Seems it could be darker than that…
damn…
He dies of course. Just after the commercial ends. What they are trying to sell is insurance, including life insurance. I thought this was obvious.
Wait 'till you hear my take on Elton John’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me.
Is it me, or are Americans and their media obsessed - and I mean really obsessed in the true sense of the word - with the concept of the family? If it’s not wayward husbands, it’s estranged parents, long-lost siblings, strained parent/child relations. Just about all Hollywood films are about this in some way, usually in that it’s the major background to the plot, regardless of genre (comedy, action thriller, historical drama, you name it).
It’s just seems so odd to me.
Well, not ALL Americans. My mom likes those themes, and so do I and my big sister, but my dad doesn’t so much… and he and my little brother sometimes make fun of the rest of us for it, and it’s really tearing our family apart. It’s like some awful movie. But I just know it’s going to work out in the end.
whether or not it was the intent of those who created the ad, I agree with gweeks - don’t worry, State Farm will “be there” even for that
I’ve always thought this Hampton Inn commercial has a homosexual subtext. Bill, a frequent traveler, visits a Hampton Inn where he has clearly been before. He’s greeted by an employee who has in the past, been his lover. However, this time, Bill has brought his family. You can see a little shock and sadness in the employee’s eyes as he’s forced to greet his lover’s heterosexuality: his wife and kids. The employee is game and professional, but you can tell he’s hurting.
Interesting, because when I see European films or TV, I find myself wondering, “do these people even have families? Wait, those two are related in some way?” I suppose we experience, and express family differently.
He said he was never letting go, not that he would never leave.
The logical extension is that he will eventually allow his children to grow up and leave home.
Maybe. A while ago I saw the French film Caché, and it had a subtext of family and the presence of family had significance for the ultimate story in the film, but the actual interactions between parents and children was very remote.
I think perhaps in Europe the idea of family is just that you have it. It’s not seen as some special force to which you have to express or seek some unity with for good to happen in the world. Sure, you might like them, hate them, use them as an excuse to kill people or something, but ultimately your family is basically pretty boring. When I watch American movies it always amazes me how they manage to bring the plot around to family in some way even from the most unlikely premise.
Perhaps the fact that because of the size of the country and where job opportunities are, Americans idealize the family because often we end up living thousands of miles from our parents and siblings. Europeans seem to stay closer to where they were born in my experience, although now with the EU I know there are a lot of Poles and so on who leave to make new lives in Britain and so on.
Ah, I’d not considered that. Makes a lot of sense in fact. When you’re cooped up with your family, and living your life with people who know them as well, almost the last thing you want is to have that situation romanticised. But I can see the opposite is true when you’re a stranger living with strangers.
Or kill them…
you wanted dark.
Yeah, he could have them all mummified and placed in the house like living dolls…
Hollywood does seem to have the fairly common estimation of its country’s citizens in that heroes or heroines will go through hell - even to the point of self-sacrifice - to save/rescue a family or individual family member, even if by doing so they’re also saving larger populations, up to and including the whole planet.
The unspoken implication being that they would not bother if - as it so often boils down to - a bloke is at risk of losing a bit of nooky. Cf Outbreak, Armageddon, etc.
What is the woman saying at 0:13? Sounds like “halibut year.”
I read an interesting webcomic this morning sharing an American’s experience with her boyfriend’s family in Argentina, which came to some different conclusions (i.e. the message from American media is that time with family is something you tolerate rather than enjoy):
Probably cracks his head on the edge of the swimming pool after finally diving for that sultry coed during a midlife crisis.
