During the whole fancy-smancy Cadillac sponsored CBS premiere night (which I deem successful, more to come) there were, as to be expected, quite a few Cadillac commercials. One stood out most to me. A man driving a Cadillac speeds down a dramatically lit street at night. Shots alternate between the car zooming through downtown, neon lights streaked in the windshield, and the man confidently shifting with dramatic bravado. The voice over says:
You can practice risk avoidance. You can aspire to blend in quietly. You can live in, wear, and drive social camoflage. And you can believe in the philosophy that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
Or
*cue music*
You can be the hammer.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. OK, that’s a metaphor for conformity. I get it. Being hammered down means that you are flush with the rest of the nails, the conforming nails, so you end up conforming too. Therefore, the hammer is the tool which is dealing out, for lack of a better word, hammerfalls of conformity. Hitherto, therefore, Cadillac is telling us that we should be—that with their cars we can be—the hammers of society, dolling out forced conformity on anyone who stands out?
I don’t want that. I’d rather be the teeth of that hammer, pulling others up to my level.
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Justin Dickinson
You might be reading too much into it, but I agree with you. What bothers me is that car companies with identity problems like Cadillac licence their brands with little thought. Today I saw a woman with a “designer” Cadillac purse. The logo was 3D and bigger than my hand (and I’ve got big hands; yes ladies I’m single :). The whole point of the Cadillac brand is upscale luxury and power. Apparently their target market is now trophy wives and douches.
September 25th, 2007 at 12:46 am