Archive for the 'CAMPAIGN ADS' Category

This advertisement appears to be headed by Leonardo DiCaprio, who seems to be equal parts activist and actor now.  It’s a sequal of sorts to the first “Five Friends” clip, which featured many celebrities encouraging you to “not vote” unless you cared about things like healthcare, abortion, terrorism, etc.

This ad had another group of celebrities who began to go along with the whole “don’t vote” idea, but then rebelled and took the opposite side. This was started by Harrison Ford, who refused to tell people note to go to the polls. This was probably the best part of the video, when he reminds the director that the 2000 election was decided by 537 people, and that he cannot tell someone their vote doesn’t count when a number so small decided something so large.

I’m sure most of you have seen or heard of this video, but Sarah’s question last night really got me thinking about it. Why do we care what these people say? Even those of us who consider ourselves reasonably informed still like these videos. We put them up as our statuses and our away messages. I think it’s because, as ridiculous as it is, having someone like Leo or tom Cruise reaffirming your political beliefs, lending their face to the cause, really makes it legitimate. They don’t say anything new, they just make people more willing to pay attention.

Think of Angelina Jolie and her humanitarian work. She is using her fame to direct attention to issues of importance. No one would say that genocide prevention is unimportant, but when Angelina is traipsing around in Sudan, we watch, and she makes people aware of things they may not have paid attention to before.

Thoughts? Or maybe I’ll just take any excuse to see Leo.

Shelly Mandell, president of Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women: “I am outraged by the new ad put out by Barack Obama. It is sexist and demeaning to women. These tactics started with Hillary Clinton and continue, growing even more disgusting with Gov. Palin. I was a Hillstar for Hillary and an avid supporter. Trashing two women clearly in a sexist manner in one election is an outrage and must be identified and stopped. There must be consequences. Let female Obama supporters take a good look at this and still believe their candidate supports women’s rights and women’s dignity.” This is just one of the prominent women in the Democratic Party whose outrage is expressed on the ABC blog I found this on.

(read comments and watch the ad here)

We talked a lot in our class about whether or not the media (be it comedic skits such as Tina Fey on SNL or news coverage) and the campaigns’ treatment of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin could be considered sexist. One of the things we discussed is the intent behind the statement/attack and whether or not this matters. Another element we talked about was that regardless of intent, whether or not it offends the person/group it targets matters. I don’t think this ad was sexist, because if they showed a man winking at the camera it would have the same point: the candidate appears flippant and empty-headed. I think their claim is legitimate; they are making a meaningful point (although the context of the ad makes it seem like a low blow.)

The problem with these short political advertisements is that they rely on a single image to carry an entire message. The image of Sarah Palin winking at the camera carries the message the Obama campaign is trying to relay: the complex problems of government are out of the Republican VP candidate’s depth. Instead of giving reasonable talking points questioning her readiness for office, they relied on one image to say it all. I don’t think the attack has anything to do with sex, because the attack does not hinge on the gender of the candidate: it is not saying she is empty-headed because she is a woman; it is simply making the point that there are questions to her fluency in complex issues. Yes, the intent is somewhat malicious but it is not intending to be sexist. However the fact that so many women, Democrat supporters to boot, are outraged does point to some legitimacy of the claim of foul play.

What surprises me the most about this ad is the balls of the Obama campaign. They must be feeling extremely confident to OK running this advertisement, for they had to have expected this type of reaction from women.

This first post is kind of an elaboration on one of the comments I made in class about videos not being made directly by a campaign, but got the message across very well. You may remember me talking about a video mash up some guy, who actually worked for the Obama campaign, made using the famous 1984 Macintosh commercial. Even though the guy was eventually fired, he got his point about Hillary Clinton across.

Here’s the original Macintosh commercial:

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…and here’s the mash-up:

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It shows just what a little bit of photoshop can do to manipulate someone’s words. This only added to the idea that Hillary Clinton was more of the same and that you must vote differently and vote for Barack Obama in the primaries, much like Apple succeeded in getting the message across that IBMs were more of the same thing, and this is why you should by the Macintosh.

Every election has an ad or two that really remain embedded in people’s minds and can actually affect the election itself. One of the most famous is the 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson ad “Daisy,” which ended up helping Johnson secure a landslide victory against the Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Though the ad was based on comments Goldwater made about possibly using nuclear weapons in Vietnam, the ad exaggerated what he had said and portrayed him as a warmonger and as someone who was going to intensify the conflict in Vietnam.

Here’s the ad:

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Sometimes ads can spawn humorous responses. Take McCain’s attack ad on Obama from a couple of months ago, which basically portrayed him as being too much of a celebrity figure and less of a man about the issues. The ad had footage of Paris Hilton in it, kind of insinuating that Obama was the “Paris Hilton of politics”.

Here’s the video, titled “Celeb”:

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Paris Hilton then came out with her response to this video, in a very humorous and surprising way:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d

(I couldn’t put it up on the post, so that’s a link to the video)

I now leave you with the infamous John Kerry windsurfing ad:

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After this ad premiered, it cemented Kerry’s reputation of being a flip-flopper, even though, it has now been said that Kerry actually never really “flip-flopped” on his decisions, since the money on some of these programs was reallocated, and that is why Kerry changed his decision, but I digress. It’s kind of like the “Daisy” ad, where the candidate did or said something, and the other candidate took, exaggerated it, and gave it a memorable image, and a as a result, that image is a part of the rest if that person’s campaign.