The people of the world cannot be divided into groups based on superficial impressions or simple-to-understand categories. I always try to remember that there is more to any person’s story than I can possibly know. Even a fictitious person has layers.
Still, it’s easy to skip over all that and just get mad at a guy who’s obviously feeling pretty smug about his fancy car.
Now I enjoy a good parody on April Fool’s, or any other day. It’s legal stealing to take someone else’s idea and mock it with a near copy, inserting just the right number of tweaks to get your message across.
You’re not going to get rich enough to by a Cadillac if you make your living doing parodies. Unless you’re amazingly good at it. Parody can be deadly effective when done right, but the form has weaknesses. For one, it can fall flat if your audience doesn’t know the original. And in our increasingly fractured media landscape, finding a source document that is universally recognized can be a challenge.
That’s where money comes in handy. Fortunately, Cadillac spent piles of it on the Olympics telecasts to acquaint vast numbers of people with the fellow in the above ad and the towering self-satisfaction that must be characteristic of the target buyer for the company’s newest high-end uber-chariot.
Lots of people felt chafed by that Cadillac ad, and many complained. But the best critics asked themselves one essential question – is it ripe for parody? The answer? In this case, “You bet!”.
Beautifully done. The only thing I would change would be to have that nice shiny Ford smeared with a little healthy manure. But that might have constituted “rubbing it in.”
Why do you work so hard?
Trail Baboon 