Perhaps I'm being too critical. After all it's just one more television commercial hawking a product ad nauseam. I know that they are a necessary evil, but bottom line...I detest commercials. If it wasn't for my trusty remote control, I would have given up watching television years ago. And it appears that all the major networks have banded together in a secrete conspiratorial plot to air their menus of commercial spots at exactly the same time. Try this on for size. At the bottom of any prime time hour when a commercial break is scheduled, switch to any of the other major network channels and see if you don't agree that every channel is airing commercials at the same time, many identical to each other. For at least the next ten minutes, it's wall-to-wall, non-stop commercials. Exasperating...
And there must be a prescribed quota that dictates that the same product commercials must be broadcast over and over again. Tell me the Fox Network didn't air the Dodge Ram truck commercial 6,000 times during the weekend's NFL playoff games! You know the one. Two robots standing boot-to-boot in a boxing ring beating the bolts out of each other until one of the robots dislodges the "head" of the other. Not satisfied with the bout's outcome, the victorious robot exits the building in search of another hapless victim...a Dodge Ram truck parked on the street. Punching the grill of the vehicle for all its worth with ever increasing ferocity, the robot's "head" finally pops up in defeat. My reaction exactly!
But it is not this particular commercial that disturbs me. It's the newest offering of Geico Insurance commercials. Previously Geico produced a very entertaining commercial series that featured an English accented gecko. His (I'm going out on a limb here and assuming the little critter is a "he") matter-of-fact approach to enticing listeners to pay attention to his spiel is both appealing and memorable, favorable factors that every ad agency strives to achieve. But I think Geico has fallen far below the bar previously set with their gecko. Their latest commercials feature "cavemen." If this series of commercials is suppose to be "cute," they are not.
The premise of the spots are apparently designed to suggest that obtaining a quote from Geico for one's insurance needs is so easy that even a "caveman" can do it. Several male actors are made up to mimic the identifying features of a typical caveman that one would expect to see in a National Geographic expose on the subject, but functioning in our 21st Century world. The cavemen, themselves viewing the advertisements as would we, take offense that their intelligence is being depicted as being less than double digit. Their protest fall on deaf ears. Their sense of being exploited disregarded and they endure ridicule for being too overly sensitive. Funny? No. Disturbing? For me, yes.
What I find disconcerting and offensive is not that fictions cavemen are utilized in the Geico commercials. They represent a means to the desired end for selling insurance products. What I find disturbing is the implied message (perhaps unintended, but prevalent nonetheless) that it is "okay" to discount and degrade people who are not like you or me. Yes, I realize that these characters are fictional. That there are no longer cavemen roaming the corridors of corporate America. But I am nevertheless repelled by the notion that it is acceptable to employ thinly veiled discrimination as a means to justify corporate profit. Unfortunately, it is not only product being sold, it is the message of permissible arrogant superiority that is also portrayed in a poor attempt at humor. As much as the Dodge Ram truck commercials make my head explode, I'll take them any day over the Geico commercials. T'aint funny McGee.
