Audi's 'Green Police' Super Bowl ad controversial

A blogger at Get Energy Smart Now!, meanwhile, calls it "The Most Environmentally Unfriendly Super Bowl Ad." The soundtrack to the commercial — "Green Police" — is a reworked song by rock band Cheap Trick, originally titled "Dream Police."

The blogger then points out that "Green Police" was a term used for uniformed Nazi police (Ordnungspolizei or Grüne Polizei) in Nazi Germany:

At the very least, the indictment proves wrong a forecast made in late January by the online publication Daily Finance. Said the paper: "it's certainly never fortuitous for a German company to bring up reminders of the Third Reich. ... Still, it's likely that most U.S. viewers won't connect the 'Green Police' in their history books with the ones in Audi's Super Bowl Ad."

Grist has a slightly more nuanced take on the ad. "At first blush this seems like more teabagging -- appealing to angry white men with the same old stereotype of environmentalists as meddling do-gooders obsessed with picayune behavioral sins," says David Roberts

But after considering that interpretation, he rejects it, concluding, "The ad only makes sense if it's aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police -- people who may find those obligations tiresome and constraining on occasion, who only fitfully meet them, who may be annoyed by sticklers and naggers, but who recognize that living more sustainably is in fact the moral thing to do. This basically describes every guy I know."

Mr. Roberts then points out that everyone arrested in the commercial is a man. (I'll add that all offenders are also Caucasian. At least one green policeman, on the other hand, is African-American. But that's it for diversity in this eco-fascist world.)

Is the gender-skewing significant? Roberts thinks so. Middle-class males are Audi's target demographic, he says. The message to that demographic: "Here's a way to meet your green obligations and still have a ["mean"] car! The Audi A3 is both green and desirable -- indeed more desirable because it's green. Buried deep in this ad, in other words, is a bright green message: prosperity, pleasure, and sustainability can be achieved together."

Those at This Dish is Vegetarian, meanwhile, take the commercial more at (a certain) face value.

"Kudos to Audi for addressing an important issue with a sense of humor rather than the standard doomsday scenario that is typically associated with the Green movement," they say.

Editor's Note: The Monitor's Environment section has a new URL. And there's also a new URL for our Bright Green blog. We hope you'll bookmark these and visit often.

Previous

1 | 2