Last week I shared some disturbing McDonalds ads that I found in Argentina in addition to a clip of a faux Marilyn Monroe also endorsing the Golden Arches. Compared to some dead celebrity-employed marketing, though, that’s relatively innocent. A black and white photo with a badly inserted color cheeseburger? Even Marlon Brando would have been fine with that unbelievable campaign. As for the Marilyn commercial, I’ve seen some people comment on YouTube that they didn’t know she did a McDonalds ad. But aside from inadvertently confusing some idiots, having an impersonator hawk products isn’t too unethical.
This 2005 Volkswagon ad is a little more questionable, as it superimposes the face of Gene Kelly (d. 1996) on the bodies of breakdancers outfitted to look like his character in Singin’ in the Rain. I’d say it’s despicable or blasphemous but I have to admit to having enjoyed it when I first saw it. And the remix of the movie’s titular tune is also appreciable. Also, its painstaking recreation of the iconic scene is to be respected, especially because it doesn’t simply pull some archive footage or photograph of a dead actor and randomly plop it into an advertisement, like the John Wayne Coors spot.
Though I first buzzed about an Academy Award nomination for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knightmore than a month before his death, I now want to take it all back. I feel all the talk of Ledger’s posthumous Oscar chances will cloud my mind when I finally do see it, and it will probably also cloud the Academy’s judgment, too. Six months from now, when the nominations are announced on January 22 (coincidentally the one-year anniversary of Ledger’s death), if Ledger is not recognized for his role as The Joker, there will surely be an uproar — actually, Hollywood might just up and self-implode.
I’m not the only one annoyed by all the Oscar buzz. Terry Gilliam, who directed Ledger in The Brothers Grimmand the upcoming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is calling “bullshit” on the whole thing, particularly against Warner Bros., which Gilliam accuses of exploiting Ledger’s death and chance of a posthumous Oscar for publicity purposes. Considering most Oscar campaigns for live actors are really just part of movie marketing, he has a good point.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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