Yeah, so when you live overseas, you suffer through whatever cable system or dish you can. There's usually some package of Western channels, a paltry 10-12 compilation deals with generic names like SuperDrama or MoviePlus. It's wholly inadequate. Yes, I have access to old, subtitled episodes of Chicago Hope and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but how am I supposed to stay current with the snarky gossip on Gawker unless I have ample and free access to The Hills or Brooke Knows Best or the survival show that has that wife of the disgraced governor and those people from The Hills? See? I don't even have the basic knowledge to begin my approbation of modern entertainment that I watch only in the most ironical of terms. My stock of popular culture reference points grows ever staler, and soon I'll have no more breadth than the hackneyed 80s and 90s touchstones that comprise the whole imagination library of the Family Guy writers. That's right, I burned Family Guy; I'm not afraid. That show's still on, right?
Regardless of the country, no matter the cable empire, one programming turd that keeps floating to the top of the bowl is CNN International. You watch this for an hour or more, and it becomes clear they are not making any money in the traditional broadcast TV sense. Half the ads are for CNN itself, and the other half are no more than five commercials played in constant rotation. It's pretty clear that the incompetence of the ad execs has been matched somewhat by the suckers that bought them.
Verbs:
CNN AD EXEC: So for an extra $15.95 a month, we'll run your ad SIX times every hour? Two at a time!SUCKER: I'm mommy's sweet angel. Where's my Barney blankie?CNN AD EXEC: Sign here.
Here's a couple of those commercials that assault my senses on a daily basis. Prosecution calls Korean Air.
This commercial is a cornucopia of cornball, ham-fisted suggestive imagery. The immediate reaction of anyone seeing this ad for the first time is going to be disbelief. It's got to be some kind of Saturday Night Live-like parody of the self-serious, desperately avant garde perfume ads of the 1980s. But no, this thing is entirely on the up-and-up. And I'm pretty sure I know how it happened.
Imagine the scene, a bunch of Korean Air execs are in the office of some gel-coiffed marketing reptile who leans back in his chair, throws open his hands and says: "What WORDS encapsulate the essence of your company?"
The Koreans then hurriedly pull out their pocket Korean-English dictionary and look up the words "encapsulate." Then they start flipping through pages and shouting out random bits of English, devoid of tense, context or any knowledge of parts of speech.
There are nouns:
There are nouns:
Verbs:
Adjectives:
Gerunds:
The sleazy ad guy jots down the words, but then realizes that he's spent his whole production budget on a failed spec ad for American Apparel or the iPhone or some shit. No problem. Just use the same stock footage, stick in the floaty words and some suggestive images.
Like, I wonder what this exploding champagne bottle is supposed to represent? A rocket ship? Are we talking space travel here? Holy fucking shit. Korean Air can thrust your ass to the goddamn moon.
I thought we were talking about airplanes though. I mean, it's got "Air" in the name, you'd assume there would be a big airliner...
Ah, there it is. Yes, it's just the nosecone of an enormous jet taxiing in to the gate. Excuse me a sec. Apropos of nothing, I'm just going to go into the next room and pound my girlfriend's cervix into jelly with my raging hard-on.
Our Chiat-Day dildo is almost home. The last thing is to head down to San Fernando Valley, pick up a couple extras from Asian Anal Annihilation Vol. 27: Rings of Fire and have them do their best "Oh" face for the camera in some tight air-waitress uniforms.
As sick and harmful to the social weal as this commercial is, it can not compare to the royalism, class warfare and degradation to human morals that is on display in this timeless ad for Tempura Ten-Ichi.
Cue the cheezy 1970s Muzak intro and then the lavish display of bounties from the farm and ocean. Check out all those mushrooms, man, and have you ever seen broccoli so green?
Why, look at those happy shrimp, jumping at joy for the life given to them by the Creator. Where is this paradise, this Garden of Eden made manifest in our sinful modern world? Hang on a sec, is that the hand of the Creator? Is that Him, grasping this small shrimp, this symbol for all that is puny before the grandiosity of Mother Earth and the Firmament?
Is that a lake or something He's dipping in... OH MY GOD! THAT SHRIMP IS BEING DEEP-FRIED ALIVE! THIS IS A FUCKING SNUFF FILM! AAAAAAAIGGHHHH!!!
What grisly devil could enjoy such a display of cruelty? Who'd derive pleasure, let alone an appetite, from witnessing this murder through torture? And this is on fucking television too! CNN, hold off for a second talking about the bloodshed on the Iranian streets. Take a fucking look at the horrorshow on your own network during the ad break.
It's no better seeing the stand-in diners they've chosen to indulge in this meal, described as "a feast fit for royalty, presidents... and you." OK, for one thing, stop trying to make me feel low-class just because I'm not Prince Snootikins from East-Doucheberg Anglia. And is this guy you're presenting as a potential regent or head of state? Maybe a vice-principal at a middle school.
He might have experience handing out tardy slips to punks in the hallways, but you can see in this dimwit's vacant expression, he ain't no policymaker.
You can just hear the internal dialogue of the chef: "Yes, naïve round-eye. Demean yourself with this childish bib. Soon you will enjoy the fruits of my torture pot. The lack of empathy for sentient beings that made my father such an effective interrogator of you white devils during the Pacific War has made me an excellent chef.
"Yes, munch away, gaijin. Eat yourself into slumber. Then I'll impress your woman with my cunningingual skills. I excuse me, English so difficult for me little Japanese. I mean, my 'culinary skills.'"
Yeah, she knows what's up. Look at that saucy granny's face of ecstasy. Is she munching on a deep-fried asparagus spear, or is her clitoris getting a tongue bath under the table?
Hang on, I've seen that "Oh, God, don't stop!" visage before....
I knew it! Get out of my head, CNN International! Keep your repetitive, subliminal images of sin off my fucking television. And where's the fucking Hills?
