Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/26/watch-spike-jonze-commercial-f.html
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Now if we can just get him to do a new movie! 
repeat post from this AM
I’m really just looking forward to the time when it’s so normal that we can stop talking about it.
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Slightly disingenuous to imply that George Washington was toking ganja though, isn’t it? Did anyone back then even know it was psychoactive?
Cannabis has long been known to be psychoactive:
Cannabis was known to the ancient Assyrians, who discovered its psychoactive properties through the Iranians. Using it in some religious ceremonies, they called it qunubu (meaning “way to produce smoke”), a probable origin of the modern word “cannabis”.
(from here.)
And i can’t find a reliable source at the moment but there are reports of separating the male plants from the female ones, which i’ve been told is completely unnecessary when using it for the fibers.
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The Ancient Scythians smoked it out of golden bongs.
People in India have been smoking and eating bhang for thousands of years.
Clay pipes from Shakespeare’s house had cannabis residue.
Washington wrote about separating the male and female plants which only makes sense if you’re going to smoke the flowers, not make rope out of them.
So yeah, he knew
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Love Spike but MedMen has to be the most evil ganja company in the game.
The ad makes me feel awkward saying the ad is trippy.
From the National Archives:
Began to seperate the Male from the Female hemp at Do.—rather too late.
Washington’s Personal Diary entry: 7 August 1765
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I guess this is a rehash (or rehashish?) of the prior article about Spike Jonze’s commercial for the cannabis seller. My misreading of “cannibal” instead must have caused some trouble.
Well this is no “Praise You”, but still pretty good.
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It’s kind of funny, but sometimes when I’m really high I keep having this thought that some kind of alien life form has enslaved humanity by getting them to smoke all this weed. And that only at the very end, do we realize that we’ve sold our souls for a funny little buzz.
Then I go eat some snacks! Mmm snacks!
I don’t know MedMen, but judging by the fact they can hire Jonze to create a very well crafted 2 minute advertisement means they’re at the very least, filthy rich.
I really liked the line “…the new normal.”
About a month or so ago, I visited the first-ever recreational dispensary on the east coast, in Easthampton MA. After a lifetime of pot being the great evil weed, I was super nervous… but it was so refreshingly normal. The place looked and operated like a boring old straightforward store, or bank, except I was buying a pack of chewy edibles and an ounce of Girl Scout Cookies strain – with a debit card, no less.
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I live in the suburbs and I still threw up in my mouth a little bit when they cut to the new normal.
Oh, your bland commodified existance starting to wear on you? You getting unhappy about the way your world is organized, grinding people down, sorting them into boxes as they wait to die? Smoke some weed, here’s something about jobs. Jobs jobs jobs. Brought to you by weed.
Um
That’s not remotely what the commercial said, or what is being communicated here.
The commercial was about how pot has been demonized and criminalized for decades, and how lives have been destroyed by its categorization as a “serious drug”, but how new laws are preventing that and letting it be used as a healthcare tool and for everyday people (in the city, country, or suburbs) to enjoy if they want to.
And for the record, yeah, it’s providing a lot of jobs, and bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes earmarked towards healthcare and education. Not seeing a downside here, really.
I live in a jurisdiction where recreational use is legal. I’m certainly in favour, and I agree it’s a good thing.
I’m a product of the adbusters generation, though, and while I’m beyond ecstatic that I can hold hands with my partner in public where I live without the neighbours burning crosses on my lawn I was also hoping for a future where a new normal didn’t necessarily require manicured lawns.
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It’s a quick, easy to understand visual symbol of “everyday folks”. They could’ve shown a city apartment or a ranch house, a funky artist loft or a houseboat, but none of those are very universal. A suburban house with an ordinary family getting groceries and also some edibles does a much better job of communicating the concept of marijuana being “normal, everyday, no longer weird or demonized or criminal”.
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