Carmen - not the opera.

I don’t really know anything about Carmen Electra. Oh, I remembered there was a connection to Prince, that she was married to Dennis Rodman without getting all tatted up, and she sort of lurks in the C level of the entertainment world, nothing too specific. If you had shown me a picture of her and asked who it was, I might as well have answered, “Apollonia Kotero”? But, there is something about that name, Carmen Electra, that you just don’t forget. So I was pleased to see her recently, turning up in a barrage of ads from Lectric Shave which are the hottest things since the Aqua Velva and Noxema ads of the 60’s and 70’s. However, Carmen’s persuasive powers being what they are, I am inclined to comply with her desire that I begin using an electric razor and Lectric Shave.

I had assumed she merely had my shaving interests at heart. The fact she is a well-maintained, somewhat sophisticated entertainment mogul, not to mention a snappy dresser, is all the more reason that she be taken seriously. We snobs who require quality in our art may not find Carmen’s work particularly compelling, but commercials are completely different for me. Commercials are these Freudian moments when we reveal things about our culture that we normally don’t like to discuss. Carmen stroking a man’s cheek simply because he has shaved reveals the suppressed male desire that women not expect too much from us. I love that it’s kind of a throwback ad summoning a day gone by when a smooth shave was cause for a bump and grind song and dance.

You may have scoffed when I called her a mogul. Did you know that Carmen has been in at least 37 movies? Five of those - making sure not to assume too much about the audience’s intelligence - end in the word “Movie”? To be sure, there were some bombs along the way but who could forget her work in: “Oy Vey! My Son is Gay!!” or, the 1999 epic, “Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human.” She produced an exercise video series called “Carmen Electra Aerobic Striptease.” In 2005, proving her business acumen, she was named commissioner of the Naked Women’s Wrestling League and made commercials for Taco Bell. People who would call her “easy” for her four appearances in Playboy, don’t understand that we buy it for the articles.

I really miss the class and dignity of a Sophia Loren or Raquel Welch and I guess girls like Carmen are the modern version of those icons. Just because someone is sexy does not mean we have to start ripping their clothes off, which if you have seen Carmen’s wardrobe, that’s exactly what it looks like. It is hard to imagine someone who appears to have been less concerned with her career choices and, yet, has survived and flourished. This should give hope to the Lindsey Lohan’s and Paris Hilton’s of the world. Carmen Electra becoming the Lectric Shave girl is a testament to the axiom, “In America anything is possible and, unfortunately, probable.”