Posted by Johnnymac 7:09 AM
Has everyone here seen the Liberty Mutual Commercial? The one where the guy picks up the baby doll and puts it back in the stroller and other people see similar acts of "responsibility" and the cycle perpetuates? If you have watched even 20 minutes of football in the past three months, you have seen it.

Well, in the spirit of my 32 year old curmudgeonliness, let me please point out that not all of these things are equal. Let's analyze.

1.) Picking up a kids doll and putting it back into the stroller: Probably OK, but the kid's mom might think you are creepy.

2.) Pushing a stranger's cup away from the edge of a table: A good idea, but even if it's about to hit the floor, I don't want a stranger coming up and moving my food on a restaurant table. It would probably piss me off and make me think that someone was trying to drug me or spit in my coffee.

3.) Helping a dude in a suit off of the ground: This one is probably the closest to the sense of "Responsibility" that the insurance company is trying to convey. I have no problem with this, although we don't know all of the details - is he on the ground because he was acting like a dick investment banker and some biker dude gave him what he deserved? If so, he probably needs to stay on the ground bleeding on his Armani suit. Frankly, we just don't know enough details. But that's OK, because this scene leads to...

4.) Opening the closed doors of an elevator to let someone else clamber inside: I'm sorry, I already have very strong feelings on this subject and doing this isn't responsible, it is just plain rude. Not to the person who is trying to squeeze in, but rather, it's rude to all of the other people already inside. Here's the deal: it's pretty clear that everyone else on this elevator had been waiting longer than this dude with the toothy grin, so they're probably running late or whatever. What gives this asshole the right to open the doors after they are already closed and delay everyone else even further? And if, as Mrs Johnnymac pointed out last night, you want to say that there are probably plenty of elevators in the lobby so none of these people were waiting a long time anyway, then why the hell can't this woman just wait for the next one herself? This is rude.

And get this - in all of the other scenes of this commercial, we see that someone has "witnessed" the "random act of kindness" and thus in the next seen he passes it on. Well, the elevator scene doesn't work like that because we don't see the character of the next scene in the elevator. Maybe he was, but I am thinking that everyone else in that elevator was thinking, "What a fucking prick! Remind me not to do anything rude like that for the rest of the day!" And POOF! The premise breaks down... So they paper over it when they go to the next scene, which is...

5.) Slapping someone's back window before he backs into a motorcycle: Sure, it's a good idea, but just slapping the window once won't do anything. If I were driving that truck I would probably be thinking, "What the fuck? When I finish parking this thing I'm going to get out and kick that guy's ass for slapping my truck!" And then I would finish parking and back right over the damn motorcycle. Which, incidentally, means that the girl who did this has both a really short attention span and didn't witness the ensuing motorcycle destruction AND is also really smart because from witnessing the pathetic attempt to rescue the motorcycle and the ensuing fight, she deduced just what was going on enough to...

6.) Save the guy from tipping over in his office chair: See #3 above. This is probably an OK thing to do, and it looks quite responsible but we just don't know enough details. This guy could be the office jerk sex-harrasser and thus would likely deserve to split open his noggin, but in this case, since it does appear that they work together, I am willing to bet that this woman knows the guy well enough to determine whether he is worth saving. This scene is the most legitimate one and likely is a good example of what an insurance company does. However, the next scene is unbelievable.

7.) Rescuing an illegal Guatemalan immigrant from a tottering tower of fresh produce: Sure, this is great, but watch the scene again. Does the file clerk from the office have ESP? How can she be 5 steps away and get there in time to save Julio when the first shot clearly shows that the crates of fruit are in a stable upright position? And if so, why is she just a file clerk? Why isn't she trading credit options or crude futures for the investment banker who recently fell down in the street? I don't get this one at all, but I sure hope my insurance company has ESP and pushes my house out of the flood zone right before the next TS Allison hits.

8.) Letting someone out of a parking lot: Again, rude. See #4, it's directly analogous. It's rude to the other people on the road who now have to wait for one more car to get out of the way before they can get where they are going and you don't have the right to make that decision on their behalf, OK? You know, really, it's that moron's fault in the first place for choosing to go to that location during rush hour. Why not just let the market work? If you take away the disincentives for people who choose to go there during congested times, you will always have congestion because no one pays the price by sitting in that parking lot forever. This is also a reflection on my feelings about the quite common practice here in Houston of using policemen to direct people in and out of private driveways and garages. WHY? Traffic is bad because the roads are over their capacity. Why not let people rot in traffic and give the city the incentive to build bigger roads or developers the incentive to build more office space in less crowded areas? Or even less draconian, if people knew they had to sit in horrible traffic is they got to work at 8:00 and left at 5:00, they might just have the incentive to come an hour earlier and leave an hour later. I don't see why we have to encourage the status quo. Anyway.

9.) Picking up a kids doll and putting it back into the stroller: Probably OK- errr, wait. Weren't we already discussing this? Oh, this is a different guy who witnessed the random act of rudeness on the crowded boulevard in South Central (how did he get from NYC to LA so fast???) so he decides to be nice to the baby. Which would be a cute ending, but if you look closely, he's putting the doll into the stroller of the guy from the start of the commercial, who in turn puts a doll back into the exact same stroller on the exact same street corner while wearing the exact same clothes. So what the hell is the point of the ending of this commercial? Random acts of kindness cause a rupture in spacetime and cause nice people to get caught in Groundhog Day? Huh? Even Einstein would be confused here, because how did all of these things happen and yet not happen? I don't get it.

In short, I hate this commercial. That's it. Now I have work to do.

0 Comment(s):

Post a Comment