Reading Way Too Much Into Things

So I have been watching the NBA Playoffs on tv this week - well, all of the playoffs except for the Blazers-Suns, because I'm in the stupid Central Time Zone and have to get up at 5 in the morning and can't stay up till 1 am each night - and have become very rapidly inundated by all of the sports-and-man-themed commercials. Soon, I am sure, all of their subliminal messages will be safely and securely embedded within my psyche, and I will sped the entirety of my weekly pay on Reeboks and hybrid cars and DVD after DVD of Avatar. But, until then, I may still have the free will and capacity to question a few of the messages that are coming through. For example:




In 1965, we started a revolution. Civil Rights legislation? No, Gatorade. But it's weird how Gatorade puts themselves directly into the entire story of African-Americans fight for Civil Rights. Before Gatorade, basketball, tennis, and football we're played solely by white people, balling on peach baskets in - what? - a court house? Playing tennis in front of their friend Gatsby while wearing bloomers and fancy hats, or getting ready for the big game against the Gipper, everyone with the same crew-cut haircuts, all the while drinking plain, homogenous, monochromatic water. But then, bam! 1965! Gatorade! Muhammad Ali! Michael Jordan!* Black people can even play tennis now! (Um... but not golf....) I really like this ad. (I can't recall a Gatorade commercial that I didn't like.) And I think that it's a good idea for them to have people associate their product with the "revolution" that started in 1965. I even find the phrase, "In 2010, we're changing the game again," intriguing; could they possible be referring to healthcare reform?

Then, there's this ad, which never fails to disappoint:



This commercial initially aired during the Super Bowl, but it's getting constant air time during the playoffs. In my mind, it delivers the opposite message of its intention: Essentially it's an argument for why not to wear pants, why not to buy Dockers. I, for one, would much rather be marching proudly across the savannah in my whitey-tighties singing with my bearded and bespectacled friends then alone in some of kind of brick warehouse with my head cut out of the frame. It just goes to prove what I've been saying all along:

Pants are fascist.**

*Who, by the way, is wearing the greatest jacket ever to the Charlotte-Orlando game.
** In fact, I'm taking mine off right now. Go Blazers!