First of all, are we all just going to pretend that Mark Wahlberg hasn't done some terrible things?
(from Wikipedia: Commenting in 2006 on his past crimes, Wahlberg stated: "I did a lot of things that I regret, and I have certainly paid for my mistakes." He said the right thing to do would be to try to find the blinded man and make amends, and admitted he has not done so, but added that he was no longer burdened by guilt:)
But putting aside for the moment that AT&T decided they wanted a violent racist felon to represemt their brand, these ads are a tribute to Wahlberg's fragile masculinity.
So, even though he already would seemingly have proven his macho bona fides by punching out a bunch of robots when he gets to the lovers on the beach and says somehting about "unlimited romance," he has to toss in the line "if you're into that." Like it's important to him that the viewers understand that he does not go in for any of that mushy lovey-dovey girl stuff. Like he's afraid that his old townie friends are going to see him endorsing "unlimited romance" and say "hey, Mahky, what are you, quee-ah?" I would bet money that the "if you're into that" line was not in the original script but Marky Mark insisted on adding it.
And then he has to make sure that everyone understands that he does NOT know who the "little cartoon thing" is. The guy has four kids, no one would think it was strange that he would recognize a character from a cartoon. I have zero kids and I know that the cartoon character is named Gumball. I don't have to pretend like "I'm a grown man. I don't know anything about some dumb kids' show. I'm not a baby!"
Really kinda pathetic.
