CRITICISM
Dumb and Hummer
Hummer visits Alaska.

by MJ Stephens
www.madjoy.biz

Hey, if you've passed third grade, you should know that consumer advertising uses all the psychological techniques of Manchurian Candidate brainwashing. If you need proof, then next time you find yourself in the kitchen at ten o'clock at night, do a fast rewind to see if you haven't just watched a pizza, or some other fast food, commercial on TV. You want to reduce the obesity epidemic in America? Ban fast food advertising after six o'clock at night.

Advertising matters. It influences behavior. It encourages you to do things you wouldn't otherwise do, like buy and use deodorant that may possibly be lowering your sperm count. Didn't see that news on CNN, did you? Advertisers make a difference when it comes to what gets on TV. How about just washing your pits daily instead? Think of the time and money you'd save! What about the chicks? If she doesn't like the way you smell in a reasonably clean, vertical, why would you even want to get horizontal? The fact is you'll have better sex with someone who likes the way you smell and you should like the way she smells au naturel. Perfume, cologne and deodorant are scams, billion dollar scams.

Perfume, like everything else but liberty (better to have too many choices, than too few), is best in moderation. A gift of perfume can score points, but make it a small bottle. The big bottles are cheap stuff, and the smaller the bottle, the more expensive the perfume. Perhaps buy the cheap stuff and put it in a small bottle -- then she won't be tempted to use too much, and, if she knows anything about the stuff, she'll think you're real suavee.

To the ad. You know the Hummer Ad, where a young passable dork driver and his female passenger, who is obviously bored out of her mind (obvious at least to anyone but her totally self-absorbed infantile boyfriend, that is), are racing around what appears to be the Alaskan Wilderness Preserve, kicking up gravel. Why ARE they even there?

Not to see the wildlife, that's for sure. Any animal, including a sensible homo stupidus, within a hundred miles would be long gone before they roared through.

Not to see the landscape, they're going way too fast to see anything but a grey blur.

Not to breathe the fresh air, they've got the windows up to shelter themselves, and their presumably fragile constitutions, from every and any thing that could even possibly cause them to have anything so threatening as an actual physical experience. Nothing beyond sitting imprisoned in a vehicle of passive reduction, i.e. a vehicle the reduces one to passivity.

Why ARE they there? Not to hear or feel the crunch of the shale under their feet. They never get out of the vehicle. They just race around in circles, like demented nonagenarians. In fact, that might be their excuse for what they're doing. They're really old dementia patients, with really good face lifts. But they're too decrepit physically to get out of the damn Hummer. Nahhhh. They're just too decrepit mentally.

Both of them. Hey, she has a mouth, she should use it. "Stop the damn Hummer. I want to get off." Take that as you will. And let me tell you, driver dork really is homo stupidus if he mistakes racing around in circles in a pseudo-tank for fucking foreplay. Why ARE they there?

Not to hear the sounds of the wild, the waves, the howls of animal or wind. No, windows are safely up to shield their fragile eardrums.

And can't he see that she is his mother witnessing her little boy race around in a pedal car that has now swelled into a monstrous, gas-guzzling, war-inducing vehicle conceived for the purposes of Dr. Strangelove destruction? Does he really think she gives a shit? Talk about alienation. He is totally out of touch with everything in his environment, including the homo stupida sitting next to him. We can take it that he never did pass third grade.

If only dumb and Hummer could separate for a least a moment, and he would take a walk on the beach with his girl friend. Or even better, an exuberant run. Wouldn't it be romantic? Hell, wouldn't it be healthier if they could let their exuberant animal selves out of this pricey mobile coffin?

Never. He's been too well-trained, or rather, brainwashed. Here's a guy who learned his lessons too well in the 19th-century factory worker conditioning system that passes for American education. Sit here, don't move, don't talk, don't think, don't relate to anyone or anything around you, deaden your senses and feelings to all surrounding stimuli. Just follow instructions.

Process information, do meaningless work without question, concentrate on this small limiting task, let it absorb all your attention, read this word, drive this car. Be a robot, don't experience your world. Just obey, just go on auto pilot, don't be present, absence yourself from your own life. Just drive. Fit in. Sit here. Don't Move. Don't Relate. Be Numb. Be Dumb. Just Drive. And you'll go nowhere fast, until death do you depart.

Why ARE they even there? Tearing up this pristine wilderness, not only totally unaware of its beauty -- but what's worse, totally immune to it. Why are two blind people allowed to pilot and co-pilot this hulking big destructive monster through an unsuspecting wilderness?

Why ARE they even there, and not at some dingy, backwater stock car raceway? What's the difference in their lives? I mean, she's bored dumb, and he's just dumb and Hummer.

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Reader Comments

From: Scott Lyles
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003

Great commentary. Hummer actually put an ad on the back of Petersen's 4Wheel & Offroad magazine (Not that I read it, my brother-in-law left it here). The cover is entitled "Cheap Wheeling," which tells me something about their intended demographic, namely, rednecks who enjoy building vehicles they can take out in the desert and tear up trying crazy stunts. Hey, to each their own.

Back to the Hummer ad. It's just a picture of one of these $50,000 dollar vehicles viewed up-close on a flat, level surface. It's a clear day, and the sun is directly overhead. I suppose they're out of town somewhere... The ad mainly calls attention to the the grill design and the H2 symbol molded into the skid plate or whatever it has under the front axle. The caption reads, "If you can, maybe you will." I take this to mean, that if one has the means, that is, that kind of dough, and the time and the interest, one could actually take this ugly and expensive machine off a paved road -- rather than using it to impress or intimidate the rest of us, which is what it's actually for.

Hummers are primarily a status symbol for the young, urban primates you described. It's their idea of basic transportation in city traffic where the other drivers are not too polite or careful. The notion of taking one out to look at scenery is a poor rationalization for most of their prospective buyers. It's the Rolex Oyster of passenger vehicles. It's something the owner has detailed somewhere and keeps in the garage. Until just recently, only our corrupt federal government could afford to purchase the damn things. What's the idea anyway? If you can, maybe you will.

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