Cars And Freedom - Together At Last

Look, I'm all good with all of the patriotism that is being displayed these days. I really am. But is this what we can look forward to in terms of automobile commercials? Because if it is, I don't know that I'm totally on board with it. George Washington driving a Dodge Challenger as he scares off hoardes of redcoats? Um, OK. I guess. It a slight "Dukes of Hazzard" feel to it. Maybe that's my issue. I'm not sure. What's next? The signing of the Declaration of Independence on the tailgate of a Dodge Ram? Why do I have the feeling that it will be?

White Trash Tweet

If you're a business that is going to sponsor an individual (probably an athlete), you're going to want to be sure that the person that you're sponsoring will be a good reflection of your business. If you have a classy business, you're going want to make sure that you're not sponsoring someone like Tonya Harding, for example. That won't look good at all. (Even if you're a lead pipe manufacturer. It's still probably not a good move.) So if you're a company like, say, Jaguar, you're going to want to sponsor someone who would seem to have a great deal of class. Maybe that's asking too much. How about a classy person? Some class? Let me put it another way. If you're Jaguar, don't sponsor someone who is going to Tweet "Suck on that faggots!" Wait. What?

Correct. It would seem that there is an Australian swimmer named Stephanie Rice. She's apparently a fairly big deal. At least in Australia she is. Then again, she was also a pretty big deal at the Beijing Olympics where she swam her way to three gold medals. And since three gold medals is nothing to sneeze at (unless you're allergic), Jaguar decided to sponsor this young dolphin-esque swimmer. And just like a Jaguar, she sure isn't difficult to look at. Behold!

Ah, yes. In the typical pose that one would expect from a swimmer. Laying atop rumpled bed sheets with hair all a-flowing. Sure. That's how all women look when they're just hanging out. Uh-huh. All the time. But I digress. The point here is that this woman is apparently a big fan of the Australian rugby team, the Australian Wallabies. Huh. For such a brutal sport, that's kind of a wussy name, isn't it? The Wallabies? (Granted, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL went for years with their mascot as a guy with a feather in his cap who was winking. Not the most manly mascot anyone has ever dreamed up.)

But the Wallabies apparently beat the South African team. (I cannot locate the name of those blokes in any report of this because the media is now sucking worldwide. Thanks for that, sucky worldwide media.) They won 41-39 in a game that was described by The Telegraph as "a nail-biting victory". I'll take their word for it. I have no idea if that is a high scoring game or just an average score that was tight in the end or what. Not a clue. None. I guess that I just need to learn more about rugby, as I can't really assume that every publication reporting on this sort of thing is going to spell it out, but I really wish they'd maybe just give us a little clue.

Now, Ms. Rice was so excited about the victory that she did what anyone would do in that situation. That's right. She tweeted. Good Lord. I'm so over people and their tweets, I cannot even tell you. But what I can tell you is what she tweeted. And it wasn't very Jaguar-esque to tweet out to the entire world "Suck on that faggots!"

I wasn't the only one who thought that it wasn't exactly the kind of person that Jaguar might not want to sponsor. Yeah, Jaguar thought the same thing as well. They dumped her. They were more elegant about the announcement than I was just then, of course. A one Mark Eedle, who is the marketing and public affairs manager for Jaguar Australia, said, "We made a decision yesterday, and we've terminated the agreement with her."

They terminated their agreement with her?! But...but...she made a really weak apology after she was told how stupid she was! You mean that it didn't matter to Jaguar that she said, "I made a comment on Twitter on Saturday night in the excitement of the moment. I did not mean to cause offence and I apologise." That's what she says in the "excitement of the moment"? She gets so excited that she tweets "Suck on that faggots!"? You know, some people simply shout, "Yipee!" What if they had been playing a German team? Would she be tweeting what she thought the Jews should do? I certainly hope not.

Enter The Invisible Monkey

Who would have ever thought that those car commercials that we are bombarded with when they're having a "special event" would turn out to be rather amusing? Enter Dodge and enter PETA and you've got yourself a recipe for a wee bit o'hilarity ensuing. The hilarity ensues immediately after the annoyance over the emergence of PETA subsides, by the way.

See, Dodge made an ad that promoted their Dodge tent event. I don't know when the practice of erecting a tent became equated with a good deal on a shiny new vehicle, but it has been that way for quite some time now. They mention what a great deal you can get yourself on a brand new Dodge Charger, Dodge Journey or Dodge Grand Caravan. (What's a Journey? Is it named after the band? Shouldn't they have had Steve Perry in this commercial? I'm pretty sure he's not doing anything these days.) Not only that, they'll give you sixty days to see if you want to keep the vehicle. (There is, of course, no mention of the eight gazillion strings that are inevitably tied to such an offer. Things that I would imagine might include not having driven the car over 30 miles in those 2 months and never having turned on the air conditioning.)

That's when voice-over guy (the lovely and cancer-free Michael C. Hall) says that this whole thing could not get more amazing. He soon realizes that he is wrong when a little monkey wearing an Evil Knievel jumpsuit comes out and presses down on one of those ACME detonator things that Wile E. Coyote was always using to try and do in that sneaky roadrunner. The monkey pushes it down and a bunch of confetti blows out of somewhere. Voice-over guy deadpans, "I stand corrected." Not bad. Funny. I liked it. Maybe you will, too. Behold!

But who did not like it was PETA. PETA doesn't like anything having to do with cute animals being mistreated. I know. I know. All the monkey did was push the lever. But that is bad, according to PETA, because that little monkey had to be taught how to do that. (It's also bad because the little monkey is really a chimpanzee and there is, apparently, a difference. I don't know if it offended the chimp, but it really seemed to rile up PETA.) According to the website "Where's the Monkey?" in which Dodge tries to explain why they altered their commercial, they informed them "...about the poor conditions of working animal "actors." They told us how these animals are usually separated from their mothers at a young age and are usually discarded at seedy roadside attractions after they get too old to act." What sort of "seedy roadside attractions"? The only seedy roadside attractions around here are taco trucks and fruit vendors. None of them have monkeys. I'm not saying that what PETA is saying is false, I'm just saying I want more information of these primate abusing attractions that allegedly congregate roadside.

Dodge said that this made them sad and they took the spot off of the air. They also said that "Dodge is firmly committed to never using great apes in our advertisements again." While I suppose that is good, they don't mention anything about never using mediocre apes in their advertisements, so...fingers crossed!

But, wait! There's more! They took the ad off of the air and tweaked it just a little bit. They removed the chimp from the footage. Oh, don't get me wrong. They left the jumpsuit and the walking over to the blowy-uppy thing and the confetti that booms out from somewhere. That's still there. There just is no monkey. The monkey is invisible. Wait. Invisi....? Behold!

Most awesome! Very amusing! I'm glad that Dodge didn't completely ditch the ad. I'd like to see Dodge keep the invisible monkey in upcoming future ads. I'd also like to see PETA burn off of the face of the earth. I'm all for animals not being mistreated. And with everything that you can do digitally these days, there's probably no reason why Dodge can't just make a cyber-monkey instead of using a real one. But I'm never for PETA making an appearance. From what I can tell, they do one thing really well, and it's not caring for animals. It's their own attention whoring that they're so successful at.