Motown Rolls Along, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #166

February 7, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 4 Comments

Dear Art,

I know you’re a person.  More importantly I know you’re an American male so it’s pretty safe to assume you saw the Super Bowl this weekend.  If you were paying attention at all you probably noticed the ad my company ran during halftime.  Clint Eastwood narrated it and it was focused on the idea that it’s halftime for America.  The ad has drawn a fair amount of controversy today from people speculating that it had political undertones.  Karl Rove said he found it offensive and that it was basically an ad for President Obama.  Sports and pop culture website Grantland implied that Mitt Romney was likely to steal from the ad for his own political speeches.  What do you think of the ad?  We were just trying to sell cars right?

-Sergio Marchionne, Chairman and CEO, Chrysler Group

Sergio,

If you listen to nothing I say for the rest of this article please heed this one piece of advice: Karl Rove is an asshole and you shouldn’t listen to anything he says about anything.  That out of the way I think it’s a very good ad.  The second year in a row you guys have come through with a really good Super Bowl ad (last year marked the beginning of the imported from Detroit campaign with the Eminem ad) and I sincerely hope it’s translating to increased sales.  I have to double check with my sources on this but I think that two-minute ad cost about $15 million.  To put that in perspective that’s over 500 Chryslers assuming they’re 100% profit.  It’s way more Dodges.

The politics of the ad are clearly there but I don’t know if it’s as cut and dried as everyone says.  The only reason an ad trumpeting the return to prominence of a major American car company is political is because one political party was willing to let two of the Big Three go out of business.  Optimism and affirmation for one of the handful of manufacturing businesses that still works primarily in the United States should really be something we can all get behind.  I guess unless you’re really into the whole dependence on oil is destroying our country bit but I haven’t seen any of them complaining about this ad today.  The bailout of the auto industry was controversial and had the potential to create a very bad precedent in the American economy.  It also completely worked, saved two of the largest companies in American history and might be the only thing keeping the Detroit we have now from becoming the Detroit in Robocop.  People might quibble that Chrysler is now owned by Fiat but as long as they keep employing so many Americans I don’t think I care even a little.  Also, Fiat bought the company from the government fair and square.

Isn’t Clint Eastwood a Republican anyway?  I’m asking this question more of myself than of you but it was definitely my first thought after hearing of this whole kerfuffle.  After looking it up on Wikipedia, it seems that he voted for Eisenhower and Nixon followed by a long period of activism for environmental issues and then an endorsement of John McCain in 2008.  Oh and he was a supporter of Democratic Governor Gray Davis.  He doesn’t seem to be a dyed in the wool Rush Limbaugh guy but he’s a far cry from the Hollywood liberal label that seems to be so popular these days.  If a guy like that is too far left for Republicans these days I don’t know where discourse is supposed to start.

I’m proud to own an American car.  I’m less proud that GM decided to never make the kind of car I own a few months after I bought it.  If I were buying a new car this year, and no offense but I hope not to, I would strongly consider buying one of yours.  You have the ad that everyone’s talking about the day after so you have to be the real winner here.  That’s important because without your ad we might all be sitting around wondering if the E-Trade ad was really about a baby raping other babies because I’m pretty sure it was.