Superbowl XLIX: The Commercials - Part 2.

This should be read as a direct continuation of this; http://watchitdie.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/superbowl-xlix-commercials.html

If the Jeep commercial ended up - through no fault of its own - the most controversial commercial then the most popular was Budweiser's "Lost Dog" commercial which I'm assured was loved and respected by all due to it's warm heart, massive intelligence and amazing natural beauty.

It showed a cute Labrador puppy growing up alongside cart horses (I call them Shire horses) on a farm. Then one day the stupid little puppy climbs onto the wrong truck and gets lost in the big bad city. While an acoustic version of "500 Miles" by the Scottish twins "The Proclaimers"  plays there are lots of lingering shots of the horses mourning the loss of their little buddy while the puppy goes on a long journey trying to make its way back to the farm.

Just as the puppy is nearly home it is confronted by a grey wolf and although the puppy tries its best to look brave and frightening you know that it is surely about to die. However the horses somehow sense that the puppy is in trouble so break out of their stalls and rush to the rescue scaring the wolf away. In one glorious moment the puppy seems to think that it has scared the wolf away all by itself before realising that the horses are behind it.

Now in a controversial year this could have just been Budweiser playing it safe by going; "Awww, aren't puppies cute!" However when this thing between Rihanna and I got started Chris Brown and I were portrayed as sort of duelling horses particularly in the 2012 "Diamonds" video. Some people then suggested that I was perhaps more like the cart horse "Boxer" in the George Orwell novel "Animal Farm."

As Animal Farm is an allegory about the perils of Communism this theme came up during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics that was the first such event to be held in post-Communist Russia. During the games the US backed a Nazi group known as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UIA) to overthrow the government of Sochi's near neighbour Ukraine. At the height of the Nazi holocaust the most brutal unit of the UIA were known as "The Grey Wolves" and their atrocities are still celebrated in Ukraine to this day.

As such I like to think that this was Budweiser being seen to apologise for attempting to ruin the 2014 Football World Cup Final by inviting Rihanna along in the hope the US would follow suit and apologise for trying to ruin the Winter Olympics and Ukraine by inviting along the Grey Wolves.

On the subject of my all important ego I was also impressed by Wix's "It's That Easy" commerical featuring Korean American actor Rex Lee giving career advice to Brett Favre now his sporting career is over.

In order to understand why I enjoyed this you also have seen Nationwide's other big commerical which featured Mindy Kaling pretending that she was invisible. This was just another Pravda theme commercial challenging the notion that women are considered invisible in a sexist society. Of course what I heard was; "The Ministry of Labour in the Glorious Socialist Republic of Obama has determined that women can produce tractors at the same rate as men. Therefore it is mandated that women be treated equally!"

Mindy Kaling really broke through onto TV with her show "The Mindy Project." This was part of a fashion for female led comedy shows that included "New Girl" and "2 Broke Girls" along with some others that didn't quite make it. My favourite though was "Suburgatory" which featured Rex Lee as a guidance counsellor.

Physically the main character in Suburgatory played by Jane Levy is just a ginger version of my lesbian wife. So while you were all watching a hit and miss teen sitcom I was engaged in a ferocious battle of wills with the shows creator Emily Kapnek who is also reflected in the lead character.

It must be said though that about half-way through season 2 Kapnek realised that she might have bitten off more then she could chew. So I positively revelled in the scene in episode 1 of season 3 where the lead character is suddenly glad she's got the mean old dog to keep her company because most of the rest of the regular cast had committed to other things on the assumption that the show had already been cancelled.

So apart from appealing massively to my vanity Wix's advert was also whispering in Nationwide's ear; "We know what you're up too, it really is that easy."

I was also impressed by Snickers big commerical featuring Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi. This was just the latest instalment of the "Your Not Yourself When You're Hungry" campaign which should be familiar to people in both the US and across Europe. Using a lot of computer trickery this one imposes Danny Trejo who is famous for playing machismo thugs in films like "Desperado," "From Dusk Till Dawn" and "Machete" into a famous episode on that loved family sitcom "The Brady Bunch." In the scene Trejo plays Marcia Brady as she's throwing a strop and being told off by the parents Mike and Carol Brady.

Through the trial Aaron Hernandez I think it's been established that for the purposes of this year's Super Bowl discussions "Hispanic" really means "Black adjacent." So this scene of Trejo's thug being put in his place by the all-American, white parents plays on the Black Lies Matter protesters who charged around thinking they were winning great battles against racism while everybody else was sitting back wondering what their problem was.

Depending on how you viewed the protests the Snickers commerical was either mocking the arrogance of so-called white privilege or showing that the protesters really need to grow up. However unlike Mophie's attempts to play both sides the Snicker's commerical moved the discussion forwards when Trejo ate a Snickers and turned back into the scared little girl of Marcia Brady.

In my experience these young thugs who act all tough be they black, white or hispanic are actually trying really hard to cover up the fact that they're just scared little girls inside. If you look at the violence, crime and drugs in America's ghettos it's really easy to see what they're so afraid of. The question then is whether all that crime and violence is the result of racism or whether perhaps it is something that black America is inflicting on itself?

