The Ads of Super Bowl XLII

"What are you, a girl?" | Peer-pressure

Summary: The ad opens with the words "There are a thousand stories in the NFL. This one is Super." It is told to us by Ephraim Salaam, apparently a football player. He says once upon a time, in San Diego, there was this big guy who worked in the supermarket Ephraim used to frequent. In a lovingly rendered reenactment, we see said big guy helping an old lady find kumquats. His supermarket uniform (including bowtie and glasses) indicates that he's a total nerd. The Poindexter grocery store guy was so huge that one day Ephraim decided to ask him if he ever played football. No sir, says the nerd. "But what do you play?" a dumbfounded Ephraim prods. 'Cause everyone plays SOMETHING, right? In this case, yes. "I play the oboe," the nerd says primly and the pleasant, tweedling, not-coincidentally oboe music that has been playing throughout the ad suddenly stops in shock. "The WHAT?" Ephraim asks. "It's a member of the woodwind family," the nerd sniffs. "Dude, don't be such a fag. Play football instead," says Ephraim (I'm paraphrasing slightly). And to make what is already way too long of a story slightly shorter, the the giant girly nerd-boy does what Ephraim says and blah blah blah today they're playing in the NFL and the nerd was even a higher draft pick than know-it-all, bossy jock-o Ephraim. Oh, we finally learn that the nerd is named Chester something.

High Point: That Chester's grocery store uniform ensemble looks so Nation of Islam-y.

Low Point:Ephraim's insistance that everyone do exactly what he wants them to do, based on his assessment of their appearance.

Even Lower Point:That Chester actually listens to random, nosy, grocery shopper Ephraim and does what he says.

Is this commercial an agent of change? If just one sensitive young child is dissuaded from following his heart and pursuing the arts and is pressured into sports instead, this ad, and the organized legions of millionaire jock goons behind it, has truly changed the world.

"Let's Make a Jack Sandwich" | Jack In The Box (Regional)

Summary: For those of you in sections of the country without Jack In The Box quick service restaurants, "Jack" is the president of the company. Jack is roughly 7 feet tall, with a giant (2 foot in diameter) white plastic orb for a head, with a pointy black nose, pupil-free painted-on eyes and a red mouth. Other than his head, Jack is totally human. Except he's utterly terrifying. Anyway, Jack's home life is a frequent subject of his commercials for his fast food — we know that Jack is married to a human woman, and we know that he has sex with her because they have at least one son, Jack Jr., whose head takes after his father's looks (which doubtless makes the average female viewer wince at the idea of extruding that hard, unyielding plastic ball out of their uterus, especially with that pointy nose jutting out from it). Anyway, with that background in mind, we open on Jack and his wife enjoying a nighttime hot-tub session with two of their friends, 70's Guy & 70's Wife. As 70's-esque Barry-White-ish strings-heavy soul music plays in the background, Jack relaxes in the hot water of the tub. "Thanks for inviting us," says Mrs. Jack as she, too, relaxes in the hot water. "Anytime," leers 70's guy as he wiggles his eyebrows suggestively under the bangs of his 70's shag haircut, the hot-tub's lights glinting off his 70's gold medallion necklace and twitching his 70's "North Dallas 40"-worthy giant mustache. The audience starts to realize something's funny here... then 70's wife asks if Jack and his wife are "into trying new things?" and our collective hearts drop into our stomachs: these 70's creeps are swingers and they want to have sex with Jack and his wife! Luckily Jack is completely out of it and thinks that these two want to try his restaurant's new "sirloin steak melt." 70's wife giggles, "Yeah, let's make a Jack Sandwich!" The rest of the commercial is thankfully cut off as a bag of food drops onscreen, obliterating our horror.

High Point: Condoms, sex education and safe sex practices have mostly halted the spread of AIDS in America.

Low Point: Swinging and wife-swapping are back?!

Is this commercial an agent of change? The world will never change back to the sexual mores of the 1970's, no matter how hard advertisers try.

See the commercial here: http://makeajacksandwich.com/

"A Steel Horse I Ride" | Nissan Murano

Summary: An SUV races across a flat desert terrain while chasing behind it are floating chunks of suburban life, like houses, mailboxes, and asphalt. Inside the car though, elegant features like a sunroof and a radio entertain our driver as he steadfastly rushes toward the horizon. Once the car comes to a halt the floating chunks of Anywhere U.S.A slam into place, interlock and make up the image of a comfortable suburb over what just seconds ago was a dry, dead zone. The driver exits his car and enters his home.

High Point: The car outpaces even the most zelous of developers in finding stretches of barren land upon which to build track homes. Given the vehicle's brazen attitude toward development we understand the SUV to be so rugged and yet so sophisticated, that it is in fact solely responsible for the housing crisis of 2007.

Low Point: The driver doesn't outpace the suburbs and will be stuck there forever despite whatever future attempts he will make otherwise.

Is this commercial an agent of change? The driver, who may very well be an embodiment of J. Alfred Prufrock, represents an agent of change but fails terribly at escaping his otherwise mundane existence. The car can help us try to get change in our lives. While it didn't work for Alfred it might just work for you.