While driving home from work, I heard a little news bulletin on the radio about controversy surrounding a recent Peloton ad.  Peloton is some kind of high-end exercise bike that features videos of instructors shouting at you in that obnoxious, oddly stentorian way that hyper-motivational athletic types use when coaching quasi-sports for middle-aged women.  You know the kind of voice I mean.

Apparently, the ad is “cringeworthy” because it features a woman working out, and then thanking her husband for the gift (presumably on the Christmas following the one where she received the bike).  Also, the woman is attractive and already thin; never mind that we’re supposed to be “healthy at any size” (a concept, as my girlfriend explained to me, that does not mean we pretend 400-pound land monsters gobbling dozens of Quarter Pounders a day are “healthy,” but that a person can pursue a healthy lifestyle even if he’s morbidly obese).

The shrill feminists denouncing the ad are saying that the husband is shaming his wife into becoming even thinner—never mind that maybe she wanted an easy way to workout at home (skinny people can be unhealthy in their habits, too).  Throughout the commercial, the wife records her progress, and critics are pointing out the anxious look on her face, suggesting she’s pleading for her husband’s affection.

Give me a break.

I saw this ad before I heard about the controversy this afternoon, and my only thought was “wow, she looks like she was really working out hard.”  That’s because normal people do look uncomfortable after a hard work out.  The anxious look in her eyes while she smiles into the camera is because she just had a buff fitness coach shouting her through a pulse-pounding exercise regimen.

These kind of neo-Puritanical hysteria rage periodically in our postmodern age of easily offended weasels.  The reality is that hideous feminists hate any suggestion that they’re supposed to be mindful of their health, and they especially hate the idea of doing anything to please a man (which, again, I don’t see how this commercial represents the lady’s attempt to please her husband; she’s just thankful for an expensive gift that she used diligently throughout the year).

As some folks far wiser than myself have pointed out, these fourth-wave (or whatever wave or crest or movement we’re on now) feminists really just want to denigrate beauty, bringing down the pretty girls in an attempt to make themselves appear more attractive.  They’re telling you that what your eyes objectively see is wrong, and that frumpy, frazzle-haired cat ladies are the true beauties.

Look, I’m a festively plump man—the name of my website is The Portly Politico, after all.  I’ve struggled with my own weight, and I possess a great deal of sympathy for those who do.  But I don’t attempt to reorder the rest of reality via government fiat and institutional subversion in an attempt to convince women that I’m really a thin, muscular dude.  And, let’s be real, men find almost every kind of woman attractive.  You don’t have to overthrow Western Civilization to get a date.

But the feminists are an easy target.  What’s lamentable is that so-called “conservatives” are getting in on the hysterical shrieking.  Christian manosphere blogger Dalrock has a great post today chronicling the rush of conservatives to join in the virtue-signalling.  Dalrock links to a piece by Allahpundit on Hot Air in which he writes that “there’s a 1,000% chance [the husband in the commercial] is abusive.”

With friends like these, who needs enemies?  As Allahpundit correctly points out, had they cast a woman with the least bit of flab, there would have been cries of fat-shaming from the feminazis, so Peloton was doomed either way.  But, again, that’s because postmodern feminists hate anything that might be critical of their lifestyles.

I usually way overreact to advertisements, but that’s because they’re usually forcing some social justice nonsense down my throat.  Z Man wrote about that very phenomenon recently, and how unbearable television has become because of the hackneyed, ultra-Leftist cultural messages in commercials.  The only thing I found offensive about this ad was that overplayed, inspirational 90s song at the end, the one that must have been in every WB teen coming-of-age drama.

Therefore, The Portly Politico officially endorses Peloton’s hokey Christmas commercial.  This fictional hot babe and her wealthy TV husband did nothing wrong.