The Wells-Fargo Ad that has bigoted morons freaking out

Every once in a while I have to comment on a commercial I like.  This is one of those times.

I like it first of all because of the message- yes, Couple doesn't mean what it used to, and there is absolutely, positively nothing wrong with that.  The deaf child in this ad is about to get two loving parents, and she's quite naturally thrilled with the idea.  So am I.  Very cool.

I also like it because of the impact it's had on Franklin Graham, heir to his father's Empire of Hot Air which has capitivated an army of slack-jawed, drooling alleged adults for almost seventy years now with it's promotion of fairy tales featuring more magic, spells and monsters than all of the Harry Potter books put together.

You see, when Franklin Graham heard about this ad, he went ballistic on Facebook (oddly, Franklin doesn't think that Facebook is a tool of the devil- my guess is that his accountants have explained to him that while there's a lot of "immorality" and "sin" in Social Media, there's also a hell of a lot of money, too, so....) and announced that he would be moving his ill-gotten fortune built on the backs of ignorant, frightened rubes from Wells Fargo to BB&T Bank.  Take that, Wells Fargo!  That will teach you to promote Understanding and Diversity instead of sticking to what Graham found perfectly acceptable- taking advantage of prospective college students and home owners with high interest-rate loans financed by a 2008 government bailout!

"Problem" is, BB&T bank isn't exactly what Graham would consider a "right-minded" bank when it comes to homosexual rights (I refuse to use the term LGBT Rights- that's a phrase allegedly high-minded Liberals like to throw around to lump anyone who isn't "straight" into a single group for their own convenience.)  Specifically, BB&T Bank has been a regular sponsor of the Florida Gay Pride parade, and even once financed the building of a chapel in one of it's banks so that two gay employees would have a place to marry.  Oops, sorry, Mr. Graham.

Here's my suggestion, you wizened old Jackass Who Has Never Held An Honest Job In His Life Yet Is Richer Than The God He Claims To Worship- stick your money in a large number of coffee cans and bury them in the back yard.  Or just spend it on charitable pursuits (you know, like you claim to be doing when you aren't flying around the world in your own jet or relaxing in one of the mansions you built to "reflect God's glory.")  Of course, I don't expect for one minute that you'll adopt one of these suggestions, because hey, money is money.  Much more likely that you'll find a bank that isn't Openly Non-Hating and try not to notice that it doesn't quite share your medieval bigotry.  Because being a Hater for Profit only works if you're willing to keep your eye on the Profit part.

State Farm Fails Again

1.  The punchline of this ad should actually be "I'm never giving up the Unshaven Slob Look," because that's the only thing this guy is consistent about.

2.  Would a woman really tell her husband "I'm pregnant" as an "Oh by the way" aside while carrying laundry upstairs?  She acts as if she knows her hubby will see this as bad news and wants to get it out there and run away before he can respond.  That's pretty depressing, when you think about it.

3.  Logically, doesn't the guy's last line mean that he IS going to let go of this family?  That's even MORE depressing.

4.  Can I relate to any of this?  Absolutely not.  Manchild ogles women and thinks "oh yeah, I love the bachelor life, I'm just going to jump random, half-drunk women I meet at parties, I'm never getting married!  Then he gets married and moves from a $2000 per month apartment to a million-dollar house in the suburbs and buys the prerequisite $40,000 SUV.  In other words, he turns out to be a square peg that fit firmly into the square hole created and adjusted only slightly since roughly 1946.  WTF-ever, State Farm.

Will McCarthy break the cycle?

Melissa McCarthy has been perfectly satisfied to make one movie after another in which she plays a "funny" fat woman doing what America thinks "funny" fat women do (like eating their own napkins- that's considered so "funny" it's actually included in the trailer) like be fat and make stupid, snarky and decidedly unfunny comments about being fat until the credits mercifully roll and the tasteless clods who paid upwards of ten bucks to watch this dreck giggle their way out of the theaters.

Hey, I get it- it's a living, and we all need to make a living.  When Cass Elliot's career was on the wane she allowed herself to be humiliated on one awful variety show after another, celebrated for her weight issues much more than her beautiful voice.  Every generation since the Silent Era has featured comedians trading on their girth, from Fatty Arbuckle to John Candy and Chris Farley.   And we know what they all had in common- they were "funny" because they were so big and clumsy and goofy.  Oh, and they all died early - Farley at 33, Candy at 43, Arbuckle at 46.

