My Favorite Ad
I am in the minority here, but one of my favorite Super Bowl ads this year was the Go Daddy commercial featuring the supermodel Bar Rafaeli and the actor Jesse Heiman (playing a computer geek) kissing. The ad pretty much has become the most hated ad of this year’s crop but I love it and here is why.
Hidden and Exposed
I love it because it exposes people’s prejudices and they don’t even know it. Here is an easy question to ask yourself if you hated the ad. Would you have hated it if it was the supermodel Bar Rafaeli kissing the model from the Calvin Klein commercial that aired around the same time? Would you have hated it if it were Ms. Rafaeli kissing Ryan Gosling? Or any other very handsome, sexy, and otherwise attractive man? I am going to take a guess that you would not have hated it. If you say you still would have hated it, then I suggest you wouldn’t have hated it nearly as much. If you say you hated it, then do you also hate watching the Bachelor kiss 10 girls per episode with hot, wet kisses?
Taboo
I know there are all sorts of ‘reasons’ people have said it was disgusting. But what I think is the number one reason is that people made an unconscious judgment while watching that ad. The judgment came because the visual image had broken a taboo, a taboo of status, beauty and class.
Without knowing it, you just knew it was wrong. Why? Because hot supermodels are not suppose to like or be attracted to dorky, overweight, nerdy and unattractive geeks, that’s why. They do not belong to the same class. They are breaking as big a taboo as almost any other one. It’s disrupts and upsets how the world is suppose to be. And when that is thrown in your face, the result is anger and disgust.
Truth
But the truth is it’s your problem, not theirs. They are actors in an ad, yes. but I will take a guess that if they had been real lovers you saw on a park bench doing that, you would have had the same reaction. And in the park or watching it on TV, It is not they that need to change, it’s you. You are the one with the unspoken prejudice, not them.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who kissed his first girl when he was 12 at a dance. Man, did I fall hard for her.
Quote by Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963, American poet and writer
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Trivia of the Day
Question: what is philematology the study of?
Come back tomorrow for the answer
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Marty. I think your analysis about the commercial is probably right but that is not why I didn’t like it.. First I thought it inappropriate. I still have a young kid at home. The Super Bowl is watched by all ages. No this is not the first time she has seen a kiss on tv but up close and with the sound effects was a little over the top. Second not really sure how “sexy” has anything to do with a domain or website. There had to be a better way to say ” we can develope a really cool website for you”. Did it get the desired effect…absolutely. Definitely not my fav… With the exception of a few. I thought most of the commercials tanked
I liked the commercial, I always push for the “underdog” to get what others say is impossible or shouldn’t be. It like watching according to Jim, king of queens, I have heard so many say “that never happens! Why would those women be with over weight obnoxious men!?!” To that I say Why Not? It may look mismatched and strange to some, but it looks loving and accepting, and limitless to me, you never know what you’ll first.d in a person when you rid yourself of prejudice and and limits.
Jessie, I agree. I feel the same way. I also feel that way when I hear people get upset about couples with a great disparity in age. The condemnation of the guy if he is older as a dirty old man with a brainless bimbo, or the desperate cougar out with a boy toy. Both are prejudicial attitudes that aren’t really about the couple but about the person holding the attitude. What is it that is bugging them so much and why? What is being unconsciously threatened in them?
I am reading a really great book right now that is cluing me into a lot of the unconscious things that decide our attitudes, responses, successes or failures in life. It’s called ‘The Social Animal’ and is a real eye opener.
Ha, I think the sound effects made me uncomfortable. But it was funny. Now, the Dodge “God made me a farmer” ad, that one I could have done without.
I heard that the sound effects bugged people as well, but I didn’t really notice them too much. What didn’t you like about the ‘God made me a farmer’ ad? Too emo and manipulative or?
I’m just not sure how God made it to that commercial. How did God make him a farmer? And why? Is that a part of a bigger plan? That guy didn’t look like he’s smiled for the last 40 years, so maybe he should have moved to the city and try something else? And what about the other parts of this trinity–guts and glory? Farming involves a lot of things, but glory ain’t one of them.
It seems like every year a different commercial puts in the manipulative “We’re Christians, Goddammit!” angle, and I’m not sure what’s the point.