, but when you consider the ratio of times ads are shown to episodes of shows like, er, Packed To The Rafters, the positive depictions of motherhood are not exactly winning out.

In fact I saw both ads within the space of a few minutes while briefly tuned in to this morning's edition of Sunrise; I can only assume they popped up numerous times.

So, motherhood: many shades of shit. Thanks, Australian advertising industry - I'm now going to go see if hysterectomies are covered by my health insurance.