The Republic of T.

What’s your first impression of this commercial?

Now, what’s your reaction to this one?

Technorati Tags: culture, current events, feminism, gender, politics, television

Are they the same? Are they doing/saying the same thing?

I ask because I yesterday I came across a reaction to the first commercial that would have struck me as funny (or funnier) had I not realized that the writer was apparently quite serious. From the title that blared “castration” to the invocation of Charlton Heston as a symbol of masculinity, I could almost see the writer crossing his legs with anxiety as he wrote.

I am old enough to remember when the word “Cadillac” was synonymous with success. It was the ultimate masculine status symbol.

A recent Cadillac commercial sells cars to feminists as a symbol of their success in degrading and humiliating men.

It’s part of an ongoing Psychological Operation waged by the London-based central banking cartel designed to destroy heterosexuality and the family. The bankers perceive real men as a threat to their plan for world government tyranny. General Motors and other multinationals are all singing from the banker’s homosexual/lesbian songbook. The commercial (entitled “Khakis”) depicts white males scurrying like mice at the appearance of the office cat. To a chorus of “Here Comes Success” a young woman strides confidently through the office intimidating the young slackers who are in various states of idleness.

In one office, a man smells his armpit. Another man is doing Tai Chi. Another takes his feet off his desk. Another is eating. Another throws up his arms in submission. There is no way to impress her; she is unattainable. While they include minorities, there is not one women in the ranks of these slackers!

The young goddess finds herself alone in an elevator with a male co-worker. When she says, “Hi Chris,” the pen in his pocket spurts ink, suggesting he cannot contain his excitement. Premature ejaculation = impotence.

The goddess notices and smirks. In the next scene, she is driving away in her Cadillac. She thinks about Chris and laughs triumphantly. It is not enough that she is “successful”; the satisfaction is in lording it over men.

The author would prefer something more like this one, with the aforementioned Heston-esque actor/model. (Personaly, Charlton Heston always bored me, even in The 10 Commandments. I was more turned on by Yul Bryner.)

It gets worse from there. Up to and including a link to an American Family Association “study” of the portrayal of gays & lesbians on television followed by this statement.

This isn’t about tolerance; it is about teaching heterosexuals to be homosexuals.

I wraps up with a mention of a conspiracy between the Illuminiti, George Bush, and the “central bankers” to emasculate (white, heterosexual, Christian) males and “control society.”

The author is right about one thing, though, and that’s the phallic undertones in the first commercial. He recognizes that while seeming to miss the same obvious undertones in his commercial of choice. In the former, the car itself is a kind of “ultimate phallus,” winding its way through terrain that’s neither urban or suburban, but suggests wilderness and intentionally or unintentionally invokes the much-loved “rugged individualism” that either denies the reality of dependence or interdependence, or feminizes it, or both.

Maybe I took too much feminist theory in college (any is probably too much as far as the author is concerned), but if the landscape — nature itself — can be read as feminine (as it often is) and the car can be read as a phallic symbol (anyone who’s ever given head will recognize a familiar view in the opening shot of the 1987 commercial). In that sense, the casting of the Heston-like actor probably wasn’t coincidental (I can hear the director saying “Get me a Heston-type, but updated a little), nor was the choice of terrain.

The driver, of course, is alone. He and the car may have sprung fully formed from the craggy landscape. There’s no one in the car with him, or anything to suggest that where he’s going. He certainly doesn’t seem to be coming from work (where he probably has a boss, and *gasp* possibly even a female boss), nor does he seem to be headed home (which would suggest domesticity, and dependency, and even more if his wife pulls up behind him in her car after having her own day at the office.

That would be almost like this Cadillac commercial.

Starts out well enough, with the father preparing for a day at work. Nice, heterosexual family. But then Dad sets the table? Mom does pick up the papers Dad knocks over, but then proceeds to check email (checking in with the office?) while he gets coffee and appears to get breakfast for the kids? Plus (if you blinked yo missed it), a nanny seems to appear and is holding the baby as the rest of the family departs. That means mom probably isn’t returning home for a while.

And then Mom is in the driver’s seat? Not just that, but once the kids are dropped off, Mom is back in the driver’s seat. The commercial is entitled “Morning Ritual” and as Mom and Dad drive off, you can almost envision Mom dropping Dad off at work before driving on to her own office. (Or maybe they work at the same company, but she’s an executive.) It’s not a far stretch to imagine an “Evening Ritual” that starts with Dad waiting — passively — for Mom to pick him up, and then she pulls up that big, black Cadillac. In the driver’s seat again.

Remember, the objection to the closing frame of the commercial.

The message on the screen is “Enjoy the Driver’s Seat.” Then the Cadillac emblem appears with another message “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of [Success]“. But where is she going? Home to an empty apartment? What man would put up with her?

In the latter, it’s the woman’s ownership of the phallus — symbolized in her position of power suggested by the men’s response to her, the confidence in her stride, and yes, the leaky pen — that not only makes for bad television but also contributes to the downfall of society.

Power= penis. Masculinity is defined by power. General Motors is neutering both men and women by inflating women’s self-importance. It ensures they will be demanding and unreceptive while men will find them unattainable and unapproachable.

The result is failure to form long-term monogamous relationships, leading to promiscuity, family breakdown and childlessness, i.e. homosexual behavior.

The woman in the commercial is not very impressive. She is not especially attractive nor well dressed. She doesn’t look intelligent and could be mistaken for support staff. Why is this? So average young American women can easily identify with her.

Maybe the women in the beer commercial would have been more attractive (more conventionally feminine?) to the author. Maybe it’s me, but the woman in the last commercial bears some resemblance the woman in the first commercial, and she appears to have found a man who does more than “put up with her,” but also a reality in which neither is “lording it over the other.” And maybe that’s what’s disturbing this author, who injects homosexuality into a commercial that doesn’t so much as suggest it. As I pointed out before, in the minds of some right wing men, anything that upsets the the “ordained” relationship between male and female by suggesting equality automatically raises the specter of homosexuality.

… Gay marriages demonstrate the possibility and desirability of gender equality in any marriage by modeling a relationship where the parties to the marriage do not distribute roles and responsibilities based on gender.

… That is, marriage is being transformed from a utilitarian arraignment grounded in the idea that women are sexual property to an egalitarian life journey with a partner who one chooses to develop and share mutual love, affection, respect, and support.

… One of the most obvious issues to which gay marriage speaks is gender equality. One of the strongest and most relied upon objections to gay marriage from the Right is that it violates the concept of gender complementarity. Gender complementarity is the metaphysical claim that men’s and women’s social functions in the world are determined dichotomously by their biological sex, such that where men are convex women are concave.

… Undergirding the concept of gender complementarity is the assumption that men are metaphysically meant to rule over women (ideally in the spirit of love, of course) and women are metaphysically meant to serve men.

And that’s why it matter’s who’s in the driver’s seat, pumping that clutch and jerking that gear shift.

Or is a commercial sometimes just a commercial and car sometimes just a car?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm and is filed under current events, gay rights, politics, television.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.