17th Oct 2008
Threat number one: bears
Unless you’re familiar with Steven Colbert’s semi-regular Threatdown, you might not appreciate the blog post title. Either way, this vaguely threatening commercial as much is still worth watching.
I’m not entirely sure what to make of the last clause. “If they do exist?” Are we supposed to be scared of the bear, or are we supposed to be hallucinating the bear, or is this bear just a cunning disguise to distract me from the socialist bear standing behind my couch waiting to eat me as soon as I turn off the TV?
I lived most of my life after the Berlin wall was down and communism became simply a place which makes really inexpensive plastic stuff. I thought I could laugh at lurking bears. But, some people still think the woods are full of bears.
I remember that commercial, and I really liked it, although even as a kid, I detested Ronald Reagan. If I remember right, this commercial came relatively late in the campaign, when Reagan was far, far ahead, so they could afford to take a more innovative, artistic approach. I think this ad really works, so long as you don’t think about the mixture of bear symbolisms that are in play too hard.