How do you say... M-E-M-E?

What makes a good parody? It has to be true to the original.

It has to twist the original content in a way that's unexpected and/or taps into an exisitng meme about the origianl.

I keep trying to think of a third item (thanks Bob Shrum for teaching me the rule of threes), but I'm outta ideas.

BEFORE YOU CLICK THIS IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK... Put your headphones in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0ilMx7k7mso

However you break it down, this is brilliant parody. It caputres the tone and feel of cable ads perfectly before twisting it into a sharp satire of the cable companies' business model. Ultimately, I think it's successful because it links into the meme that the cables companies are a**holes who care more about making money than they do about providing a good product.

My wife asked me who was responsible for this video, why did they do it? It's not part of some anti-cable campagin as far as I can tell, but maybe it ought to be because it perfectly crystalizes everything that's wrong with them.

Everything you wanted to know about Subtext (but were too afraid to ask)

When I was at film school, I had a teacher Bill Reilly who taught me to understand the importance of subtext as a director. I grew up in an acting family, so I knew about communicating subtext to actors, as Boris might say, "Love is not 'I love you,' love is chicken." But I had never thought about how the subtext of a scene might relate to how you filmed the scene. If two characters are talking, but the subtext is their separateness, that's a different shot then if the subtext is their desire to be together. Bill taught me that, and it's been among the most important lessons I took away from NYU. http://youtu.be/bZxs09eV-Vc

When I first saw this ad, I wondered if it was some Onion satire, it was so sharp and funny, a parody of a political ad. It's like a nested doll, a parody of an ad, that's an ad itself, there's a certain post revisionist meta brilliance to it (deconstruct that phrase for a moment, I have no idea what it means, but I like it). It's an actual ad, running on cable not in battlegrounds, but still airing on TV's across the nation.

I think at face value the ad is pretty funny and does a good job at subverting Romney. Not just the message of he's getting tough on Sesame street, but not wall street, though that's important. No, it somehow make Romney seem small and petty, Big Bird, really? Come on, don't we have bigger issues to take on?

That's the surface, but I think the true value of the ad is the subtext of its message. To me, this ad says Obama gets it. It's funny and a bit whimsical, likable and clever. An ad like this makes Obama seem more real to me, because he's tapping into the current meme of the election. It's politics and its serious, but he's not above being a little silly in the face of the ridiculous.

Maybe put another way, the ad is on-message, but it's also on-emotion, it reflects what some voters are already thinking and amplifies it. That's a powerful tool.

I don't know if they intended that to be the subtext of the ad, again as Boris used to say, "your work is on the screen," so whether they intended it or not, once it's in there, that's purposeful enough.

Subtext is a powerful tool, in my mind more powerful than the surface text, because it operates on the viewer, often unconsciously. This ad works on both levels, but the subtext "he gets it" can also translate to "he's one of us." To my mind that's really more useful in this election than a clever hit on Romney and Wall Street.

Reinforcing the "truth"

Truth gets thrown around a lot in politics. What's true? What's not true? I read an interesting book recently "Storybranding," that has something important to say about how we ought to think about truth. In the book, the author talks a little about truth, but he divides truth into big "T" Truth and little "t" truth.  Put more succinctly by Robert McKee, "What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens."  The author then says, "Stories don't create our beliefs. Rather, their themes are like magnets that find and attach themselves to beliefs that already exist." (Story Branding, p. 215)

That leads to this ad by President Obama.

http://youtu.be/sWiSFwZJXwE

The execution of the ad is solid enough, nothing earth shaking. I do like the juxtaposition (in college, I tried to use that word in every paper I wrote, might be the greatest word... ever) of Romney's quotes, how he cares about workers and the like, and the worker's bitting comments comparing Bain and Romney to vampires. That part was pretty effective.

But I think more important than the elements of the ad itself are the theme it presents. The Obama campaign is working on creating a meme regarding Romney. Here's the brilliant thing, and it gets to the the reason for my quotes, Obama is only reinforcing the narrative people already have in their minds about Romney.

The idea that Romney is an elite rich guy, who can't understand working people. I don't know if that account is factual or not, but given our definitions above, I think it's pretty true. Take a look at this previous ad:

http://youtu.be/R5e0QoUdPJM

Again pretty standard stuff except for the last snarky line "That's what you'd expect from a guy with a swiss bank account."

I was talking with someone about Romney, and they said, well it's not like we've never elected a rich guy before. That's right, but it's one thing to be rich, it's another thing for people to think that being rich somehow make you out of touch or elitist.

What's the point of all this? Why am I reviewing two pretty generic Obama ads?

I remember when  Slate Magazine doing their truth watch on the 2000 Presidential campaign with GW Bush and the liar Al Gore. The piece stopped after five articles because the author much to her surprise couldn't find enough Gore lies to justify a continuing run. The author

The thing is, the stories we carry with us are powerful -- like stereotypes, they help us navigate the world (like stereotypes those truths can often led us in the wrong direction too). When we can reinforce those truths with our ads, like Obama does here, and the effect resonates with viewers.

What happens when the "Truth" is against us? I alway thought the best weapon on Gore's side was Spike Jonze's unseen documentary -- which was the only time I've seen him portrayed as a real person.

Romney now has a decision to make does he fight against this meme, this narrative? If he chooses to fight, then he has to proceed very carefully because just protesting will only reinforce the frame people already have.  He has to do more than tell people he's not an elitist, he has to show them he's not. If he can't do that in an authentic way, then he'll never convince people otherwise. Cause that's the thing about truth, it's sticky till it's not.