The holidays seem to bring out the worst in advertisers' instincts. How can Lexus execs show their faces at their family holiday dinners after the dumb ads in which the apparently less-than-wowed wife finds her new luxury sedan under the tree, and can only wonder, "how did you get the bow on it???"
Similar one depicts the guy kissing his wife under mistletoe-replaced-by-car-keys. So, is sex selling the car, or is the car buying the sex? Who knows or cares?
Another channel flipper catalyst is the Old Navy over-worded* parodies sung by various unexplained groups that pop up on unexpecting people (some not even shopping; one gal is at the bowling alley), singing some frenetic chattering-put- to-music - dreadful, uninteresting, overly commercialized glop about what she should buy. Who could possibly care? Let her strike out in the traditional fashion. Thankfully the song parodied is Good King Wenceslaus. And that being a bit less hackneyed than some, I had forgotten the lyrics. Google led me to rediscover them and re-learn that this one's about the Feast of St. Stephen, the first martyr and first deacon of the church.
Christmas carols are regularly hijacked for baser instincts and it makes me uncomfortable. What underlies all of these ads is a profound disregard for what the Christmas season is about.
----------------------------------------
That said, did you know that it was Martin Luther who introduced the Christmas tree? That's an info-byte that PBS included in the German Americans documentary. Those of us of German descent have had little chance or encouragement to explore our heritage, for understandable reasons. They added a bit of flavor having J.B. Eckert appearing during the pledge drive moments during this program. J.B. recently retired from University Relations, or shall we say, "U Relate"?
*The Old Navy ad out-words the most verbose of the Gordon Lightfoot songs - "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." This tribute was written with a meaningful motivation, but let me paraphrase Salieri and say "not enough notes!" Perhaps the rush to memorialize leads to undeveloped lyrics. A similarly lame tribute was Sir Elton John's remake of "Candle in the Wind" for Princess Diana's funeral. All I could picture was Marilyn at her worst, at the end, which is not how I want to remember either of these fine women.
Posted by s-gang at December 13, 2004 11:27 AM