Wed, Jul 21 2004

Hankering For A Hemi

I thought maybe I was a stereotypically doomed, clueless female when I started seeing all those TV commercials full of Hemi talk. Thank goodness there is also at least one male on the planet who has also been wondering what a Hemi is.

A lot of car commercials are completely lost on me. I like watching the car carrier ones Chevrolet did, but I don't think of them as something that pulls me to a car dealership. They were more like stunt clips from unmade films.

I think the part of the problem with car commercials, at least for me, is that they tend to go way beyond even the usual anthropomorphism of many product commercials. While the Michelin man may be cute and strong, his presence in commercials doesn't try to make me feel like I want to be a strong, wrinkled, smiling tire. The dancing ice cream bars in movie theatre concession commercials don't try to make me want to be a dancing ice cream bar. But car commercials seem to try to appeal to some fantasy that one can put their hand on life and change gears with ease, or go from zero to 60 in no time. That sexy, low-slung, road-hugging animal is not what people want their vehicle to be. It's what they want to be. If a truck has a Hemi, maybe they feel they too, have a Hemi, and are a stronger and more capable than most other humans.

This is what I think the car commercials are aiming for, but I'm not sure. For me, a vehicle represents something a bit different. It's a tool to get somewhere, and it's a tool that should have an enjoyable inside atmosphere during the journey. I know I can plunk down my money to buy that. But I know I can't just buy those other attributes. Those are things that take time, effort and sacrifice.

If you're going for the fantasy of being what you think the car is, I hope you'll at least take time to get the best deal you can get.

posted at: 10:55 | category: /Miscellaneous | link to this entry