Re. That Jeep Super Bowl Commercial: Otherwise, Well Done

Today’s post is a re-direct to Larry Correia’s recent post, Read the Room, Jeep! in which he imagines how Jeep came up with their preachy, insulting, tone-deaf commercial targeting the deplorable chumps in fly-over America:

JEEP CORPORATE OFFICE –

The CEO of Jeep stands at the head of a conference table filled with the CorpoUniParty’s best and brightest. “Alright, our new campaign is going to be about Reuniting America, so we’re going to aim it at those horrible, knuckle dragging red state deplorables.”

“But sir, aren’t they all domestic terrorist insurrectionists who need to be driven from society because they believe in evil conspiracy theories like unfair elections?”

Everyone at the table laughed, because red staters are so stupid. Everyone knows the election was merely fortified.

Before we go on, here’s the commercial in case you missed it and I know most of you did. Warning: Best to watch on an empty stomach.

In Correia’s imaginary group think they discuss using a woman for the voice over but reject the idea:

“No. Everyone knows Red Staters hate women. I saw it on the Hand Maid’s Tale. We need nominally male gender identifying, someone who represents those backwards inbred hicks. Can we get Bruce Springsteen?”

“But sir, isn’t he a flaming liberal from New Jersey who campaigned for Joe Biden and who routinely sneers at our target audience of uneducated rubes? Since they’re feeling mocked, disenfranchised, and thousands of them just lost their high paying energy jobs, how can we foist a coastal elitist millionaire musician on them?”

The MBAs all share a confused and worried glance about how to overcome this seemingly insurmountable issue.

“Hmm…  But what if we stick him in a cowboy hat?”

“BRILLIANT!”

(nice touch, church and cross in background)

I will say that Jeep’s choice of Bruce “I love Australia. If Trump is re-elected I’ll see you on the next plane” Springsteen as the spokesman for their meet-in-the-middle commercial seems a bit hypocritical at best. At worst it seems as though they’ve totally lost the plot.

Many people commented on the brilliant symbolism of using the Communist Red Star.

“The last time I saw a red star like that, I was in Vietnam.”

While others were a bit put off that Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was missing – particularly offensive as Jeep’s headquarters are in Michigan. Some went so far as to speculate that the UP had been given to Canada in a new NAFTA/Free Trade deal.

But back to Larry’s take on the Jeep spot:

“Hi. I’m Bruce Springsteen, millionaire musician, but today I’m driving around bumf*ck nowhere in some busted ass old jeep to a melancholy soundtrack looking like an extra on Longmire so that you know I’m JUST LIKE YOU. Poor.

Look. A cross. Because Jesus or something. I don’t know. I got paid like two hundred grand for one day of work. Here’s some high-minded sounding poet laureate style voice over about how we’re all in this together that I probably recorded in the studio in my mansion.

Now I’m gonna be extra sanctimonious about how hard it is to meet in THE MIDDLE.

Red versus Blue… Sure, team blue was all #RESIST for the last four years and endless goofy investigations, but if you think security videos of 50 mystery boxes being delivered by a Detroit election van at 3:00 AM is worthy of an audit you are basically a terrorist who needs to be cancelled and driven from society…

We need that connection. We need the middle. Because somebody has to pay the taxes to bail out our hedge fund buddies.

There’s a Divide. Of course that divide is your problem and totally not our fault. Look, a horse.

Or at least a horse’s arse.

That’s how a lot of YouTube commenters saw it anyway:

“Jeep 1941: Let’s kill fascists. Jeep 2021: Let’s meet in the middle.”

And my personal favorite:

If the “MIDDLE GROUND FALLACY” was a TV Commercial…

Congratulations Jeep, for somewhere around $25 million you ran an add that completely alienated your target audience. And the audience you inadvertently pandered to, well they don’t buy gas guzzling SUVs. Because climate, or something.

Otherwise, well done.