Why I May Never Buy a Toyota |
30 Comments |
I went to see the new Harry Potter this weekend. My wife (a huge Harry Potter fan) and I caught an 8PM showing (an important fact) on a Saturday night. There were some decent previews, but the one thing that stuck in my mind was one commercial. It was a black and white cartoon where these “Deviants” murdered “Sheeples” in brutal ways. There were a couple of beheadings. At one point a Deviant skinned a Sheeple and wore his skin like a costume and did a little victory dance. At the end it turned out it was a commercial for a Toyota Scion.
The commercial one of the most gruesome cartoons I’ve seen. For this reason I won’t link to it. By mentioning this, I’m giving Toyota the press they were looking for. Bad press is better than no press at all. So go ahead and watch the advertisement via YouTube or whatever. I won’t link to it here, you are on your own. Ask yourself if that’s what you want the kids of America watching. It’s one thing to show such a commercial during a movie intended for more adult audiences, but for Harry Potter? There are ways to push a product and then there’s glorifying brutal murdering and passing it off as “the cool this to do.”
I think I feel stronger about this because it was an advertisement - not the form of entertainment itself. If I buy some gruesome video game or watch a horror movie, I know what I’m getting into. The strange part about my stance on this is that I’m usually the most liberal person you’ll ever meet. Perhaps I’m not as liberal as I thought I was…
Aside: For those interested in a review of the movie… It was good, but it seemed like they tried to squeeze too much into a 2:20. I don’t read the books, so I found I could really use a “last time on Harry Potter…” They still moved things along extremely quickly with the final battle not drawing any “goose-bump” moments that you might get from Rocky or even the first Matrix. I’ve gotten used to these moments watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The ending of the movie could have learned quite a bit from Xander’s broken yellow crayon speech.
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Propeller30 Responses to “Why I May Never Buy a Toyota”
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September 19th, 2007 at 3:05 am
[...] de Toyota, lancée en juin dernier pour promouvoir son modèle Scion, a soulevé de nombreuses interrogations, autant pour ses spots publicitaires relativement violents diffusés dans les cinémas en première [...]
July 30th, 2007 at 3:48 am
Toyota is trying to market the Scion line towards younger kids, since the “Toyota” nameplate has an older, stodgier image. They want to make kids think Scion is a cool alternative to Toyota, not an extension of the Toyota brand.
Please don’t hold that marketing directly against Toyota, as it’s an ad for Scion.
Your distaste for the ad might mean you’re now part of the “old fuddy duddy” crowd, which is a bitter pill to swallow for us all.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Booomie, Toyotas are just as American as Fords, and in a few short years Toyota will employ more people in the United States than Ford. Do some research and see for yourself. I am a bit biased since they support me and my family as I am a proud Toyota employee. So are the other 7,000 people that work with me every day just at my plant alone(one of many in the US). I don’t like this ad, but it shouldn’t be a jumping off point into calling Toyota non-American. Yes, the name is foreign but so was Ford, Chrysler, and Chevrolet when those immigrants came to this country. Look into a Ford Mustang closely before buying one. Some of them have only about 65% US-sourced parts. Most Camrys have over 80%. Honda is building a new plant in Indiana. Toyota is building a new plant in Mississippi, and has just finished a new plant in Texas. Where are GM, Ford, and Chrysler’s new plants going in? They’re reducing capacity and cutting jobs in the US, and building shiny new plants in Mexico and South America. The profit from a “Japanese” purchase doesn’t go to Japan, it gets reinvested here in the States. The “profit” on a big-3 car goes to opening a plant somewhere down south (thanks to NAFTA). There are no longer Japanese or American car companies, they’re all global companies with global agendas. I prefer to stay loyal to a company that is investing in my backyard no matter what name is on the building.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:17 am
Personally don’t care for the commercials either but Toyota is the best brand out there right now hands down. I wouldn’t buy any other brand cept for Lexus, which is Toyota.
Besides, my entire family has managed to get great deals from them. So its got that working for it too.
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:45 am
You should be buying American cars, like a Ford Mustang, hybrid Edge or zero pollutant Focus. Ford beats out Toyota every single time.
Complain. All you have is your voice. Complain to the theater, send emails to the advertising department of Toyota. Tell them you are boycotting their products. Speak up. Let your voice be heard and complain, complain, complain.
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
What is even more disturbing to me than the original commercial is the text on the website: “Send the Sheeple from the streets and find them in the highrises. Knock the stuffing out of them and collect their blood. It can be used to your benefit. Turn that awful bleating into awesome bleeding.”
Now, if I had run across this game myself on line, I probably would have thought “heh. cool.”. (I’m a big fan of “5 Minutes to Kill Yourself”.) All that ran through my head now, however, was “So let me get this straight: an grotesque ad played before a movie aimed at children was not only inappropriate but also promoted an online game where the object is to collect people’s blood…”
You might want to think about sending a letter or protest to your local theater — from what I’ve read online, a number of theaters have refused to run the ad before HP. Toyota is creepy, yeah, but so is the guy that didn’t pull it from the lineup before showing it a bunch of kids.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:10 am
I’m with you here. When I saw this ad before the Harry Potter movie, it was the second time I’d seen it, so I knew that I didn’t want to see it. I’m not adverse to violence (my favorite movie in the whole world is Terminator 2!), but something about the Little Deviants creeps me out beyond words. After the commercial was done, I yelled out “And that’s why I’m never buying a Scion,” and the whole row of people behind me laughed at me…
but I was only half joking.
July 22nd, 2007 at 7:11 am
The first time I saw those commercials I had no idea what the heck they were advertising for. In the end I was like “A toyota? Are you kidding me” What the heck did all that violence have to do with a toyota…… way to take a stand.. drive Nissan!
July 21st, 2007 at 7:23 pm
I felt the same way with the Lord of the Rings movies. Didn’t really get a lot of the story line but my wife did because she’s read the books many times.
July 20th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Lazy: I know exactly what you mean since I am in the exact same situation!!!