The commerical ended with Steve Buscemi throwing what I would term "A big gay hissy fit." This was intentionally funny to watch but the image of a man playing extremely camp in a traditionally female role fits with the gender-bending sub-text of the entire campaign. Gay rights and in particular transgender rights are a big global talking point at the moment because scientifically it is very interesting the way that some parts of the human body can develop as male while other parts of the same body can develop as female.

I think what really pushed the issue to the top of the global agenda was South African runner Caster Semenya winning Gold in the women's 800m at the 2009 Athletics World Championships. This prompted other competing nations to accuse Semenya of being a man and therefore a cheat for entering the women's event.

Amid furious discussion the International Association of Athletic Federations (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) assembled the best experts they could find and subjected Semenya to rigorous gender tests. These tests determined that despite having exclusively female genitalia on a cellular level Semenya is in fact male. As a result Semenya has more or less retired from international competition because she's almost impossible to classify outside of disabled sport.

Once they'd finished their investigation the IAAF and the IOC shared their findings and conclusions with their member nations. As a result we've now reached a point where even nations like India where homosexuality is still considered a crime are offering "Transgender" or "Intersex" as a legitimate gender option alongside "Male" and "Female."

Perhaps coming late to the party Bruce Jenner - former US Olympian and step-father to Kim Kardashian and father to Kendall Jenner - has recently announced that he is transgendered and is transitioning from male to female. This is the sort of thing that gets Kim Kardashian upgraded to that flight to meet me that already includes Rihanna, Katy Perry and at this point probably Jane Levy and Emily Kapnek.

While transgenderism and homosexuality are scientific facts like say dwarfism they are most certainly not the same thing and there is a whole spectrum of weird between the two. As a result I really don't feel happy about giving firm conclusions about someone I've never met to someone I hardly know.

It almost goes without saying then  that I've often found that many gay people can be unsettled by transgender rights in exactly the same way that many straight people are sometimes unsettled by gay-rights issues they just simply cannot get their head around.

Finally I should mention the Skittles "Settle It" commerical. This featured residents of Small-Town, Anywhere, USA gathering together in the style of a spaghetti-western shootout to settle a dispute. However all the residents of the town have hugely muscled right arms while the rest of their body is normal.

I'm sure that this is a reference to the important role that a quarter-back's throwing arm plays in American Football and not a schoolboy joke about masturbation. Given that Trayvon Martin was famously carrying a bag of Skittles when he was killed I think it was just brave of the brand to turn up this year.

At 16:40 on 6/2/15 (UK date).

Edited at around 15:00 on 7/2/15 (UK date) and again at 16:40 on 7/2/15 (UK date) because my PC threw a strop to add: Although not difficult writing up the Super Bowl has turned out to be really time consuming. As a result I tend to rush making silly little errors like spelling mistakes and forgetting to include key words. So I've now tidied up the above a bit.

However there is still the latest update on Doritos Super Bowl journey. Although many of them stayed away this year there are the Big Beasts of Super Bowl commercials. Essentially the big US automakers and beer companies these guys have huge budgets and literally decades of experience in producing Super Bowl commercials. During the game a lot of snack food like tortilla chips - Doritos is the leading brand - are consumed. So for years people have been going; "Dude! Doritos should totally do a Super Bowl commercial."

A couple of years ago Doritos finally relented and announced that not only were they running their first ever Super Bowl commercial they were also putting in place a multi-year marketing strategy to allow them to become one of the Big Beasts. As a result everyone pays close attention to the Doritos commercials to see how their strategy is going. This of course just heaps a whole extra level of pressure on Doritos.

For the most part Doritos have avoided doing a single, big Super Bowl commercial in favour of doing lots of little ones that are intended to make people laugh rather then comment on any great cultural issue. This year was really no exception with one Doritos commercial showing a family at a barbecue excitedly gathering around to hear babies first words. When the baby finally speaks it says simply; "Doritos!" in a loud adult voice.

Another commercial features a fake consumer testimonial from a woman whose husband has started behaving like a child now that he eats Doritos. A large proportion of the 114.7 million Americans who watched this years Super Bowl will have been husbands - much to the annoyance of their wives.

Doritos did touch on slightly more serious issues with its commercial that showed a young girl at a traditional lemonade stand on a suburban street that could have been anywhere in America. A man comes up to her and explains that he's not interested in lemonade but he would like to buy the bag of Doritos which are in the background. More and more people join him until the girl pulls out a bullhorn/loud hailer and starts auctioning off the Doritos.

This reminded me of a global campaign by HSBC bank that also features a little girl at a lemonade stall. However that little girl has priced up the lemonade in all the main global currencies. In a later commercial this girl of around 9 or 10 years old drags her father all the way to India to negotiate a better deal on the price of lemons from her supplier. The message being that no matter what market, anywhere in the World you're trying to operate in HSBC will already be there to support you.

The loud and slightly aggressive way that the girl in the Doritos commercial conducts her auction reminded my of the old bear pits of stock and currency exchanges. As such I think Doritos were trying to point out just how massively competitive the global market they're trying to compete in with these Super Bowl commercials now is. You can't help but think the US automakers could have done with learning that lesson a little sooner.

While I don't think the discussion about the Super Bowl and its commercials ever really ends I've finally reached a point where I seem to have nothing further to contribute.

17:30 on 7/2/15 (UK date)