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    Ram Truck’s Super Bowl Spot Draws Backlash For Use of MLK Speech

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments2707 Views
    This file photo provided by Ram Truck Brand shows a scene from the company's Super Bowl spot. The Ram truck ad that used a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., is drawing a backlash. The ad shows people doing service-oriented tasks set against audio of King's speech, which urges people to be "great" by serving the greater good rather than being successful. But it was criticized by viewers and ad experts alike for forging too tenuous a connection with the civil rights hero. (Ram Truck Brand via AP, File)

    By Mae Anderson

    NEW YORK (AP) --

    A Ram truck ad that used a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., is drawing a backlash.

    The ad shows people doing service-oriented tasks set against audio of King's speech, which urges people to be "great" by serving the greater good. It was supposed to highlight the volunteer program Ram Nation.

    But it was criticized by viewers and ad experts alike for forging too tenuous a connection with the civil rights hero.

    On Twitter, most people expressed the idea that using King's speech to "sell trucks" crossed a line between a heartfelt message and exploiting emotions just to push a vehicle.

    "They pushed it over the edge," said Kelly O'Keefe, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's Brandcenter. "You wanted to root for it because the cause is good, but it just didn't end up fitting the brand, so you ended up feeling a little bit manipulated."

    "The use of MLK to promote Ram trucks strikes many people as crass and inappropriate," said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University.

    Watching at home, some viewers expressed distaste for the ad as well.

    "I liked being reminded of Martin Luther King's speech (but) I'm not sure it was fitting for a truck commercial," said Kimberly Stites, who was watching the game in Gretna, Nebraska. "I would have liked it better if they had said something like, 'This reminder of all that we can be brought to you by ….'"

    Fiat Chrysler said in a statement that it worked closely with the King estate on the ad.

    The firm managing King's intellectual property, Intellectual Properties Management, said in a statement that it approved the ad because it embodied King's philosophy.

    On Twitter, the King Center in Atlanta said neither it nor Bernice King, King's daughter, are in charge of licensing King's speeches or other intellectual property.

    The ad is not the first one to use a King Speech. Telecom Alcatel used King's "I Have a Dream" speech in a 1999 ad that was also approved by IPM.

    That ad shows King giving his most famous speech to an empty Mall in Washington D.C. to illustrate the idea that "before you can touch, you must first connect."

    Faith In The Power of Holy Horror To Connect With Moviegoers–From “The Exorcist” To “Heretic”

    Saturday, November 16, 2024

    In the new horror movie, "Heretic," Hugh Grant plays a diabolical religious skeptic who traps two scared missionaries in his house and tries to violently shake their faith.

    What starts more as a religious studies lecture slowly morphs into a gory escape room for the two door-knocking members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, underscoring just how well-suited religion can be for terrifying and entertaining thrill-seeking moviegoers.

    "I think it is a fascinating religion-related horror as it raises questions about the institution of religion, the patriarchy of religion," said Stacey Abbott, a film professor at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England, whose research interests include horror, vampires and zombies.

    "But it also questions the nature of faith and confronts the audience with a debate about choice, faith and free will."

    Horror has had a decades-long attraction to religion, Christianity especially in the U.S., with the 1970s "The Exorcist" and "The Omen" being prime examples. Beyond the jump scares, the supernatural elements of horror and its sublime nature pair easily with belief and spirituality — and religion's exploration of big existential questions, Abbott said. Horror is subversive. Real-life taboo topics and cultural anxieties are fair game.

    "It is a rich canvas for social critique and it can also be a space to reassert traditional values," Abbott said in an email.

    Death, demons and other tough topics religion and horror address

    Religions and horror tackle similar questions about what it means to be human — how people relate to one another and the world, said Brandon Grafius, a Biblical studies professor at Ecumenical Theological Seminary in Detroit and an expert on... Read More

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