The Green Police, They…Aren’t All That Funny.
Of all the commercials I saw during Sunday’s Super Bowl, the creepiest by far was Audi’s “Green Police” ad which was supposed to laugh at the poor, beknighted fools being hauled away to goodness knows where by a new environmental police force while the cool Audi drivers got to speed away from the Stasi…I’m sorry, Green Police’s, disapproval.
Michelle Malkin has done most of the heavy lifting as to why the commercial’s real message of “fascism is fun!” isn’t quite so funny when you consider that the enviro-cops have already set up shop, albeit sans catchy Cheap Trick knock-off soundtrack. I won’t cover the ground she’s already covered very well, but I will highlight one big fat lie on Audi’s “Green Police” web site.
Here, according to Audi, is why their commercial is really just an innocent bag of yuks.
Now consumers have help, from the Green Police.
As part of the lead up to their third consecutive Super Bowl ad, Audi has created a fictional Green Police unit that are caricatures of today’s “green movement”. The Green Police are a humorous group of individuals that have joined forces in an effort to collectively help guide consumers to make the right decision when it comes to the environment. They’re not here to judge, merely to guide these decisions.
So they’re “not here to judge” and only want to “guide” us, eh? Well, let’s just take a look at that commercial for a quick second uick and see what this not-judging and laughalicious guiding really looks like.
Wow, it didn’t take long for our non-judgmental Green Police guide to slam a guy’s head onto a checkout counter and frog-march…err, “guide”…him out of a grocery store, did it? Then there was the “humorous” warrantless search of every garbage can in the neighborhood leading to a bum rush of a private residence where the “caricatures” will no doubt “help” the resident right into a court date. And how about that guy carefully “guided” into a police car after being “arrested”? I bet he didn’t feel judged at all, especially by the big spotlight from the helicopter and the news vans parked in front of his house. And how about the guy dragged out of the pool who is almost cuffed before he takes off, with the Green Guides in hot pursuit? It sure seemed he had all kinds of Green Shirt…oops “Police”…help, didn’t he?
I’ve seen guiding and, friends, that’s not it. It takes a certain amount of gumption (I use that word because the more accurate word is NSFW) to say that a uniformed force dragging people out of grocery stores and hot tubs is “humorous” and “not here to judge”. Audi is, to use a polite phrase, full of beans and its commercial is only a solid minute of innocent fun if you had never read a history book, or George Orwell, for that matter. But if you’re one of the people who’ll end up doing Green Time for your sins if the environmental movement gets its way, it’s probably not all that funny.
Some people just don't get it. Audi was mocking the crazies who want to control our lives. They showed that the company can do something responsible — 42 mpg — with existing technology. People don't have to be oppressed and business doesn't have to be killed. That was the point.
Times are changing, and it is clear by this adds impact that people really are interested in being green. After all, I would much rather have an add like this over one like the Bud light house add that just makes fun of environmentalism. If you want to see this add and a little commentary on the two check out this article by The Greener Truth.
http://thegreenertruth.com/2010/02/this-greenwash...
yes audi supports a "green agenda" it would be death if you didn't. But you can still mock and not get blacklisted by the green movement.
I hate the green movement.
I wonder what Holocaust survivors would think of the term "Green Police"? They would know them as "Ordnungspolizei". A tasteless choice of names.
no relation and a bad translation
Really? No relation? I was referring to the tasteless name use. You missed the point. Consider naming a college mascot the "Nazis" becaue they blitzkrieg. Same poor taste. As for the translation? How so? That was their proper name. Perhaps You would be familiar with their nickname "Orpo".
Trent, here is the first paragraph of the “Ordnungspolizei” on Wikipedia.
“The Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) was the name for the uniformed regular German police force in existence during the period of Nazi Germany, notably between 1936 and 1945. It was increasingly absorbed into the Nazi police system. Owing to their green uniforms, they were also referred to as Grüne Polizei (green police). The Orpo brought together the city and municipal uniformed forces that had been organised on a state-by-state basis and covered the towns and cities whereas the Gendarmerie (in Württemberg known as the Landjäger) covered small towns and rural areas.”
They were known as the…. drum-roll please…. GREEN POLICE.
