Have you seen the new Rick Santorum advertisement? It could be comedic gold except – there is nothing left to exaggerate.
Nothing Left to Satirize: I’m always open to other points of view. Hell, I watched Glen Beck for a year straight just to give the guy his due. But this political advert has crossed over beyond funny-town to offensively-dumb-ville.
If I were a Daily Show writer I’m not sure if this would be pure gold or something to absolutely avoid. What most satirical writers do is latch onto something and take it to the extreme to show the ugly truth. But this video has no extremes left. Obamaville, as described in this ad, is a desolate place, occupied by starving children who can’t pay for gas, doctors have been murdered and crows pick at the body parts left over from the zombie rampage who ate all the good religious people.
IMPORTANT: Watch the video at the 40 second mark. Did you see it? The words “America’s sworn enemy” are dubbed over the face of Ahmadinejad on the television and for a fraction of a second, among the flickers on the television screen, Barack Obama’s face is super-imposed. Go ahead – zoom over to 39 seconds and then watch that next second of video closely. Use the video scrubber to go over it slowly if you need. That’s some subliminal mind-fucking right there. It is not above the board. It is pure manipulation and offensive.
Look Santorum: If you want to make a political ad attacking your opponent go for it. I’m 100% for the honest exchange of ideas. But this is nowhere close to that. The Obamville ad is an obvious hit job without a modicum of integrity. It uses common tropes of horror movies including fast and edgy cuts to disorient the viewer, sad images where people are depicted as isolated, a grayish hue (as if in two years color won’t exist) and makes blanket horror statements predicting Iran’s nuclear ascension. The kicker of course is the super-imposed subliminal connection between Obama and Ahmadinejad, that’s what really pushed me over the edge. That is not honest. That is not meant to be honest. That is meant to manipulate. No politician should resort to tactics like that.
The Truly Scary thing: I’ve never seen a political ad like it. Is this the kind of content we can expect ala Citizens United or have I just not been paying enough attention and should get used to it? More importantly, is a large swath of the population so dumbed down and accepting that a political ad like this will have sway? It can’t pass any kind of critical mustard. I’m more convinced by an M. Night Shyamalan movie (maybe that kid COULD see dead people!) which at least perfected the tropes this advert uses. Or is this more to speak to Santorum’s base? People that won’t look at this critical but might get super juiced/jazzed by it? If I’m critical of my own reactions here (which border on humor/disgust) – I’d have to imagine that whoever made the advert also tested it against various demographics and somewhere saw a reaction they liked. So somehow this advert is effective. And THAT’S the truly scary thing. Well, that and the super-imposed image at 40 seconds.