Watching television
When I come to my parents’ house, I watch television. Not much of it, but any is more than I usually do since we have terrible reception on a tiny (that is, smaller than our computer monitor) multi-system television that has a hard time with Philadelphia stations. So we use our television solely for watching videotapes of Mr. Rogers and occasionally the first three Star Wars films, which we bought before it was clear that tape was dead.
My parents have a reasonably sized television. They also have cable. It’s like Ali Baba’s cave of deliciously illicit mainstream culture. We watch The Daily Show. We watch Star Trek: TNG reruns. We watch movies. We also watch commercials. Normally deprived of commercials, I mostly get a kick out of seeing what all those bright but oh so sadly misled English majors are doing with their creative lives. But every so often the insight that commercials provide into the American mind is disturbing.
For instance, Blackberry is advertising itself as a device that “makes any place a workplace.” That’s a good thing? That now you can work on the train on the place at the beach on the toilet at supper table on line for the movies in bed with the lights out and the covers over your head because there is no escape. Yeah. That so makes me want one.
But the current killer-diller, the current creme de la poop is Hummer (which, I know, isn’t starting from a good place). You seen these? The cute vegan guy feels that his masculinity is threatened by the carnivore next to him in line so he (ta da) buys a Hummer and lo, his penis is intact and he bites a carrot with sufficient zeal that I’m pretty sure that the other guy had better look after his assets lest VeganHummerDude get his teeth too close.
The mother one (if this is possible) is even worse. A mother watches her child at the playground about to climb a ladder when another kid pushes in front. Mother says to pushykid mother, Im sorry, Jake was next think and pushykid mother shrugs and says well we’re next now and so mother grabs child and (ta da) buys a Hummer at which point she is clearly SO in the lead in that whole Parenting Derby thing we all care so much about that she can smile and look pretty again. Let little Billy beat the living crap out of Jake for the next ten years. Mama’s got a Hummer so she’s a BadAss and after all, mothering? It’s all about the mother.
If you see me stalking the streets with a BB gun, just don’t get between me and any passing Hummer.
Gosh–what those of us in the TVless universe miss about what is going on around us! Here we are, driving around in our Priuses (well–WE aren’t because we still drive a 11yo Civic), eating our vegetables, going to peace marches, and thinking the democrats are getting awfully conservative–when WHAM, that hummer runs into us and it is a whole new movie. (Forgive me–we saw the film Crash last night, and the possibilities seem endless.)
bahahaha….
i haven’t seen the evil hummer
commercials…but i will watch for them.
my favorite commercial
in a long time
was the magic fridge…
heeheehee…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8248766101102341416
thats the link for it
so you can enjoy
my lameness too
heh heh.
Seen on a battered Volvo in my neighborhood: Your Hummer Looks Stupid.
And I might add, your Hummer looks extra stupid blocking one way streets in the older parts of Boston. Pffffwwwffft!
Commercials make me laugh too. There is a reason those SNL skits for Gaystrogen and Clear Gravy are so funny. I rarely watch tv, and while my husband is addicted to several shows, he records them on a dvr and skips the ads most of the time.
We don’t watch tv, except for the kids’ shows on PBS. And every timeI see a Hummer making its ponderous way down the back alley, I think oh thank goodness, the neighbourhood is safe from terrorists for another day.
I hate hummers so intensely. In Canada there is this campain going on to consume less energy. There are stickers for it to promote it that say, “I am changing the envirnoment, ask me how”
I want to take those stickers and plaster them on every hummer I see in the Walmart parking lot, but I restrain myself…
I have a whole rant about Hummers and SUVs, but I’ll spare you. It involves a lot of foul language.
To paraphrase the Red Stripe ads (which are freaking hilarious): “Hummers, boo! Beer, Yay!”
I saw both Hummer ads in the space of one evening.
After we saw the first one (Vegggie Boy) I turned to my husband and said “do you feel you masculinity threatened because you don’t eat as much meat as ugly, chubby men?” He informed me his masculinity was not tied to his diet.
After we saw the second one, I got worked up. I said that for the premise of the commercial to work, the “good” would have to go back to the playground and crush the other mother underneath the wheels of her brand new SUV (or at the very least drive over the pushy mother’s lesser vehicle.) I then went on to inform him that the scenario would never have happened anyway because they cast a prettier, younger, hipper, thinner actress to play the “good” mom and the playground really is like high school (which is why I always wear cute clothes, combat boots, and a scowl when we go to the park–and then I wonder why none of the mothers even talk to me. No matter, everyone plays nice, takes turns, and says please and thank you when I’m around
And did I mention I won’t tolerate hitting?) My husband had to remind me that these are commercials.
A friend of mine had a bunch of magnets made up with phrases like “I am overcompensating for my small penis” and “I don’t care about global warming, I’m a major A-hole” and would stick them on the bumpers of Hummers she would see on the street.
I’ve only seen the veggie man Hummer ad, but god does it make me want to throw heavy objects at the television. And then at the ad execs who came up with the campaign and the owners of Hummer. HATE. Also, though, it’s unconscionable in these days of energy emergency to advocate using even more of the stuff.
Here’s Slate’s take on this:
http://www.slate.com/id/2147657/
NB that the original tagline was even more explicitly targeted at the vegan male’s apparently inadequate manhood…
I feel the same way about the Blackberry. Although I resisted on having one, my boss “forced” me to take it and now I am virtually dependent on the damn thing. Damn Crackberry.
And there is no place to hide, no excuse for not getting a voicemail or email. Unless you get no signal, like somewhere in the cornfields. So, yea, it makes any place a workplace.
I ache for less tv–yet it turns on, and I am hooked.
Hummer: don’t get me started. I think I’ll do my own rant on that.
Needless to say, those ads make me LOATHE and DESPISE anyone who drives a Hummer. I flip them off. I shout obscenities. I cut them off in my somewhat eco-friendly car.
I’m going to cuss. This is a warning.
FUCK HUMMERS.