Drug Ad#2: Surrogate Couple
The infuriatingly smug and specious television ads from the Office of National Drug Control Policy have an obvious subtext. In the ads, which you can view here, we see a young-ish businessman having a meal in a fancy restaurant with another businessman in the next generation up. The young man thinks the relationship between drugs and terrorism is “very complex.” The older man sighs Gore-ishly and lowers his eyelids in exasperation, as if he’s talking to a slow-witted child. He patiently explains in one-syllable words how drugs and terrorism are connected. The younger man gets a Jeff Spicoli look as he processes the information and then concedes defeat.
Let us choke down the bile arising from the administration’s despicable attempt to use September 11 to manipulate opinion on unrelated issues and instead just look at the pictures:
Rich, callow, shallow, stupid, drug-using young businessman? Hmm, I wonder who that could be. And he’s being advised by a man his father’s age who patiently explains what his position should be? Lemme think, lemme think! And the young man changes his mind on an issue of international importance within 5 seconds?
The George character’s facial expressions are too close to Bush’s to be accidental. The older man looks and sounds too much like a combination of Rumsfeld and Cheney for it to be accidental. The only question is whether the ad agency did this because their research showed it would be more effective or because they were taking a backhanded swipe at their clients.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
I think my favorite one of these ads is “ploy”. The script is so simple, so perfect and can be re-used for any argument the government ever wants to feed it’s citizens:
“I mean why should I believe that?”
“because it’s a fact.”
“fact?”
“F, A, C, T… fact”
“So you’re saying I should believe it because it’s true. That’s your argument?”
“It IS true.”
I mean how many people know enough about fallacies to spot appeals to authority or begging the question?
Yes, that’s a particularly infuriating one. And you know that that’s right because I said so.
these are dumb because i just tivo past them anywayz. if the fes really want to brainwash us then they should have the simpsons or Ray Romano tell us not to do drugs.
Maybe the ads are supposed to encourage people to grow or make their own drugs instead of buying them from unsavory types.
I think actually the ads are meant to encourage us not only to grow our own but to sell it to others, thus driving the Bad People out of the drug trade. Soon you’ll be able to buy your weed confident that it came from nice, middle-class couples who grew it in the back of their SUV.
I thought the Feds & C.I.A supplied all the drugs in the U.S?
They should run another ad to clarify: The Drug War makes it possible for terrorists to run successful drug dealing operations. F-A-C-T.
Actually, a friend and I produced a parody of one of those ads. All are welcome to view, download, and pass around: http://www.bradheintz.com/movies/.
Thanks for being yet another critical voice.
Great young Irish man ;)