Hot amature robot action

It sounds like there’s another controversy trumping-up attempt going on over yet one more Super Bowl commercial, this time against General Motor’s sad robot ad.

The controversy is supposedly two-fold: relatives of suicide victims and laid-off GM workers are both (supposedly) finding a reason to be deeply offended with the ad.

I’ll admit when I saw the ad, I was kind of surprised the commercial went as far as depicting the robot droid killing itself. Even though it was revealed to be a dream (warning: spoilers preceding this parenthetical statement) I will admit it is somewhat shocking imagery.

I was listening to CNN Friday night as they were doing a piece on this ‘controversy’ regarding the depiction of suicide. The mother of a suicide victim said when she saw the ad she had to re-live the tragedy of her own son’s suicide (from a gunshot, not a bridge-jumping).

While I’m sure what she went through was very sad, she should avoid all television if any kind of suicide imagery bothers her, since at any given moment you could see any kind of violent or suicidal imagery. I do think it is in general a bad idea to depict suicide in a commercial for the variety of emotions viewers might begin to associate with the company. The image of a piece of machinery going over a bridge may also give people watching the subconscious connection between GM and cars accidentally going over a bridge or overpass.

A much more valid complaint, and one I didn’t immediately see as a problem, is the twisting of the knife the spot does to the throngs of people laid off by GM. The use of the robot imagery symbolizes -or in some cases might be a direct example of- the downsizing of former GM employees. It might be seen as terrorizing the remaining workforce (if you so much as drop a bolt, you’re out of here), and the concept of what a laid of worker is reduced to (waving sign around for condo developments, not finding decent employment elsewhere) could seem like a slap in the face.

While I’m sure none of this was intentional, it really does, in hindsight, seem like a bad idea all around. Probably with good reason, GM has pulled this commercial from it’s web site. To the best of my knowledge this :60 spot only aired once, during the Super Bowl.

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