Longest Super Bowl commercial in history. That's the word after Chrysler unleashed its Eminem hosted homage to Detroit onto the Super Bowl viewing audience. It's very Hollywood. And the people here in Detroit and the surrounding metro area, as well as born-n-breds living abroad, ate it up like ice cream on the 4th.
Cinematography wise, it was pure genius. Politically, though, and morally...not to mention financially? In poor taste. Chrysler is still very much in debt to the US government and, I might add, anything but an American company anymore. They are the poster company for precariously teetering on the edge of calamity.
And then there are the Detroit politics of it. The narrator of the commercial intones that Detroit 'has been to hell and back'. What exactly is the measure mark to qualify as being 'back'? Simply declaring you're back like the Backstreet Boys did? Last time I checked, Detroit was still in a free fall in all ways vital to survival and succeeding: education, financial, employment, crime, housing, the list goes on and Detroit is still failing in every category. Perhaps the ad agency is still under the impression that the auto industry alone defines the success/failure of the D.
Then there are the morals of it. Many people were quoted on local news stations saying the commercial brought them to tears. Which is pretty repulsive when a person cracks open the Detroit Free Press or turns on the local news and is confronted with all of the horrors and violence against innocents every day in Detroit. Less than a week after the Super Bowl, two people were arrested for child abuse after a child was thrown against a window so hard the entire window was cracked. And only a few weeks before, a lone gunman launched a heinous attack on a Detroit police station, opening fire on the officers working to protect the city. Save your tears for something that merits it, not a commercial that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy or defiant and smug about a city that's in full on decay in every fiber of its being.
Now the previous reasons don't amount to a hill of beans to anyone outside the state of Michigan. But the cost, and squandering, of taxpayer dollars should be noteworthy to every taxpayer in America. Bottom line is every single one of us picked up the tab for that balls to the wall commercial. And while some may be indifferent because companies need to advertise, I for one would prefer for Chrysler to keep its caviar tastes to itself until it is able to pay back the government and pay back Americans. They are stewards of money loaned to them to survive and thrive on and while advertisement is a prime example of what is needed to survive, the longest commercial in Super Bowl history with a top dollar celebrity as the star is not level headed stewardship. And while it's a nice red carpet walk and Oscar speech shout out for Detroit, it doesn't match up with reality and that's what Detroiters should be most concerned with.
