Subtle Hints
I might just be really paranoid about the political sinister and its influence on all popular culture. You may decide for yourselves. I just witnessed a Pillsbury commercial that by extension appears to be a subtle hint that acceptance of the 'alternative' throughout all seasons of life is the down-home, warm and cozy thing to do.
The commercial series is entitled Home is Calling. It has the full version as linked, but I unfortunately first viewed a clip version featuring a young boy in a library, including extended scenes. That was my first and lasting impression. It features this male child closing his eyes, leaning his head back, and clicking his heels three times. It implies that he is thinking "There's no place like home" just as the young Ms. Gale did in 1939. The viewer is then flashed to a presumably holiday dining table with piping-hot biscuits or crescent rolls as the centerpiece.
The full version features equal numbers of males and females. The oldest female is college age, but only one of the males is a juvenile. Two of the males are apparently under 40 metrosexual businessmen wearing heinous shoes. The 4th male is a grandfatherly factory worker. The younger 3 males tend towards slightly effeminate, where as the oldest male is benign at best, but definitely not ruggedly masculine.
I am stretching a bit with the females, but there is subtle imagery with them as well. One is a professional, young, skirt wearing lassie who sets us at ease. The next is a cute high school aged girl waiting at a train platform in the snow. The click of her heels, however, is the first sign of trouble. The next female is a short haired college student being indoctrinated with ideas fostered in an academic environment. The final female representation is a primary school aged girl in a prep-school uniform standing, essentially alone, on the front steps of her school. She is very serious, even ambitious in her expression and movement while alone, yet, in the end, disarming when in the presence of others. She is the most obvious metaphor of the females.
The links that I have infused tell the sub story. Am I a hater, or am I a prophet?
The commercial series is entitled Home is Calling. It has the full version as linked, but I unfortunately first viewed a clip version featuring a young boy in a library, including extended scenes. That was my first and lasting impression. It features this male child closing his eyes, leaning his head back, and clicking his heels three times. It implies that he is thinking "There's no place like home" just as the young Ms. Gale did in 1939. The viewer is then flashed to a presumably holiday dining table with piping-hot biscuits or crescent rolls as the centerpiece.
The full version features equal numbers of males and females. The oldest female is college age, but only one of the males is a juvenile. Two of the males are apparently under 40 metrosexual businessmen wearing heinous shoes. The 4th male is a grandfatherly factory worker. The younger 3 males tend towards slightly effeminate, where as the oldest male is benign at best, but definitely not ruggedly masculine.
I am stretching a bit with the females, but there is subtle imagery with them as well. One is a professional, young, skirt wearing lassie who sets us at ease. The next is a cute high school aged girl waiting at a train platform in the snow. The click of her heels, however, is the first sign of trouble. The next female is a short haired college student being indoctrinated with ideas fostered in an academic environment. The final female representation is a primary school aged girl in a prep-school uniform standing, essentially alone, on the front steps of her school. She is very serious, even ambitious in her expression and movement while alone, yet, in the end, disarming when in the presence of others. She is the most obvious metaphor of the females.
The links that I have infused tell the sub story. Am I a hater, or am I a prophet?
posted by Sam at 9:45 AM
10 Comments:
Sam, you really need to back away from the processed foods. Your take on that commercial displays a scary, pathological degree of homophobia and intolerance.
It's pretty clear to me, as a casual observer, that the "Home" we're being called to is merely the religion of Islam. The ten crescents visible on the oven tray direct the Pillsbury consumer to Sura 10 of the Koran. The four people at the table further direct you to verse 4:
"To Him is your ultimate return, all of you... As for those who disbelieve, they incur hellish drinks, and a painful retribution for their disbelieving."
I don't see why you insist on reading more into the commercial than is really there.
Chris, that was my line of thinking, as well, when I saw the commercial. But then I couldn't square that with Pillsbury's heavy use of unveiled women, let alone women wearing shoes. And women in college?
But, Sam, you're right. The shoes are heinous. But the girl at the end is an obvious youngster-lover's Scarlett Johansson, no gay icon she.
Did you check the link for the final little girl? I never insinuated that she was a gay icon.
Ah. I just did a mouseover and thought that the reference was to this double-bill fitter. My apologies.
Nothing is more entertaining that a conversation among insincere conspiracy theorists.
That was a gem of an aphorism, Ben.
But don't get all Oscar Wilde on us.
Sam, all kidding aside, here's what I found most disturbing about the video. I was trying to dismiss your insinuation of the masculinity of all the men in the commercial, despite the heinous shoes. And the girl in the college class was not being indoctrinate. It was a math class, perhaps the last refuge in a world of PC. But then it hit me. The math teacher was either doing a very bad impression of the droning Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's day off, or all the angles in his dangle didn't add up to 180, if you catch my meaning. So maybe you were right about everything. And that's not really what disturbs me, that you were right. It's that I was so blind.
I present a question in the final sentence of the post.
I am not a mathemagician, but the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees, and a 180 degree angle insinuates a 'straight' line, right? I like that. May I use it in the future, when appropriate, if I cite it properly?
You may even use it without citation. That's how much I am in your debt for setting me straight.
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