I’m sure you’re right about the wording–i honestly can’t remember it exactly–but i’m sticking with my interpretation of the ad.
Every time i see it, the whole feeling is that it’s just the kid and his mother. Of course, this is in fact the case in many American families; it just struck me as a little cynical that they chose to portray the black family in this way.
Well, duh, it’s Budweiser. Every day after work, I twist the cap off a Michelob, and then it’s Blowjob City, Population Me.
Well, fuck you. Somehow you’ve eliminated every possible father-son relationship other than one based on shaking hands and telling dirty jokes, or being a drug-abuser just like dear old Dad. ( see your quote, above. )
Hey guess what? I used to hug my Dad hard and kiss him on the cheek. Never joined the motherfucking Army. Never cleaned out a bong either. So… I guess that makes me a non-man who had a non-manly relationship with his…non-handshaking bong-sucking father?
Dude. I’m glad you and your old man enjoy dirty jokes and whatnot. I think if that’s the basis of your relationship and you love each other, that’s terrific and it’s nice you still have him around. Mine died six months ago today.
But you have to admit, you used an industrial strength paint gun in spraying such a broad stroke back there.
Cartooniverse
Eleven-fucking-thousand posts for me.
And which one gets all the attention? The one with supermodels not getting me off, that’s what.
Listen mate, I normally like your contributions to this board, but this time I have no fucking idea what you are upset about.
I used an example. A deliberately hyperbolic one, at that. I used an example because, unless you want the longest and dullest post ever submitted to any message board anywhere, I’m not about to list every type of father/son relationship that does (or conceivably) could exist in the United States. There are probably a hundred million or so. And knowing my luck, I’d miss yours, and you’d be pissed.
The point I was trying to make is that the army ad is obviously appealing to a certain demographic, as army ads have done since TV began (just as advertising for anything targets a demographic. That’s what the agency is paid to do ferchrissakes), and that I quite like the idea of a kid shaking his dad’s hand and looking him in the eye. That’s the way I happened to be raised, and I like it. If you are more of a huggy family, then that’s your thing and I’m cool with that.
Another example that you seem to have taken to heart a bit much is the dirty jokes thing. Believe it not, we don’t just sit around snickering at the word ‘fuck’. What I was getting at is that my family is probably every bit as relaxed and casual as yours or anybody else’s here. My old man was never a fearsome, strict disciplinarian, and as kids we certainly didn’t live in a regimented household. All my mum and dad expected was that we clean up after ourselves (and that was pretty lax), that we don’t microwave the cat or conduct biological experiments in the loungeroom or run a brothel in the garage, that we say please and thank you, stand up if a visitor walks into the room, and yes, shake hands with people where appropriate. These days, ‘where appropriate’ includes doing it to my dad, because I don’t see him often.
I don’t think my post was particularly strongly worded (certainly not worth your angry response), but I will re-write it below for you, in a non-threatening beige version:
I think the army ad sounds okay. They are just advertising their product lke any other advertiser, and they’re going to use emotive cues, just like any other advertiser. They used the handshake thing because they know that will appeal to their target demographic. They could have used a different type of father/son relationship, but it might have diluted the sentiment they were trying to portray to sell their product. I don’t think the handshake thing is actually wrong on any particular level. It’s what I do with my dad, although we are a generally casual family.
That vanilla enough? My first was hardly Pit-strength anyway.
You gotta relax, man.
And I don’t think the old boy would even know what a bong was.
Cartooniverse, sorry I missed the bit about your dad. Sorry that you don’t have him around anymore as well. You’re probably having a shitty day today on account of things.
You can relax tomorrow.
Right. The folks here who are talking about “what could you do to your kids that he won’t even greet you politely” do not seem to have ever run into the teenager type who’s just a lazy slob in a state of existential sullenness, without any need for major parental misconduct.
OTOH, the way it was phrased in the ad IS a tired old cliché. Maybe in another setting we could have something like: “Son, you sat down with me and we were able to talk long and straight and you made your points and listened to mine and you did not give me any bull nor took any from me, you gave me respect and expected it from me, and told me you were ready to take the responsibility for what you stood for. I’m impressed.”
