Unknown filmmaker | How Long Can You Keep a Secret? / 2018 [commercial advertisement]

a scent

by Douglas Messerli

 

Director unknown How Long Can You Keep a Secret? / 2018 [2.12 minutes] [commercial advertisement]

 

Having featured in 2015 a series of ads titled “Love of All Kinds,” the Philippine clothing company Bench, which also had its own line of perfumes, released an ad in 2018 that featured a father, son, and the boy’s would-be high school popular "straight" boyfriend.

     The ad begins with the father dropping off his son at school, the cute boy immediately spraying himself profusely with Bench’s “So in Love” body perfume (an ungendered perfume). As JR parades down the school hallway with his female best friend and another outsider boy, the school hottie comes toward him, greeting him by name and saying “You smell good.”

     When the son returns home at the end of the day, even his father notes that he smells “Like you have a girl.” The closeted queer kid suggests it’s just some girls at school getting friendly.

     The next day the school jock goes even further, the two actually sharing a bench, JR telling him “You smell good,” the cutie responding, “You smell better.” That evening his father teases him, “So is she your girlfriend yet?”

   The next day as JR is checking a class list on the wall, the school hot boy joins him, even putting his hand on his shoulder. The father’s evening response: “Someone smells like a winner.”

      But when JR goes to spray on “So in Love” the next morning, he discovers that the bottle’s run out. This time as JR walks down the hall, the cute boy is waving not at home but at the girl next to him, who greats the school charmer with a hug, JR slinking past them with the feeling that the possible relationship between them is now over.

      That night home his dear dad immediately inquires, “Hey, what happened? No more? When are you going to tell me about it?”

      His son brushes him off, afraid to say anything about his brief school romance.

     In his room, however, the boy finds a fresh bottle of “So in Love,” along with note. “Son, I know your secret. Love you.”

      This is another commercial advertisement which I can’t imagine being aired in the US. Can you imagine an American father providing his son a sissy perfume whose fragrance turns on a straight jock?

 

Los Angeles, September 30, 2024 / Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).