December? Remember To Be Financially Well Endowed

For three years now, the people of these-here United States have been struggling through a terrible recession. The worst, we are told, since the Great Depression! But that doesn't mean we should give in to despair, or give up the comforts we're accustomed to. No matter how bad it seems, there are some things we can still rely on—like the annual holiday ads in which happy rich people surprise their significant others by buying them luxury cars.



What could be more uplifting than this couple of smiling, post-hipster yuppies, so breezily fluent with hand-held devices and so deep of pockets? You can already tell how sweet she is, buying him that car, but notice the short "do" she's sporting?—most likely she sold her beautiful long hair to pay for the $200 smart-phone she gave him, solely for the purpose of playfully alerting him to the fact that his real gift is a car with a price tag in excess of the U.S. median income.

Oh yes, it's a beautiful scene of domestic bliss. (It also gives new meaning to the words "White Christmas.") And yet it seems something is missing. Well, their abode is conspicuously lacking a fixed gear bike, but that's probably just because West Elm doesn't sell them yet. Anyway, it's not that. It's something less tangible.

But let's not lose the holiday spirit; here's another tableau of cheerful generosity.



This version of the Lexus Christmas Fable is in many ways the opposite of the last one. We are spirited away from the young Caucasian couple in their urban penthouse loft apartment to a suburban house, inhabited by an African American family. And while the young urbanites bought a white car, this family went with a black one. Lexus has something for everyone!

As a side note, I'm troubled by the way the woman in this ad is audibly gasping for air every 3 seconds.



She might want to see a cardiologist about that. Or at the very least, an acting coach.

Potentially imminent cardiac events aside, both ads offer visions of caring and gracious people filled with the spirit of giving. So why is it that watching these feel-good domestic vignettes, instead of filling me with holiday cheer, makes me want to stab my TV with a turkey fork?

Yikes—hostility! I need to clear my head—let me take a deep breath and meditate on this.

Hmm.

(I like to intone the syllable "hmm" when I meditate—it's like a less embarrassing form of "Om.")

Aha—I think I have it. What seems to be lacking from these ads is something called "shame."

It's not that I believe well-off, gleeful people shouldn't buy $60K stocking stuffers for their loved ones. It's just that it's hard to believe, given the economic climate, that a company like Lexus could be so tone deaf in their TV ads.

Hmm.

Then again, it's not hard to believe at all, since being shamelessly tone deaf is a cornerstone of luxury car marketing.

To wit: while the common rabble are risking hefty doses of pepper spray at the hands of law enforcement to protest economic inequality (or just pepper spraying each other in order to get their hands on a reduced-price X-Box), Lexus persists with portrayals of the "better-offs" saying to their domestic partners—by way of wedding-proposal-worthy gimmicks—We have so much disposable income that I didn't feel it necessary to consult with you before I bought you what most people would consider a very major purchase, complete with leather interior, moon roof and multiple climate zones. Probably heated seats, too, but to be honest I wasn't paying that close attention.

I was going to complain that these ads are obnoxious because they rub rich people's riches in the faces of the dirty-and-poor-rest-of-us; however, having watched upwards of 4,000 Republican presidential debates in the last 8 weeks, I have become sensitive to the sensitivities of the mega-rich, and so I do not wish to perpetuate "class warfare." (Mostly because I hate being guilty of something when I don’t understand what it means.) With that in mind, like an erstwhile Republican-hopeful I am repackaging my irritation with an unassailable pro-family spin.

Lexus seems unaware that television is not the exclusive domain of potential Lexus customers. In fact—and I'm just pulling this number out of the air—something like, I don't know, 99% of TV viewers in this country are in no position to buy a Lexus. And a lot of them are hard working people with children who require food and/or electronics and a spouse whose affection is entirely reliant on the reassurance provided by expensive gifts. So the main effect of these Lexus ads (in which purchasing a Lexus appears effortless for those with love in their hearts) is to make gift-giving spouses feel ashamed and inadequate. And, that, you see, is an attack on the American Family. (See how I twisted that around? I guess all that debate watching is finally paying off.)

But do not despair, for there are still good tidings which may yet bring comfort and joy. If you are just such a sad but family-oriented gift-giver (a.k.a. a TV viewer of limited means), there is one remedy, which is to purchase jewelry from Kay Jewelers.



