This Is My Country... and This is My Remote... Oh Oops, Did I Hit That Button?

The Jessica Simpson thing was so cleansing, I figured why stop there? Especially while there is football on and I am currently inspired. I'm on a roll. Why not tackle the ad I hate EVEN MORE than Jessica Simpson's ad? Yes, it does exist. And, oh, it's a good one, if by good you mean vomit-inducing. Here goes:

I HATE THE "THIS IS OUR COUNTRY" CHEVY TRUCK AD.

Oh, how I hate it. I hate it in all its incarnations. I hate the first one that juxtaposes a bunch of serious images like Vietnam, Martin Luther King, 9-11, and, oh I don't know, New Orleans DROWNED IN WATER with a lame schmaltzy song designed to manipulatively invoke a warm, fuzzy, patriotic feeling in the sort of people who have never been taught to think critically about anything in their lives. Seriously, I remember the first time Mike and I saw that commercial. We were like, "Did that just happen? Did that really just happen?" Was that New Orleans? Tell me this is an ad for, like, the Red Cross. Or Habitat for Humanity. Something that will fade to black and pop up a website where you can go and find out how you can help at www.whatever.com. Wait, they're selling trucks? Trucks? Seriously? Is this a joke? (Side note: This was also our reaction to Allstate being allowed to sponsor the Sugar Bowl at the Superdome after their recent announcement that they will be dropping their coverage of everyone in the state of Louisiana.)

That's pretty low. When you live here, it is kind of inconceivable to see those images being used cheaply. It seemed almost sarcastic. Like, I could understand cobbling together a video of destroyed images backed by that song as some sort of social commentary, as irony. That's what we thought it was at first. But then, it wasn't irony. It was trucks. It's horribly offensive and disgusting. "This is our country! Little pink houses for you and me! In fifteen feet of water with the roofs peeking out! Whoo!"

So, OK. A lot of other people had the same reaction to that particular spot, so they hauled out some new ones. Oh, you think I'm finished. I am not finished. Because, as you will be excited to find out, I have equal or greater hate for the one with the blue-collar red-staters with the lame "values" oriented taglines that play across the screen. It just seems like they got a bunch of advertising dudes together in a room and said, "OK, guys, give me images that middle-aged conservative farm workers who live in trailers in the midwest and watch football and NASCAR can identify with! Ready, set, go!" See, this is part of what I don't get. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the demographic that already buys trucks?

I just think that for a commercial based around a song entitled "This Is Our Country," it's a remarkably exclusionary ad. There is not a single woman or person of color in that commercial. It's all men, men, men. And they're all white men with jobs involving mud. And I haven't even gotten to the taglines. "This is our philosophy," against a Norman Rockwell-esque Boy Scout. Because I'm sure Chevy's advertising department "forgot" that the Boy Scouts are notoriously anti-gay. "This is our purpose," against a baby. Right, 'cause women are all gestational tools for the patriarchy and procreation is our noble purpose. "This is our internet chat room," against two cowboy-hatted guys having coffee in a greasy spoon. "This is our coffee break," against a guy napping on a huge pile of trees he has just killed with his giant manly saw. Oh, it gets better. "This is our backbone," against an oil rig. Dude. Seriously? Are we sure this isn't irony? The last time I checked, a Chevy Silverado was a large gas guzzling machine and gas was a non-sustainable resource. If anyone seriously thinks the oil industry is the backbone of our country, they have got to be on crack or they had too many 40's. The gas industry's interests and the average American's interests are about as opposite as... I'm running out of clever snark here, so imagine two things that are really, really, really far apart. "This is our breakfast," against... what the fuck is that, anyway? It's a stack of plywood. Do rednecks eat plywood for breakfast? I don't know where they're going with this one.

What if you're a blue-collar worker who's a woman, and you like trucks? What if you run an internet company, and you like trucks? What if you've chosen not to have kids, and you like trucks? What if you are an environmentalist, and you like trucks? What if you're black, and you like trucks? Guess this ain't your truck! Oh wait, or your country! Sorry.

Anyway, I refuse to watch that ad. We change the channel whenever it comes on. Which is roughly... every two minutes. Have you watched football this year? That's not an exaggeration. Sometimes it comes on twice in one commercial break. Which is pretty inexcusable considering it's a long ass ad. I don't care what stupid, stereotypical, midwestern glorification imagery they've plopped into it this week. All of its incarnations piss me off. I just hear the song and I reach for the button.

Because this is war, Chevy. Now excuse me while I put on my pink "THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE" T-shirt and drive my small fuel-efficient Korean car to the coffee shop, where I will blog some horrible baby-killing, tree-saving, left-wing sentiments on one of them new-fangled contraptions called a laptop. Maybe on my way back I'll stop at the Planned Parenthood and make fun of the Catholic Church. And when I get home, I'll read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and try to learn witchcraft from it. Because I didn't vote for Bush either time. And I hate trucks, especially those ones with I'm-compensating-for-something double wheels that drive ass-slow, rolling at 10 MPH in an attempt not to sideswipe surrounding objects and vehicles, because WTF do you need those double tires for in an urban area full of narrow one-way streets when you aren't even hauling anything?

This is my country, bitches. Get out of my way.