A Worker At The Superbowl


Comments?

(Thanks, Linta and Robin.)

POSTED BY Administrator ON 02.11.07 @ 9:37 pm |

11 Comments »

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  1. http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=81958

    Comment by B — February 11, 2007 @ 11:18 pm

  2. Okay well my first impression is that the ad is just kinda lame, not really that funny. It’s interesting, though, that the only reason the commercial can make sense to a mass audience is because of how widespread knowledge is about the intense job insecurity of the working class. Yet, this same knowledge doesn’t seem to translate into people agitating to change those conditions. The very fact that GM can make this commercial just goes how to show how resigned everyone is to the situation: GM doesn’t need to hide it, it can celebrate it.

    Comment by Carolyn — February 12, 2007 @ 12:21 am

  3. I guess it’s problematic that this machine’s only meaning in life is to do a certain type of work. the commercial obviously humanizes the robot, who simply cannot go on living without the joy of screwing bolts into cars. It’s pretty absurd how connected this robot feels to its product. it’s kind of a slap in the face to the idea of the alienated worker. is the commercial meant to imply that buyers of GM cars should feel safer knowing that workers are fearful of losing their jobs? ‘obsessed with quality’ could have had a much better spin put on it.

    Comment by Hannah — February 12, 2007 @ 1:26 am

  4. Yuck.

    Comment by Teju — February 13, 2007 @ 11:07 pm

  5. I struggle to interpret GM’s intended meaning here. Are they saying you’ll lose your job if you screw up? Are they saying that their workers love their jobs so much that losing them would make them suicidal? This ad would have been VERY different it had starred a human, and yet, the robot is clearly anthropomorphized; there is an implicit connection here. So, like Hannah asks, if buying a GM should we be reassured in its quality because someone’s job (or as the commercial implies, life) is on the line? On another note, one of the jobs the robot attempts is one of those guys paid to stand on the side of the road and twirl a sign for a product. I always felt that there was something wrong with that job, it’s dehumanizing in connecting the person with the product…billboards aren’t enough? For me, I get a similar feeling watching this ad as I do seeing the sign people on the side of the road. But it doesn’t disgust me as much as those Chevy (also a GM brand) featuring that ‘patriotic’ John Mellencamp song, “This is our Country:” http://youtube.com/watch?v=k-ZOtlQJnqI

    Comment by Max — February 14, 2007 @ 8:00 pm

  6. I just read that the ad has been criticized by a suicide- prevention group, saying that it might encourage people to consider suicide to solve their problems. I think that might be going a little far…
    http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2007-02-08-super-suicide-usat_x.htm

    Comment by Max — February 14, 2007 @ 8:06 pm

  7. I remember seeing this at the Super Bowl, one of my friends cooing at the robot’s cuteness, and all of us in shock when it was jumped (I was expecting all those GM cars on the bridge to be filled with people or robots who would reassure him of his place in the world). A very insensitive commercial, especially considering all the jobs GM cut this past year.

    It was an interesting portrayal, though. It seemed that it wasn’t the loss of its job that depressed it so, but that plus the fact that it kept seeing GMs all over, having lost his part in the process of their creation. I can’t help drawing parallels between that mentality and that of the farmers in Grapes of Wrath. They were forced off their land and now find themselves in beautiful and growing areas, and if they are “lucky” then they get to pick the fruits of other people’s labor. A depressing situation, and at least in the book, we have seen people give up when faced with it.

    Whether or not that should be the basis of a commercial is another matter entirely.

    Comment by Amy — February 14, 2007 @ 11:27 pm

  8. I agree with everyone who said that this ad’s point is difficult to understand–GM workers are so terrified of losing their jobs that they drift off into suicidal daydreams while on the job? GM workers are so terrified of losing their jobs that they make better cars than workers who have some sense of job security? It’s strange that the ad seems to embrace the typical criticisms of factory work–that it makes you a robot, that you’re just a part of a machine–in a very literal way.

    Comment by Lacey — February 15, 2007 @ 12:11 am

  9. If we criticize the ad of “insensitivity,” I think we miss the point. The reaction of “insensitivity” is “outrage.” The suicide-prevention group is a good example of this kind of impotent outrage.

    My own reaction is sorrow. Not at the insensitivity (after all, it only takes a morning’s work at an ad agency to make a more sensitive version of the same narrative). The insensitivity can be quickly fixed.

    I’m sorrowful at the cruelty on display–the idea that the poor are fodder for laughter, the idea that the sword of Damocles that hangs over workers is normal and laughable, that joblessness is something that happens to people who are not “obsessed with quality.”

    It doesn’t matter who was laid off by GM recently or not. The culture at large has a taste for blood sport and cruelty–this ad was an expression of that illness. This is what mere outrage cannot address.

    Comment by Teju — February 15, 2007 @ 2:11 pm

  10. I see that GM has pulled the ad after first refusing to:
    http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/advertising/gm_recalls_robot_suicide_ad_53092.asp

    Comment by Sree Sreenivasan — February 15, 2007 @ 2:59 pm

  11. I found this pretty interesting:
    http://www.adweek.com/aw/magazine/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003547241

    Apparently GM’s ad is just one of SEVERAL new marketing campaigns centered around using suicide as a tool of humor. I’m not really sure if this indicates that we’re becoming more *depressed* as a society, or just that we’re becoming desensitized to misery. Either way, it doesn’t bode well.

    Comment by Philosophy — February 20, 2007 @ 3:49 pm

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