The first is the “Windows 7 was my idea” with the guy in Germany. video
Now my question is the girl’s reaction to seeing the video. She looks stunned. Are we supposed to think:
She’s stunned at what an American thinks is funny.
She’s stunned at what the guy in the video can do with his tongue.
In other words, do you think there’s a sexual joke here or not?
The second one was a Corona beer commercial, which I was unable to find online.
It’s one of their series of beach commercials. An attractive woman in a bikini is sitting on a beach chair. A football lands in front of her. A guy runs up to retrieve the football and tries to strike up a conversation with the woman. She’s clearly not interested and waves him off and he leaves. Then a second attractive woman walks up with a pail of iced Coronas. She sets it down on the beach and sits down next to the first woman. Suddenly several footballs land near the two women.
Are we supposed to think:
The two women are a couple and that’s why the first woman wasn’t interested in the guy.
That while the first woman alone attracted one guy’s attention, the two women have attracted several guys’ attention.
That the presense of the beer was what attracted all the extra attention.
I didn’t get the impression the girl was stunned, more confused. He said he didn’t get the Germans’ humor. That read to me like she was equally baffled by what he thought was funny. Of course it can also be read in a sexual way and I’m guessing that’s intentional, but the Microsoft folks decided to play it really subtle. I don’t think you’re supposed to be able to read the girls reaction one way or another, it’s left intentionally vague. They probably wanted to keep it family friendly and having the German girl acting all obviously lusty over it would make the ad pretty much limited to SpikeTV and YouTube. It’s intended to be open to interpretation.
The third one. They guys came flocking because the girls had extra beers.
I don’t see much sexual in the first one, but I can see how it could be seen that way. I think Omniscient has it right - she’s meant to be just as confused by what he finds funny as what she finds funny.
Is the second one lots of footballs or just two or three? If the former, I’d guess it’s the presence of the beer. I’m not sure I quite get Corona commercials, but sometimes it seems as if there isn’t meant to be much story to them anyway. They’re just trying to sell a relaxing lifestyle that includes their beer. People don’t seem to go mad with desire over Corona, it’s just a normal part of their easygoing beach vacation life. So if it’s only a small number, then it’s probably just more girls = more interest, men being men, and they’ll get rejected too, the women will enjoy imbibing bubbly yellow liquid, and life wil go on.
Around three or four footballs, all landing at about the same time. It’s clear we’re supposed to realize that guys on the beach have decided that this is a situation they want an excuse to check out.
If it wasn’t for that final group of footballs, the lesbian couple scenario would seem to be pretty clear. In all previous commercials, the two people sitting together have been a man and a woman and have always interacted as a couple. So we’ve been conditioned to see two people sitting next to each other on the beach in a Corona commercial as being in a relationship. And this would have been the punchline to the first woman’s lack of interest in the guy who came over. But the footballs at the end throw this off.
I don’t think there’s anything sexual going on in the first one. The German girl’s idea of funny is a guy sticking his tongue in a fan. The American guy doesn’t get it. Meanwhile, his idea of funny is a guy doing pushups with his tongue, which the German girl doesn’t get. The joke is supposed to be that they’re both watching very similar “morons on YouTube” videos of people who do weird things with their tongues all the while acting like the other person is an imbecile for liking their particular video.
I wonder if the original idea was that the two girls were a couple, and that would normally make guys leave them alone, but that, adding the beers made everyone want to see them.
Of course, that would mean the person who came up with the idea really didn’t understand the male stereotype at all.
The reason there are two girls instead of a guy and a girl is that they don’t want to send the message that if you buy Corona, dudes will start hitting on your girl.
People in beer commercials live in a strange alternative world where beer is incredibly hard to come by and keeping beer cold is incredibly difficult.
That might be it. The punchline could be that two hot lesbians are exponentially better than one hot girl by herself. (Because in male fantasy land all lesbians are actually bisexual.)
“1. She’s stunned at what an American thinks is funny.”
and
“2. That while the first woman alone attracted one guy’s attention, the two women have attracted several guys’ attention.”
with a little bit of
“3. That the presense of the beer was what attracted all the extra attention.”
Windows 7 2. She’s stunned at what the guy in the video can do with his tongue.
That was definitely my first thought as well. She gave a much different reaction than he did to German humor - it was much more of an “oh! Oh my!” look.
Corona 4. While one hot girl garners attention, and two hot girls garner more attention, two hot girls who drink Corona are irresistable.