Thursday, July 31, 2008

Samsung Safari: a "what the hell?" digression

Look, sometimes we get stumped. In October '07, we were stymied by this strangeness. It has happened again.

We don't even know where we discovered this thing, or what life was like before we knew of its existence. (We assume it was simpler and more rational.) Having seen it, great swaths of our cerebral cortex have made the long, stumbling trek to oblivion.

So, what is it, already? It's a promotional video—that is, an ad—for Samsung, meant to demonstrate… Okay, we don't know what it's meant to demonstrate. The dark core of man, perhaps? In it, we watch the putative video shot by tourists on safari. Oh, look. Lions! What majesty. And then the lions start singing "The Banana Boat Song" (popularly known as "Day-O"). Up to that point, the ad is nothing more revolutionary than the reduction of nature's grandeur to commercial spectacle.

But then! Then. Then the quotidian meets the eternal: the corpse of a dead antelope of some kind reanimates and begins dancing. If that's the right term. And now we get to the reason for this thing's inclusion here. Even though the antelope wasn't destined to be eaten by humans (the noblest calling!), he is still depicted as nothing more than food. Not only that, but food that is tickled to have been mauled to death and disemboweled by a pride of lions. Food that expresses its joy by dancing with gay abandon.

How does this mesh with the suicidefood movement? Another mystery.

If you must watch for yourself, you will find the video here. But, please, if you're going to be driving afterward, bring a friend.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

The link needs to be fixed. Should be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peskb1KOEa0

Ben said...

Thank you, Stephen. We had left an extra space in there and it fouled everything up.

Jana said...

*blearrghhhh!!*

Anonymous said...

I can only say...

WHAT

THE

HELL?

Had they stayed with the singing lions, it could have been a cute commercial, but the "Rappin' Zombie Prey" took it to a new level of weirdness.

Anonymous said...

The end of the ad is so unrealistic. A woman in the background kind of giggles and they take a picture. WTF? If I saw that, I would be screaming in terror, and I might even poke out my own eyes.