17 October 2016

[ad_icons] They Call Her "Irritabelle"

3404.
She's manic, she's totes adorbs, she's your BFF (she'll tell you so), and she's obvs been working out.

I, too, have been charmed by the mascot and easy-on-the-eye incarnation of irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea (IBD-S) and mascot of Pantheon Phramaceuticals' treatment Viberzi (generic name: eluxadoline). Anyone who needs to be explained-to what a nasty thing this can be needs to take off your human suit, but only after you get back in your flying saucer and are well on your way out of the atmosphere on the way to your home planet, thanks. What one may not know is that IBS-D is a particularly wily variety, which can leave you alone for a great long time and then say 'hello!' with no warning, no idea of how annoying it can be and no obvious way of telling you it's going buh-bye again for a while.

The actor playing the role's name is getting known, just as we all once wondered who played Progressive Flo (that'd be Stephanie Courtney), and that customer's name is Ilana Becker. She's an up-and-comer, with a role as 'Salesperson' in the season 2 episode of Orange Is The New Black episode "Power Suit", and with roles in the series Girl Code and Odd Mom Out to her credit so far. She brings a cockamamie, Lucille-Ball-esque maniac affability to what is quite obviously an affliction that … well, you know. But it is funny, and has a sort of sitcommish irreverence, and dressed as she is in a figure-revealing bodysuit with a cartoony depiction of the anatomical bowel, she's appropriate, being built like a brick … well, you know.

AdWeek has the skinny and a link to two longer (about 3 and a half minutes each) videos talking about the condition and featuring self-aware, fourth-wall-breaking humor. I particularly liked the one where they staged the intervention on her. 

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