Chrysler’s Popular and Controversial Super Bowl Commercial: Clint Eastwood in It’s Halftime in America (UPDATED)
The Super Bowl commercial that is getting the most welcome and unwelcome buzz is Chrysler’s moving “It’s Halftime in America” commercial featuring the great Clint Eastwood, who praises American’s tradition of coming together and acting as one in times of adversity. He points to how Detroit was written off but survived.
Who could argue that was some kind of manipulative political, ideological statement? (Some Republicans suggest it was to boost Barack Obama’s re-election chances and some Democrats felt it might be suggesting its time to change the coach — a view voiced on several talk shows).
Who could argue that a commercial featuring Eastwood — reportedly considered a possibility for Vice President in 1988 by President George H.W. Bush, when Eastwood was the Republican Mayor of Carmel, CA — – would be the face of insidious Democratic Party propaganda, the puppet of liberal ideology trying to plant the message that Barack Obama should be re-elected. Karl Rove, that’s who, among others.
SPECIAL UPDATE: Eastwood told Fox News this ad was not political:
“I am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama,” Eastwood told Fox News Channel on Monday.
“It was meant to be a message,” Eastwood told The O’Reilly Factor producer Ron Mitchell, “just about job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it. I thought the spirit was OK.”
These are the days when everything must be twisted into some kind of a partisan attack (by the way: did you know that Red Riding Hood was a socialist tool of municipal bus unions?).
But for just one second – puh-leaze – if you haven’t see it, watch this ad that tries to appeal to the best in Americans, even though some have forgotten that the best in America doesn’t always mean partisan politics.
Or always include it…
UPDATE: Chrysler insists there was nothing political in the ad (which means those attacking the ad and the company will say they are lying and that it’s really part of a campaign to re-elect Obama. Why bother watching the talking heads — or in some cases competing screaming heads from the same party shouting what you’d expect them to shout — when you increasingly know what will be said in our 24/7 hyper-partisan era?)
UPDATE II: As this becomes more (what else?) politicized, the stories multiply but some don’t fit in with the narratives some would like. To wit:
The video talking about Detroit was filed in New Orleans (FYI I live in San Diego and many times Los Angeles has doubled for San Diego and San Diego has been cast as another city)
Clint Eastwood was a critic of the auto bailout (DRAT! There go the suggestions that he, too, sat on a bench with Nancy Pelosi..)
Conservative criticism continues
The ad has sparked the kind of discord it decried.
But is that ANY surprise in polarized America where if there is no evident reason for a political fight, some will start one? (‘Unity, schmunity what does that matter when we can open a line of attack here?”)
Writes The Christian Science Monitor’s Peter Grier:
Calm down people. Sometimes an auto ad is just a promotional tool for vehicles, not another division point in the endless war of words between the political red and blue. We think ordinary voters will see the ad as a good example of a common commercial category: the corporate flag-waver.
9 Responses to “Chrysler’s Popular and Controversial Super Bowl Commercial: Clint Eastwood in It’s Halftime in America (UPDATED)”
LOL. The Reps are nervous because they *KNOW* their guy Romney, is on the wrong side of this thing. It’s on record that he said to let the auto companies FAIL. No matter that in that economic and political climate, with a strangulation on lending and the biggest banks teetering into the abyss, any other means of help would have been impossible.
No matter that Ford, Chrysler,GM and the entire dealer and supplier network would have gone down, crippling the entire industrial midwest and rendering millions of homes worthless.
No matter that the resurgent auto industry *created* 26,000 jobs last year, and is projected to add 58,000 more this year. More jobs, by the way, than Mitt Romney, even in his wildest dreams, ever thought about creating. Source: http://www.todrive.com/home/10324836-615/industry-response-to-sales-uptick-were-hiring.html
No matter that that same resurgent industry is becoming the strongest industrial engine driving this recovery. Yep, Reps are running scared from their own nominee. The mental gymnastics of claiming they can create a better economy while simultaneously calling for the destruction of entire industries representing millions of jobs, would be funny if it weren’t so vile and shortsighted.
President Obama *himself* made the decision to save Chrysler. He, him, no one else. His advisors were evenly split on whether the company had the ability to ever recover from years of mismanagement. He agreed to extend loans, if they tied up with FIAT, the only automaker in the world willing to give it a go.
Press was brutal. They said it couldn’t work, that FIAT was a joke, that American consumers wouldn’t buy cars from a bankrupt automaker. Turns out, those silly Italians, knew what the hell they were doing, because they had turned around FIAT, which was in arguably worse shape than Chrysler ever was, a few years earlier.
And so today Chrysler, the smallest and mostly dismissed as the weakest, of the Detroit Three is making money, with the biggest year-over-year sales increase on any automaker in the world. Obama DOES deserve credit for making this possible. He DOES deserve to be lauded for taking a difficult position and being willing to take all the political heat. THAT’s leadership and character, folks. And it’s something that Mitt Romney would never have done, because of his pandering to the lowest common denominator of his increasingly out of touch and foolish party.
just love clint eastwood. have always been a fan of the cowboy clint and detective dirty harry. also loved “grand torino”
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Speaking of Romney’s tin ear again?
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/02/06/hail-hail-to-michigan
Eastwood shot Gran Torino around the Detroit area with actual Hmong.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/locations
Maybe CE fell in love with Detroit and it’s blue collar citizenry. Maybe Eastwood has stronger ties and affection for Motown than Mittens…
The ad was an appeal to unite, “pull together“, a call to our better natures to work on rising above our problems. That a certain political party (Karl Rove) finds such an idea threatening shouldn’t surprise anyone.
The purpose of the ad was to sell cars.
All of the analysis I’ve seen on it is from the POV of an informed, “high-information” person. I.e. someone who is aware that Romney and most of the republican party was against bailing out the auto industry, and that Obama made it happen. To informed people, the ad is at least in part a grateful acknowledgement of these facts. This will make informed people buy more Jeeps. Great.
…But what about all those living in the Fox News Matrix? Well the ad appeals to them too… The call to action on “coming together” on not going down after “one hit” (to you or me, it’s the recession, to a low-information individual, it’s 9/11 , or the election of Obama (which caused the recession), or some other affront to the A-Team). “America! F..k yeah! Lets stick it to the Muslin Liberal Sand N….rs & go out and buy a Jeep”
Ever taken your kids to one of those family movies where some of the jokes are for grown-ups? well this is the same thing, except the kids jokes are about stuff you don’t see, because they are predicated on a virtual reality to which you do not subscribe.
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If (a very big if) this advertisement had anything to say politically, it was that the auto bailouts worked. The fact that Mr. Eastwood was originally against the bailout shows that he recognizes success.
I wish that his Republican colleagues could do that same.
I think Eastwood should throw his name in the hat at the GOP convention