One that I saw recently that did have me heckling the TV was the USAF one where over a voiceover of a severe weather report we have a B/W flashback of a very young girl who is utterly fascinated by an approaching tornado until dad physically drags her to shelter just before they get clobbered, and then, fast forward, her adult self (obviously having survived the tornado’s annihilation of the old farmstead) is floating aboard a space shuttle, looking out a porthole at a major hurricane and it’s her voice feeding the data…
OK, besides the fact that space-based meteorology is done by **unmanned ** spacecraft, and that for the foreseeable future our folks are likelier to be (and probably will feel a lot safer) riding shotgun in a Soyuz in the STS, I kinda get the feeling that enlistment or no enlistment you’re likelier statistically to grow up to be elected to Congress. Talk about your best case scenario!
My fave TV recruiting ad was the original “sword” ad from the Marines:
You begin with raw steel ( A piece of metal is thrust into the forge and we follow a sequence of forging a blade) You shape it with fire, muscle, and sweat; you polish it to a fine(sharp? razor’s?) edge (the finished blade is a Marine sword, a Marine takes it and salutes with it) We’re looking for a Few Good Men, with the mettle to be Marines…"
I guess the idea of such a literate pun in a recruiting ad just tickled my fancy.
I think he means that he wants blowjobs from female supermodels. ::shish-bah!::
From Roger Dodger:
Roger: You can’t sell a product without first making people feel bad.
Nick: Why not?
Roger: Because it’s a substitution game. You have to remind them that they’re missing something from their lives. Everyone’s missing something, right?
Nick: I guess.
Roger: Trust me. And when they’re feeling sufficiently incomplete, you convince them your product is the only thing that can fill the void. So instead of taking steps to deal with their lives, instead of working to root out the real reason for their misery, they go out and buy a stupid looking pair of cargo pants.
Like essentially all advertising, the ad is inherently misleading, in that it implies something (joining the Army is going to fix all of your paternal relationship problems) that it is unlikely to provide. But then, you’re unlikely to find yourself piloting an Apache to riffs of Godsmack, climbing a shear cliff at sunrise in pristine battle dress, or leading a squad of Delta Force operators through the streets of Lebanon to rescue the President’s daughter from The Axis Of Evil, either. I think they might have filmed a serious of ads showing soldiers sweeping the floor, bitching about paperwork, arguing with medical services over benefits, and having a limb amputated after running over a land mine, but test audiences indicated that the response to those was somewhat less positive than the others.
The ad is mendacious, but meh on the scale of things; like John Wayne movies, it appeals to the people who buy into the whole mentality anyway. And as has been pointed out, many people benefit, financially, emotionally, and developmentally from service in the Armed Forces. This makes the ad inherently more truthful than, say, ads by Ford Motor Company or virtually any news story in Time.
And because no one else has said it yet, Peace Is Our Profession. (Yeah, that’s SAC, not the Army, but I love the irony anyway.)
Now I’m going to watch Spartan to reenergize my cynicism gland. “You don’t fake the DNA. You issue a press release.”
Stranger
Jeez. So much ado about so little.
I had a hugging type relationship with my father and we were very close. However, a hug father-to-son is not he same as a firm hand clasp, deep look in the eyes and a serious “Son, I saw how you’ve handled that and and I’m proud of the man you’ve become” type of sceanario. One is of warmth and love, the other of a deep respect and a sense of honor. They are not mutually exclusive.
If you are unaware of these aspects between men I am sure there isn’t anything that can be said to bring understanding.
I have seen many young men that were without respect for themselves or others and without any direction or self-disipline changed into men by time in the service. I don’t think anyone intended to imply it can only happen in the service but in fact it often does for many.
Yeah, if you don’t know, we’re not going to tell you!
golf clap
No, seriously, I thought that was hilarious. I’m just pissed because I’ll never be that funny.
I’m a little concerned the population is just him. I hope that just means permanent population and he brings in the occasional guest worker.
I bet HE’S following the debate over immigration reform with rapt attention!
Then I hope he doesn’t start campaigning to use the military to secure the border.
I keep getting an image of a father and son punching each other in the nuts and then laughing heartily as they engage in a variety of ‘manly’ activities. Tossing a football, cooking on the BBQ, at the son’s graduation, etc. Was this an old SNL sketch or have I made this up? If the latter, can someone please tranquilize me or forward this thread to NBC? Thanks.
