On Pop-cultural Blindness
The subject of my scorn today is this piece in today’s NYTimes that attempts to plumb the hermenutical depths of yesterday’s Super Bowl ads. A worthy task, perhaps, but it seems Times’ conclusion (that these ads featured far more violence than before, a reaction to the Iraq war) is remarkably ignorant of both the landscape of advertising (somehow asserting that these ads are more violent than those of the past) and the pop-cultural bases for so many of the ads. To wit, consider how they treat a Garmin spoof on the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, a children’s T.V. show: "a clash between a monster and a superhero reminiscent of a horror movie." No, not a horror movie — a Saturday morning T.V. show. The sheer silliness of the paperbag monster (a clear reference to the terrible animation and ridiculous monster concepts that are de rigeur for the Power Rangers) should give anyone calling the ad "cruel and callous" some pause. Similar remarks hold for the Bud Light Hitcher-spoof (how is this writer, who clearly has a T.V., not know about this movie when I do?) [though this newspiece suggests coincidental overlap] and the CareerBuilder.com jungle videos [although this "torture" spot, which the Times fails to mention, is the closest I see to a reference to real life events].
In contrast, the Times fails, in calling one of Coke’s spots "upbeat" and "sweet", to note that it was a direct parody of one of the most notorious recent video games: Grand Theft Auto. Nor did they seem to understand the plot behind the K-Fed Nationwide spot, which plays precisely on Federline’s recent poverty (and thus is not, as they claim, a fantasy sequence). God, how could they get THAT wrong?
Finally, since I’m talking about these ads, let me add two points: First, I have to give credit to the Careerbuilder ad costume designers — who you have thought that a 3" binder could so ably substitute for a samurai helmet? Second, I am disappointed that the Times missed the Connectile Dysfunction ad, which was quite clever.
