"Cue the tables. Cue the chairs. Cue the crowd. Cue the lights. Cue the bar. Cue the..." It goes on, and on, and on, until you forget you're watching a thirty second commercial and slowly begin to slip into madness. The kind of madness that occurs when a word is said so many times, it loses its meaning and begins to sound strange despite a lifetime of use (seriously, say "floor" about fifty times and see if you don't start having an existential crisis).
Yes, like a denizen of outer space that only has fragmented images of Broadway as a guide to understanding our culture, the new Jose Cuervo tequila ads find it necessary to "cue" everything. Oh, they did that because the word "cue" is already in the product title? Genius.
Snappy wordplay aside, there's another reason entirely that this campaign rubs us the wrong way like coarse-grade sandpaper. It follows the time-honored alcohol advertisement tradition of depicting the "good time" had by all when you're out pouring it into your head. That (and the cake) is, more often that not, a lie. We're not all pretty, trendy white kids that live within walking distance of high-end bars and pretentious loft apartments, either. And if we were, we wouldn't drink Jose Cuervo.
In reality, we figure the voice-over would be something more like: "Cue the skeevy dive bar. A few shots later, cue the meth-addled hooker you'd never normally talk to. Cue the cab ride back to her place. Cue waking up to a pretty damn awkward breakfast on skid row. Cue the Cuervo."
Alright, so it probably wouldn't be that bad, but we think you can see what we're trying to infer. If you don't go out and drink Cuervo tonight, reader, rest assured that you probably won't be missing out on the The Greatest Night of Your Life. We hope that helps you collectively breathe a little easier.
ohhhh, in a perfect commercial world i would find my prince charming in a bar after trying to avoid getting alcohol all over me. this is so believable.
ReplyDeleteIts funny you should mention that part, because it stood out from the rest of the commercial to me solely because the dude looked super predatory grabbing that chick at the end. He's like "hey behbeh Ima grab you by the hips and pull you in" and she's all, "Okaaay, that's way too much touching for too little reason."
ReplyDeletehaha! it's so true, all these commercials of people meeting people in bar settings rub me the wrong way. we're all too damn confined to ourselves or our friends to go and talk to someone we don't know in a bar, the only people that approach other people are ones who are shit-faced. and obviously that's common in bars, but who's into that? i mean i just don't buy stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteRight. It seems like one of those weird subcultures where meaningful things only happen in the movies or on television because its convenient story-wise or something. It would be nice if there was less fear culturally in situations like that; maybe then we'd actually see something interesting happen.
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