I’m seriously out of media I am struck by
Okay, that’s probably not true, but I’ve been looking for ads this whole time. Except I’m not watching too much commercial television these days, so I’m stuck with political ads I see on blogs. Specifically Proposition 8, because I read Andrew Sullivan all the damn time. So. This ad is one I came across on that blog, as I implied earlier.
The first thing that struck me about this advertisement was that it doesn’t at any point mention the intention Proposition 8 (if you didn’t read last week, it adds a clause to the state constitution that only marriage between opposite sexes will be recognized). The issue of gay marriage is a touchy one (see the comments section of my last entry for a giant wall of nonsensical text), so I guess they felt it was best not to mention gay marriage at all and try and get people to focus on the fact that such major political players as Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Diane Feinstein oppose the amendment. Note a problem here: they couldn’t get two of the three people involved to do an advertising spot for them, so they just got Diane Feinstein and took existing quotes superimposed over images of Obama and Schwarzenegger. It makes it look like they got celebrity politicians to go to bat for them, when in fact Obama and Schwarzenegger didn’t bother to do ads.
The point of the ad, I think, is to make a person consider that Proposition 8 is opposed by famous and respected politicians, first and foremost, and secondly takes away rights the ad doesn’t want to specify. People may respond to restricting gay marriage, but the ad seems to be banking on the idea that people won’t want their constitution to restrict freedoms. But the main point is similar to any celebrity endorsements. Ads tell us that celebrities drink Sprite and use Old Spice, and we might think that we should too. This ad tells us Obama and Schwarzenegger don’t like the amendment, and leaves it to us to figure that they must have a good reason for doing so.
Leave a Reply