Senseless blonde chicks engage in hair-pulling over vibrating mascara

I once witnessed a magazine art director reading out an item about Angelina Jolie adopting a baby from Chad. “Chad,” she mused. “Chad … Chad … is that, like, a country or something?”

There are times you find yourself embarrassed by your gender. That was one of them. This is another, even though it’s fake.

It makes me cringe. That is, when I have free time to cringe – in between using my pink GHD hair straightener and applying coat after luscious coat of my new Chanel lip gloss in 'Brainless Bitch'.

Free time for cringing over gender stereotypes is a luxury in 2010, you know.

It’s a bit like those “Whipped” ads where the bloke confesses his new-found love of couples Pilates. Are women really such whip-wielding harridans, you have to ask?

And in this case, are women really this pathetic?

The video in question is of two blondes having a catfight in the front row of a screening for reality TV show The Hills. Popcorn is thrown. Shoes are insulted. The terms "bitch" and "dumb whore" are employed. Punters, predictably, laugh.

It’s supposedly captured on camera by an audience member, but of course it’s a set-up. I have never seen women behave like this in my life.

The two blondes battle it out for a Maybelline mascara, descending into veritable hair-pulling as two beefy security guys arrive, clearly designated as the embodiment of reason and rationality.

For presumably where women and mascara is concerned, there can be no rationality.

It’s a quickie viral for Maybelline New York by McCann Worldgroup, by creatives Jake Carter and Charles Godinet.

As men, I’d doubt they’ve ever worn mascara (their co-workers are free to prove me wrong – pictures to adhoc@nbr.co.nz) and they possibly might not know that a Maybelline mascara, while it’s the best on the market, is actually only worth about 20 bucks. (And at that, you can usually pick ‘em up cheap at Pak’n’Save for $15 on sale.)

If you’re going to have a catfight, you need to at least have something valuable at stake. A mascara wand just doesn’t cut it, even if it is a vibrating one.

Yes, vibrating. McCann managing/creative director Ben Lightfoot said the campaign was for the new Maybelline Pulse “vibrating” mascara, which appeared in the event’s goodie bags with a card saying “Nothing gets your pulse racing like a catfight”.

Presumably, the new mascara gets more than just your pulse racing.

“The Hills is a pretty catty show so we did our own cattiness right there,” Mr Lightfoot said.

“It’s funny how in a world of digital and doing everything new and fancy, it’s nice to know you can do something like this to good effect.”

It’s an amusing stunt, one that’ll likely end up getting passed around. But its associated message – that women really are this pathetic, and have nothing better to do that slap each other senseless over makeup – is alarmingly pre-Friedan.