Did they really mean that?

[jhetley]

Okay, so I'm watching this football game (sorry, Patriots fans, but there actually _is_ a limit to how many times you can win on a last-second field goal....)

And there's this ad, buncha basketball players (I think) and I'm not really paying attention, because that's what you do with ads, except the music nags me. Until I identify it, the Dies Irae thing out of Gregorian chant, as featured in "Totentanz" and "Symphonie Fantastique" and various Requiem masses.

Do they really want us to associate their athletic shoes with the end of the world and God's Wrath descending?

Comments

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

Another one advertisers are fond of is the Oh Fortuna chorus from Carmina Burana - I think all they know is that the music sounds stern and impressive and manly somehow. What it actually MEANS is unimportant.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Yes..

the hint is that if you wear their shoes, you will be the end of the world for your opponents... you *will be* wrath itself...

sigh...

and using *that* aftershave will make you irresistible to any you wish not to resist you.

Ayuh.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Well, both Carmina Burana and Dies Irae are out of copyright, no small consideration when the studios chose classical music to accompany all those old cartoons...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I thought about the "athlete as Wrath of God" intent, and decided the theology was too subtle for their audience. I mean, we're talking basketball wannabe here....

Also WoG tends to be rather indiscriminate. Do you want to be on the court when the whole town gets nuked?