Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Bad Ads - Infiniti

I assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that for a young LGBT person, coming out to one's parents is probably one of the scariest, most gut-wrenching things you can do. Knowing that your parents may reject you, may disown you, may treat you with contempt. . . I can't imagine how much nerve it would take. One woman I know told me that when she came out, her mother said "you sicken me." They've since repaired their relationship, but still, that had to be an unimaginably hurtful thing to hear.

So to take something this fraught with emotional hazards, so angst-filled and use it as a cheap joke to sell your cars is sinking pretty damn low.





And even if it weren't offensive, it's just a really stupid ad. Why in the hell would the father be upset by his son's choice of  rich-guy douchemobile?
Goddammit, we're a BMW family, how dare you turn your back on your heritage?
If he had told his father he was converting to Islam or something. It's a fucking car, who would possibly be that butthurt over a fucking car?


https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BPtM7yhsDcY/hqdefault.jpg 
Who has two thumbs and hates you for your choice of auto? This guy!



And there is nothing in this ad to recommend the Infinit. They don't ever say that it outperforms the BMW or is more reliable or holds its resale value better. It's just this idiotic idea that "just because your father drives a Beemer doesn't mean you can't buy an entirely different luxury sedan. Oh, sure, it's likely to upset the old guard, the traditionalists will never accept it, but you're the new Pepsi generation and you don't have to play by their stuffy old rules." which no one has ever thought ever.
No one is sitting around with $50k burning a hole in his pocket thinking "man, I wish I had the guts to buy an Infinit! But I'm not a courageous man, I'll probably just by a BMW so no one gets upset. Damn this middle-child syndrome! When is it MY turn to be happy?"


Also, fuck you, Infiniti, for trivializing the "coming out" experience. Taking a flippant, jocular approach to what is often (I assume) an extremely painful and highly anxiety-filled moent in many a young person's life is just really shameful.



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6 comments:

  1. BobMay 25, 2016 at 7:21 AM

    Let's subvert the gay experience to sell a car and yet we won't even talk about the car.

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  2. Debra She Who SeeksMay 25, 2016 at 7:54 AM

    Yeah, you're right, Professor, but what human emotion or experience ISN'T exploited to sell crap? Advertisers have no qualms.

    And I love the expression "rich-guy douchemobile," LOL! That is just exactly right.

    You're also right about the emotional difficulty of coming out to parents. It's the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life, and I've done some difficult things, believe me. My parents reacted not too badly, all things considered, but in order to tell them, I first had to emotionally reconcile myself to the possibility of being disowned and make the decision that I was going to tell them anyway. That inevitably changes your relationship with your parents and severs the last vestiges of childhood dependency, no matter how they react. Most people don't have to deal with that emotional reality until a parent dies. And sometimes they don't even deal with it then. The day I came out to my parents is the day I became a 100% emotionally self-sufficient adult and there's no going back from that.

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  3. Sid SchwabMay 25, 2016 at 12:31 PM

    Looking forward to a pet food ad that plays off people eating it for subsistence.

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  4. AnonymousMay 25, 2016 at 12:55 PM

    On the other hand, they nailed the douchery of most BMW owners pretty well.

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  5. ScottMay 25, 2016 at 8:36 PM

    So glad you blogged about this. I despise this commercial for the exact reasons you stated.

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  6. LowellMay 29, 2016 at 5:49 AM

    I had a Nissan. Terrible lemon. Just on that basis I'd never buy an Infiniti. And a BMW is mostly talk...I'll stick with my Acura which has them all beat! :) But wait 'til Trump becomes prezident. Not to worry about cars. Just try to stay alive.

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