Monday, January 15, 2007

Bad Ad?

Threading at the farther edge of Illusionate concerns, but since we do take on random pop culture bits... I have a tiff with slang. Has anyone seen that after-Christmas cellphone commercial? The one where the father (a Carl Winslow-type) meets his offspring at the breakfast table, recaps on their gifts,(AWESOME cellphones, we are to believe), and then asks the kids: "What did Daddy get." "Aftershave?" says the daughter, (with a guilty lilt that conveys: "We didn't put you in a home, so be grateful"). Then Daddy provides the punchline. At first I was completely shocked by what I took to be the father's response. I thought, almost simultaneously: a) WHAT?! b) Why has this affable pater familias resorted to prostitution? c) Why is he telling the kids? d) Is he complaining? e) Bragging?

I'm relating this because I just saw the ad again, and I heard better. Daddy's reply is actually:

"No, Daddy got hosed,"

Instead of: "No, Daddy got hoes!" (Which was my first assumption.)

This commercial is badly phrased. It puritanically skews what we all know Daddy was trying to say: "No, Daddy got SHAFTED." But in the bowdlerizing process, something got lost and confusion emerged. I get that getting hosed is the same as getting shafted, being buggered, or generally being forced to copulate, (all sorts of feminist and gay diatribes could be hung on exactly why we assume that getting the shaft is supposed to be a less than pleasant experience on the subservient end) but I guess hosed has a milder connotation- you might be accidentally garden-hosed by your suburban neighbor as he/she tends to the lawn. Still phallic.
Still the punchline does not work.

I'm not quite sure why this ad's phrasing just bothers me. I think Flaubert might have understood.

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