While not nearly as extravagant, this too will allow you to curry favor with your spouse, because as you have heard, “Every kiss begins with Kay.” So maybe you can't afford a fancy car, but things can still work out for you; Kay's slogan is, of course, the most subtle way of reminding consumers of the age-old social contract: Giving jewelry will get you what's colloquially known as "ass."

I can't help but wonder, if a relatively affordable diamond necklace will allow you to "surround her with the strength of your love," what's the result when you buy your mate a luxury car? I don’t travel in the right circles to speak the secret language, but I suspect that for those in the upper financial echelons of our society these car ads include coded intimations of copious amounts of freaky, perhaps cocaine-fueled, spousal, uh, "heated seats" in the roomy leather interior of the gift-wrapped Lexus ES, in reciprocation for the gifting of such vehicle.

Hmm.

At least that part is pro-family, more or less.

Acura: The Elegance of Ugliness

Luxury car ads have made me a little bit crazy for years. Mainly this is because, as I see it, they have an ugly tendency of pandering to the moneyed egos of a certain class of people who are entirely devoid of empathy. In recent weeks I’ve started to think that in addition to courting those particular consumers, they’re also deliberately pissing off people like me (whose egos lack the financial resources necessary to smother their basic humanity). What else could explain this shamelessly irritating ad campaign?



“Aggression in its most elegant form.”
At first it doesn't seem so bad. There's an Acura juxtaposed with a boxing glove. And it's not just any old mitt, but rather a finely pedigreed—probably vintage—glove of brown leather: an object evoking the era of proper gentlemen, refined but physically adept, who—when not on safari or exploring the Amazon—would likely be found sipping cognac while surrounded by leather-bound books, old maps and astrolabes. And that glove's not made of just any old leather; it's some sort of exotic, textured hide, that maybe once had feathers or scales on it. It could have come from an ostrich, or even a gryphon or a basilisk!


For the truly refined individual, only the integument of an endangered/fictional animal will do.

Regardless of whatever fanciful creature gave its skin to allow proper gents to pummel the daylights out of one another without bruising their own well-moisturized knuckles, there's an analogy at work here: like the boxing glove, the car is, aesthetically speaking, all "fancy-pants," but metaphorically it's meant for pounding people into the dirt. Mind you, the Acura people, or their lawyers anyway, would say it's not intended to intimate any kind of violence, but merely the power and precision of a skilled athlete (in this case a particular sort of pugilist, who happens to appreciate a well-crafted clobbering-gauntlet).

Personally I find it hard to believe that this ad was not intended to exude at least a subtext of violent domination; however, Acura's campaign features other ads which might lend credence to the athletic artistry interpretation. These other ads can be seen on TV—I just started with the magazine ad because it was easier to fit onto my scanner. Anyway, having since mastered the art of cutting and pasting a line of HTML, here's one of those TV spots:



That's the athlete Calvin Johnson. His refined aggression is directed into the bone-crushing sport of football. Well, maybe that's not helping the case. Let's try another one:



Now, that is World Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist skier Ashleigh McIvor. And that's a commercial with a different angle—you'll notice that when a luxury car ad omits masculine power, it creates a vacuum that can be filled only with female sexuality. But no matter: the point is Ashleigh is a skilled athlete in the non-contact solo sport of ski-cross, where being aggressive means "attacking" the corners and making skilled calculations at speeds rivaling that of, say, a luxury car.

So there you have it. If the solo cello music wasn't enough to convince you, the association of an attractive, female practitioner of an aggressive yet non-violent sport should surely be persuasion enough that Acura intends only benevolent connotations in these commercials, right? There's only one problem. No matter how positive and benign a person taking part in one of these ads may be, once you put the word "aggression" in the context of cars, you are talking about road rage. You are talking about the behavior of people who are, as the kids say, "A-holes."

Ultimately Acura is peddling "aggression," not "being aggressive in an artful way." They can dress the concept up nicely and call it "elegant," but really it comes down to the appeal of revving a big engine—a display of the kind of power that is the result of having an expensive car and having a foot, which is not the same as the power or aggressive instinct that comes from spending years of your life developing a skill.

The advertising goal here is to appeal to base desires while convincing the target market that they are superior to everyone else who is motivated by those same desires. All the common rabble are power hungry and arrogant. But this—this is poised arrogance—so you can feel good about being a solipsistic asshole. Sorry, I meant "A-hole"—I'm trying to keep things elegant.