The intent of the commercial was to create a feeling of constriction, coupled with a visceral release of that constriction at the same time they told you the product they were selling. Everyone else is trapped: you, the Audi driver are free. In hypnosis this is called anchoring. You set up a feeling, then connect it on an unconscious level to a trigger, such as a word or movement. We experience this often unintentionally when we hear some song or smell some smell or eat some food that takes us back in time. Nissan did a very carefully crafted set of such commercials 5-10 years ago.
It seems to me that the foundational problem the Left has is that they are morally rootless. There are no unambiguous, personal moral committments they can make, outside of the constant propaganda drumbeat that tells them what to think, as expressed in most of our media, our schools, and our newspapers.
The precise value of ritual acts like recycling–which manifestly use in many cases more energy than simply throwing away and replacing–is that they represent an ersatz moral code. It is something you, as an individual, can do, and always feel confident without checking the New York Times that you are doing what is right. It hurts no one (on their rendering). No decisions need be made in conditions of moral ambiguity.
Yet, a constant problem of lacking principles is that the definition of acceptable behavior remains overly mutable, which causes Leftists to want, in the end, to conflate legal restrictions with their ersatz moral codes–the provisional practices that enable the community they need to define itself. They ban what they don't like, and they see no problems in this, since in their world no other valid propositions are possible.
I am currently building a website where I will deal, among many other things, with the long term social effects of propaganda, in most cases merely by rendering accessible ideas from Jacques Ellul, penned some 50 years ago.
I've seen the Green Police You-tube site. If this is a parody, they are taking it a long way.
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenpolice
I'll help them create a new law for internal lead poisoning they try that crap with me.
Well, I didn't really want to buy an Audi, anyway.
Anyone who wants to evaluate this commercial should first read what Audi itself says on its web site:
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While the Audi Green Police will be reaching over 100 million on Super Bowl Sunday, we hope that their efforts provide even a fraction of the benefits that the everyday official green police units in the United States, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and Israel are having in educating their populace and enforcing environmental protection laws within their own countries.
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Audi clearly and vocally supports, approves of, and promotes everything the Green movement is doing worldwide.
david I love you baby but you are wrong.
I love this ad because the Clean Deisel is a tweek to the Green's agenda just like clean coal.
I love the timing of the TDI the same week the "PIUS" I meen Prius gets a recall. There is a feeling in the green movement that practical ideas like the TDI with a 42 mpg and still using oil in a clean way is not good. Liberals don't want solutions they want problems.
David didn't write this one. I did.
I think you miss the point of the post. though I find the commerical creepy, I find it far more creepy that Audi misrepresents the commercial on its own web site. the company wants us to think the "Green Police" is just a lighthearted caricature who help "guide" people and don't judge. They're something to find cute and to laugh at. However, what's really happening in the commerical, under all the cuteness, is pretty ugly.
audi is just trying to sell cars
and they are mocking the PC world
Its creepy! that is what the "global warming" group is aiming for. All those that waste will be fined and arrested.
It would be bad (not to mention the 'justified' riots, burning, and beheadings by practitioners of the religion of peace) if they did these sorts of things to terrorists, even in a commercial. It's all fun, funny, and good to do to supposed polluters and energy wasters. It might have amused me if a granny ran 'em off her porch with an old goose gun, or they'd shown 'em tryin' that crap in da hood, but those were Americans being euros in the commercial.
Did anybody notice anything all the supposed perps had in common in that commercial? If they were all anything else the WB&M (whinin, b*tchin, and moanin), along with the protests and demands for diversity and handouts would be in full swing by the next day.
Sometimes ad people go overboard trying to be cutting edge and end up turning off as many as they interest. The company approved it, and I agree, it was a creepy and bad call..
I loved the Audi ad and my opinion of Audi has really gone up. They are really way ahead of the curve.
They successfully poked fun at both sides: the eco-nazis and the unconscious slobs who insist upon their right to pollute. Each side may be offended. Conversely, each side may find the ad 'supporting' their position….."You see! We aren't to far from a eco-police state!" or "You see! Finally those polluting slugs are getting busted!" This diversity of layers (or levels) in the ad increases it's influence tremendously. Then to have a nice Cheap Trick tune bouncing around your head for a few days is the cherry on top!