The Australian Defence Force Ads here tend to emphasise how you’re going to have a rough, dirty (but team-orientated) time running around wearing Camouflage, riding in APCs, and, if you’re very lucky, you might get to fire a Steyr AUG at something (no promises, though!)
The Navy ads have a boarding party climbing aboard a fishing vessel of some kind, while the Officer interrogates the crew, and someone finds those hedgehog-esque sea mines that look like they were left over from a WWII movie, with the question “What would you do next?” (“Plunder The Ship and begin a life of Piracy on the High Seas at the Australian Government’s Expense, Yaaaar!”)
The Air Force ads tend to emphasise Electronics and Aircraft (overlooking the fact that almost no-one gets to fly F/A-18s or attack Vietnamese Fishing Villages with helicopter gunships anymore), and hints rather strongly that as long as you’ve finished Year 10 Maths and English, you could be flying an ultra-expensive Jet Fighter laden with bombs, rockets, and missles by, say, Tuesday afternoon.
Of course, if you join the Defence Reserves, all this is completely compatible with your Day Job as a Financial Consultant or HR Officer, and no-one will suspect your Super Hero-eqsue Alter-Ego Camouflage Sniper Man/Woman, nor mind the fact you’re constantly off work for various reasons.
The irony is that it’s bloody hard to join the Australian Defence Forces. My brother tried (he wanted to be a UNIMOG Driver), and they kept dicking him around and saying “we’ll get back to you”. They never did, and he was 100% serious about joining. He knows several people with the same experiences.
Similarly, a colleague of mine at work wanted to join the Artillery, and got all the way up to the “Sign Here And You’re In” interview, before someone decided that having had 4 jobs in the 6 years since he left High School made him “Unreliable” and therefore not Army material (despite the fact 2 of those jobs were temporary positions).
There was some public discussion on this a few years back- the Defence Forces spending a fortune on advertising, rejecting most of the people who wanted to join, then complaining they couldn’t get recruits.
People often ask me why I haven’t joined, since “You like guns, right?”- to which I reply “Yes, but not when other people are using them to shoot at me.”
These US Ads do sound a bit messed up- Handshakes are for people at parties and business associates, not your Dad. Doesn’t anyone else hug their parents?
Oh, and since we’re on the topic of Manliness:
What makes a Man?
Is it the woman in his arms
Just because she has big titties?
Or is it the way he fights every day?
No, it’s probably the titties…
Now you’re a Man!
A Man, A Man, A Man!
M-A-N
Man!
Now you’re a Man…
(From the theme to Orgazmo, in case anyone missed it…)
Oh shit! I want to join the Royal Marines.
When I first say the commercial that the OP’s talking about, I didn’t think there was anything fucked up about it. I still don’t. Oh well.
True enough, and thank you for the personal kind words. I did really misinterpret the tone of your post. I was raised in a very similar household, it sounds like. Your post just sounded like you had leapt to the very far reaches of what a lot of us would consider to be good parental behaviors. Sorry for biting your head off. ( spits your head back into my hand ) Here ya go. 
Back to the O.P. The ads appeal to a certain mindset. I don’t know if this is the thread to address whether or not that mindset is helpful in recruiting, and if the recruits are in fact like-minded in their approach to family relationships. It’s hard to tell if the tail is wagging the dog or not. Does the Army want young men who relate to their fathers in a particular way, or does the Army want a certain " The Great Santini " stereotype father-son relationship to be perpetuated and seen as the best choice, especially in a military family?
Problem is, it’s a commercial spot not a feature film or novel. By virtue of that, they’ve winnowed down a stereotype and set piece to 30 seconds of impressions. Are there deep and loving relationships where father and son shake hands? Of course. Are there less deep and loving relationships where father and son hug? Maybe, though IMHO physical contact frequently equals emotional intimacy.
That’s what bugs me about the ad. It plays to a very specific macho icon- the grumbly distsant detached angry ( PTSD? ) father/maybe veteran and father and his son, struggling to become a man and finally gain Dad’s approval by entering the Army. Considering the commercial, that doesn’t seem like an oversimplification.
Does the Army not want huggers? Does the Army not want young men who don’t crave the approval of their fathers above other goals? It seems to me that this ad campaign raises a question:
Just what does the Army want from it’s recruits?