By Robert Goldrich
“We had an emotional tenor to the work that was very patriotic, nostalgic. It felt kind of like we were licking our wounds,” said Pete Harvey, partner/creative director at barrettSF in his assessment of this year’s crop of Super Bowl spots.
“With the recession, the economy in recovery, coming out of a war, it was like we could be American again and be proud of that–we saw that reflected in the Budweiser ‘Puppy Love’ spot, Chrysler, and the Budweiser commercial about the soldier coming home,” continued Harvey. “There was a lot of flag waving, an acknowledgement that we’ve come through tough times together. And all of this didn’t seem like all that a deliberate effort. It’s just when you look at the body of spots as a whole, these same emotions came through. It’s quite a departure from the kick-in-the-nuts Bud Light humor. Things this time around were more deeply thoughtful.”
Harvey’s comments caused me to re-think my take on this year’s Big Game ads. While hardly a stellar body of work, there was something comforting about the mix of commercials.
The sophomoric, lowest common denominator and sometimes mean spirited humor of years past was no longer part of the equation.
Indeed there’s something to be said for focusing on what unites us. After all, that’s what the Super Bowl is all about as a medium–a rare, shared experience capturing most of the country’s eyeballs. It’s a far cry from the fragmented media landscape which can insulate us from one another–and even worse at times serve as a spawning ground for polarization.
Divisiveness has become an industry on TV. “News” channel shows that brand the liberals or the conservatives, depending on your political stripes, as ruining America (in part fueling the back and forth on the Coca-Cola Big Game spot “It’s Beautiful”) have grown in prominence, raising the decibel level and diminishing common ground.
Then you have the steady diet of reality series where one clique or person denigrates another, providing an exercise in pettiness, nasty exchanges and materialistic values that serve as sport.
Fragmented media tend to fragment us. So on the Super Sunday that brings viewers together, it’s only fitting that the commercials reflect at least some of the shared values that unite and uplift us.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More