I hope the grassroots PR department in Barack Obama's PAC has a good explanation for the latest political mashup making the rounds on YouTube. It's a remix of Apple's infamous 1984 Super Bowl ad (view it above), whose overtly subversive let's-overthrow-the-government theme made it impossible to air again. In the Apple ad, a bunch of PC-ish drones watch a Big Brother figure on a screen, which is shattered by a woman simultaneously fleeing police and hurling a sledgehammer in her cute Macintosh t-shirt. The ad ends with the following text:
The Obama ad is exactly the same, except instead of Big Brother we've got Hilary Clinton droning on about all of us working together. And the ending text says "2008 won't be like 1984," which is hardly surprising and not nearly as amusing as the original. See the Obama ad and more below the fold . . .
What's bizarre about this attack ad is that Ms. Clinton is a lot of annoying things, but she's not fascistic. Morally suspect perhaps; hypocritical yes; but authoritarian? Comparing her to Big Brother just seems absurd.
More to the point, this ad makes Obama out to be a personal computer. Isn't it kind of weird to compare your favorite presidential candidate to a commodity that can be bought and sold in the marketplace? Plus, this gadget is an outdated one from the early 1980s! I'm not sure why somebody thought this ad would appeal to anybody. Maybe if California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ever figures out a way to run for president, we can have ads where the Terminator attacks a Mac cube?
Obama ad spotted on Huffingtonpost.
