It's just a commercial. Wipe your ass with it already.
Of course I'm talking about a Pepsi ad that I haven't even seen. And I am PROUD of the fact that I haven't even seen it. I keep hearing people say it's the most "tone-deaf" thing they have ever seen... apparently all other commercial ads in all other forms of media are suddenly tolerable because of their pitch-perfect attention to the zeitgeist.
I just don't get why people are now up in arms about a corporate entity co-opting revolutionary rhetoric and/or imagery for profit. I mean, how many variations on the Shepard Fairey "HOPE" poster have we seen since 2008? Remember when Nike used The Beatles' "Revolution" in an ad for their shoes? How about Madonna using the faces of iconic rebels in history to promote her last album?
Speaking of Madge (as she is known these days) she made some sort of statement against Pepsi by being photographed with a Coca-Cola recently. The headlines say she was "throwing shade". I don't understand why she would, seeing as she profited off the controversy generated by the "Like A Prayer" video... which was different from the actual "Make A Wish" Pepsi ad that only aired once during a broadcast of The Cosby Show and had no provocative imagery or message.
Is this what we've been reduced to, people? Has Trumpp's reign been so dispiriting that we've resorted to fetishizing and celebrating this type of bullshit?
At least Steve Bannon has been removed from the National Security Council, a position he weaseled his way into. And the Russia stuff is gaining steam, despite the GOP's best efforts to pin it all on Susan Rice. But if this is how low it's going to get, then I fear for us all.
I read an article that talks about how the Kendall Jenner commercial takes an image from the Black Lives Matter protests and runs with it, but really this is an image as old as the Flower Power picture of a hippie putting daisies in the rifles of military police, which is certainly older than the famous Tienanmen Square image from the late '80s. The trope of the naive innocent (if Kendall can be called that) confronting the monster of oppression may even be as ancient as the biblical story of David and Goliath. It is nothing new, definitely nothing sacred, and if Pepsi wants to exploit that image then people should really stop acting outraged and shocked, because it's a drop in the bucket compared to what else they have exploited... and will exploit in the future.
As a person who loathes commercials in any form (because they have a short shelf life and are ultimately disposable... and therefore worthless in my estimation) I really do not understand why anyone would be upset about this. If you're just arriving to that outrage party, then you're late and you have no excuse. Your time would be better served making sure that Trumpp's agenda gets no further than his executive order desk. Hell, your time would be better served by not watching commercials ever again, for that matter. But in this day and age, where armchair activists pat themselves on the back for knowing who Bernie Sanders is, that may be too much to ask.
