Thursday, June 16, 2011
Or maybe it's just an ad for birth control?
There is so much to hate on here despite the brevity of this commercial, but I have to get to school to give my final exams, so let's just run down the list, shall we?
1. The I Phone isn't just another item in a pile of merchandise being purchased at Wal-Mart; it's actually OUT OF IT'S BOX already. AS IT'S BEING SCANNED. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
2. The living room that has been taken over by this little girl and her pink toys. What the hell? Is Wal-Mart afraid that we won't be convinced that this little kid is a female unless she's buried in pink? Good thing her dad's not looking for the Pepto-Bismol.
3. Do the people who make this ad really believe that "permanent mounting tape" really hold things permanently? If that were true, the posters of the Presidents I put up in my classroom every September would stay there forever, and I would have to teach in the same room, every year.
4. This is the worst- this girl's father can't get the phone unstuck from the thin plastic wall (in real life, the whole house would have ripped and fallen apart at the first tug- I had a baby sister, so I know how sturdy these Barbie playhouses are) so he actually gets on his hands and knees to plead with "Mr Stockton" and assure him that "I'm looking at the figures right now." Seriously, Wal-Mart? The "if you have an I Phone, you are always at work" theme is bad enough (I would have preferred that the guy tell his boss "I'll be in the office on time, as usual, and we'll discuss the fucking sales figures then, ok Mr. Stockton? Because there's the time in my life I work for you, and then there's the time where I am with my family and NOT working for you. Having a phone that can download sales figures doesn't mean I am on the clock 24/7, you slave-driving bastard..") but....
I'm sure I'm just being overly sensitive again, but a black man on his hands and knees, eyes bugged out, letting his unseen boss know that he's on the job and everything is just fine- well, ugh. This is just wrong. Not to mention an argument against getting an I Phone, not an argument for getting one.
BTW, is this a commercial for Wal-Mart, I-Phones, Barbie Playhouses, or permanent tape? I'm surprised the guy didn't buy a case of Coke, a bag of Doritos, and a bottle of Advil while he was at it- and didn't stop by McDonald's to pick up a Happy Meal and iced coffee on the way home.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
All your points are well-made, so I'm going to make one of my own...
ReplyDeleteWhat parent has something like an iPhone and allows their child to even touch it, much less be comfortable in taking it? I got my first mobile phone nine years ago (back when they were just phones!). It was the next-to-the-cheapest phone the kiosk had and my kids were nine, ten and twelve years old. They did not touch my phone. Ever. It was my phone and I'm merely a housewife with a disabled spouse who used to drive all over the Stateline area with at least one kid or a disabled guy. If I had a fancy-ass phone that was part of my work, there is no way my child would be allowed near it with their sticky and/or clumsy hands. No way in hell.
Of course, now my kids all pay their own phone bill (their portion of it on our family plan) and they each have their own smartphones.
But when they were little, my kids didn't get to handle anything without permission. They were ten years old before the disabled guy allowed them to use the VCR remote.
This looks less like an ad for the latest sort of employee tracking device and more like a desperate plea for timely euthanasia from copy writers who don't want to live any more. The notion must be that it's so at war with reality, they'll be granted sweet release from their wretched suffering.
ReplyDeleteThere is another idiotic cell phone ad in which a little girl has a lemonade stand. Her dolt of a father hands her his smart phone and says "Here. This has a calculator." Um, why not hand her a calculator or, heaven forbid, a pad of paper and a pencil?
ReplyDelete1. Have I taken soemthing out of the box before buying it because life is THAT hectic? Yes.
ReplyDelete2. Have I come home from work and my kids toys are strewn around the living room? Yes.
3. Have I tried to avoid knocking down my kids' stack of blocks when I needed to get at something that they built around? Yes.
4. Sorry, professor, but in the real world my boss DOES expect that I am available.
You "hate on this" because you can't identify with a real world job.
I liked that the ad saw my iPhone through the eyes of a child; one man's business tool is Barbie's flat screen.
Wow, what an investment in time and energy to disagree with a blog post. I hope it made you happy.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the different opinion. See? It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
Come on it's funny and stuff like this happens usually in larger families, you must be bitter about LIFE!
ReplyDeleteSadly I can identify with this guy's feeling that he needs to be "always on call" for his boss despite not being in the office. Maybe as a teacher you've never experienced the same thing (not that teachers never bring work home--I'm well aware of the lesson-planning, paper-grading, yadda), but I can testify that in the business world, many a boss thinks you should be ready to talk business, complete with supporting figures, any time he gives you a call and asks a question. You don't have the luxury of saying "Sorry, pal, I'm off the clock--I'll talk to you when I get in the office at the usual hour, but right now is family time." Especially not since the invention of those double-edged swords known as the laptop and the Internet. There's no more excuse for a salaried, un-unionized office drone NOT to be working and on call 24/7, even at home. Because you know, the whole business will crumble to pieces if Mr. Stockton doesn't have those sales figures he needs RIGHT NOW. I mean, HE doesn't have a life outside his job--why should you?
ReplyDeleteHowever, I don't think you are at all imagining the not-that-subtle "step-n-fetchit" atmosphere in this ad. A black man, on his knees, rolling his eyes with fright...'cuz, you know, white folks think that's FUNNY. And essentially saying "Yes, suh, Massuh, I got those figgers ratcheer fo' yuh, Suh!"