Mama Cass?  She didn't make it to 34.

McCarthy will be 45 in August.  She's been pretty fortunate in her career- inexplicably popular sitcom, inexplicably popular movies.   Unlike Farley and Candy, she's apparently decided that her health is more important than her ability to make slack-jawed idiots laugh at her Just Because She's Fat And Fat Means Funny, because she's recently lost fifty pounds in order (in her words) to become a "healthier, happier person" for herself and her family.

I'm not a Melissa McCarthy fan, but I'm rooting for her to keep this up and break the cycle.  No, I'm not going to see this movie, partially because from the trailer it's clear she's still playing on the "laugh at me because I'm unhealthy" theme, but also because what passes for humor in movies these days just isn't for me.  But I'm pulling for her to move beyond the Fat Lady stage and be funny AND healthy.  Because I was sick of seeing talented people drop dead way too early a long time ago.

Nissan's summer of pain continues

1.  This is a series of commercials featuring these same two guys bantering for several minutes at a time while cruising around in a Nissan.  No, really.  It's a series.

2.  Read the comments, I dare you.  The people who wrote them actually share the planet with us, the Sane Ones.   These posters are the biggest tools on the planet- one of them things these guys should have a reality show.  Another thinks that specific parts of the "conversation" between the two "stars" are actually "funny, " even "adorable."  I'm not kidding.  Check for yourself.  I hope that every day, their parents thank them for posting using fake names.

3.  This four-minute lump of Obviously Made-For-YouTube steaming dung almost made me appreciate Nissan's current Made-For-TV ad campaign - you know, the one featuring drooling rubes screaming their fool heads off with excitement at the experience of driving around in- a Nissan.  Almost, but not quite.  Because at least this dreck is only on YouTube.   The Hicks Yelling Woo Hoo commercials are on my television twenty or thirty times an hour during every baseball game, almost impossible to avoid.  I hate you so very much, Nissan.

An Aleve blast from the past, and a question

It's been eighteen years since this woman stopped gulping down eight Tylenol every day and instead started gulping down two Aleve every day.  So my question is, did she ever actually go to a doctor to look into her daily back pain issues, or did she just continue to take over the counter masking drugs until her liver finally exploded?

(BTW, I found this ad while searching for the recent obnoxious Stereotypical Italian Mom With the Nasal Accent who loves to make Sunday dinner for her family but doesn't like back pain or asking for help.  I'll post that one when it shows up on YouTube because....ugh.)

Off to Louisville Again!

Yep, it's that time of year again.  Time to head off to Kentucky to spend a week grading Advanced Placement essays in the cool confines of Louisville (likely average temp for the week 90 degrees.)

I'll try to post from the computer lab, but just in case I get too busy or the service isn't available, here's a heads-up to explain spotty or non-existent updates for this blog between May 30 and June 8.  Hope you all take the opportunity to shift through the archives if I can't post new ads while I'm away.

Meanwhile, this ad is a lot of buildup without a whole lot of payoff, don't you think?

Yeah, I'll never get it, AMC

Twice every year- on Memorial Day and then again on Veteran's Day- AMC "salutes the veterans" by running a marathon of machine-gun fire, bombings, and actors in costumes being blown apart by grenades and torpedoes.  And twice a year, I just shake my head and wonder what any of this has to do with "saluting our veterans."

I don't mind the special ceremonies before baseball games- I'm as cynical as they come, but even I find them heartwarming as long as I can mute the vapid, jingoistic faux-patriotic prattle from the talking heads in the booth.  I've never cared for the fly-overs-- those jets are expensive, dammit, and I didn't pay my taxes so they could be used to impress slack-jawed yokels waiting to watch a game.  But the salutes are generally pretty innocent and worthwhile and certainly well-deserved.

But showing Saving Private Ryan two or three times in a row?  What the hell is that all about?  I suspect that there are no more than a few hundred survivors of Normandy still living on the planet.  Are all veterans of all wars supposed to "enjoy" the carnage?  Is this something that veterans really have an appetite for?  Does AMC and other networks really work under the assumption that what veterans really crave on holidays created to honor them is wall-to-wall war movies?

Or are these films for the consumption of non-vets; a kind of "look how Awesome America Is/Was" sloppy Valentine to military service?  Either way, how does depicting the sons of farmers, mill workers, shop keepers, teachers etc. being gunned down on a celluloid battlefield accomplish that?  I really don't get this at all.