Against Dishwasher Detergent

It has been a little while since we've heard from One Million Moms, the fundie pro-censorship group whose mission statement apparently involves sanitizing the airwaves of all PG-rated content. But never fear, the couple thousand Poor Oppressed Christians who make up the organization haven't gone anywhere. This week they're busy opposing dishwasher detergent commercials. In this case their target is a commercial for Cascade Platinum that uses "do it every night" as a tagline - referring to running your dishwasher.

Using wordplay so milquetoast it would have been acceptable at the beginning of the last century, the spot gives a wink and a nod to the phrases double meaning. Describing the commercial as “vile” and “sexually suggestive,” the group’s mouthpiece gives a solid reconstruction of the ad in an email to supporters.

“We do it every night,” an elderly couple tells the viewing audience. “Every night,” a middle-aged couple adds. “I live alone, but I still do it every night,” a young, single woman says with a smirk. Then the two couples continue: “Right after dinner,” and “Definitely after meatloaf.”

The commercial concludes with this voice-over: “Do it! Run your dishwasher every night with Cascade Platinum. A load with as few as eight dishes is all it takes to save water. An Energy Star Certified dishwasher uses less than four gallons per cycle, while a running sink uses that every two minutes. So, do it. Run your dishwasher every night with Cascade Platinum. The surprising way to save water.”

“Can you imagine what goes through the mind of a child when he sees this ad?” the email asks. “We all know children repeat what they hear. There is nothing funny about kids saying, “We do it every night!” Cascade should be ashamed!”

This is literally so tame that if we decide it's worthy of the censorship these folks are working towards, there might as well be no more media. I think I remember G-rated Disney movies from my childhood with wordplay on this level intended to get laughs out of all the poor adults who were only sitting through them because of their kids.

Of course, these folks don't like Disney much either because of paranormal elements in some of their films, but that's really beside the point. One Million Moms appears to be the sort of Christian group that thinks children are harmed by anything outside their particular religious blinders, and in a lot of cases almost anything even a little humorous.