crossing over, then back

Ambiguity scares most of us Americans. Instead of exploring the grey terrain we too often stay within our comfort zone of black and white. Democrat or Republican. Straight or gay. Left or right. Neurotically macho or flamboyantly femme. We've become willing victims of our own pathological puritanism.

I remember my numerous trips to Europe, to cities like Paris and Rome, where the lines were less boldly drawn, where I could sometimes, if I listened hard enough, hear the disdainful laughter at American culture and values for puritanically drawing extreme distinctions between ideas, thoughts, experiences, and states of being. And I realized how pitiful that was, to severely limit ourselves to a narrow funnel of existence when we could be exploring instead - exciting ourselves with newly discovered senses and sensuality and mindsets. The very idea of growing and deepening in unexpected ways is frightening to us. The Europeans deserve to laugh at most of us.

This Italian commercial for Campari does just that, if you think about it. It laughs at the immature idea of fixating on merely one gender, one life, one state of mind. But as it does so it also offers us a chance to tap beyond our self-imposed prisons. In the span of one minute we journey from man to woman, then back again. How sexy and inspiring is that?

It offers us a glimpse of ourselves, but guess what? It's a far more seductive version of ourselves that we fleetingly see, even when it isn't necessarily a literal transformation (and it doesn't have to be literal, just a suggestion). We can remain man or woman, and yet still discover the strengths and the lightness and the gravity of the 'other' within ourselves.

And no commercial in America could ever give us that glimpse. Pity.