The Green Police

[GigaBuist]

You can have my 100 watt bulbs when you pry them from my burned fingers 

You've only got two years to stock up on 'em.

[Fjolnirsson]

The Audi commercial makes me want to set fire to a rain forest, then start a tire fire makes me want to start a tire fire in a rain forest .... I care about the Earth and want to conserve and so forth, but I am so sick and freakin' tired of being told what to do, "for my own good", "for the earth", "For the children". It's way beyond being out of hand.

_{fixed it, per Brimic's suggestion.}

[Balog]

If the premise weren't so plausible it would be funny. After ashtray busts and school kids being taken into custody for drawing pictures of guns, though, the idea of green police is too real.

Pretty much this.

The Audi commercial makes me want to set fire to a rain forest, then start a tire fire.... I care about the Earth and want to conserve and so forth, but I am so sick and freakin' tired of being told what to do, "for my own good", "for the earth", "For the children". It's way beyond being out of hand.

Also this.

[Jamie B]

Thanks, DD.

I knew when I was watching that commercial that something was not right!

Somebody in the Marketing department is historically challenged, or is very crafty.

Jamie

[Gewehr98]

Grenztruppen der DDR?   

[Matthew Carberry]

I did like the anteater.  That was cute.

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Not very funny to me.  I didn't watch the Superbowl, so this is the first I've seen the ad.  I guess I can see where some people would see it as funny, but I just don't.  It looks too much like what I think is really in store for the country.  Maybe not the over the tops raids for not properly disposing of orange peels, but it would not surprise me if things like having incandescent bulbs or throwing away batteries became real crimes.  It's not gonna happen over night, but a lot of the "infractions" in that ad are already in the works.  Like others have said, that ad itself is "harmless", but I know there are people out there who are truly hoping this happens.  That is why this as is terrible.

[brimic]

The Audi commercial makes me want to set fire to a rain forest, then start a tire fire....

Come on, use your head!  Start the tire fire in the rainforest to set it ablaze. Tires burn very hot.

[Nitrogen]

Das wußte ich nicht.

Was the uniform color and/or term common before the Nazis, or was this something that started with them?

Not sure, but I know that green is still a prominent color of many German police agencies today. many Autobahnpolizei (highway patrol, if you couldn't guess) cars feature green, for instance.  It's a lot like Blue is for our guys, so I guess it's a long running cultural thing.

[Fistful]

I would have thought that Green means environmentalism to most Germans.  What with their big Green Party and all.

[BReilley]

I give AUDI the benefit of the doubt in regards to the ad's intention(humorously pointing out their car's award, etc).  However, it's only funny because - unlike, say, random OSHA/EPA inspections of shops, plants, work sites etc. by unelected officials who wield great power(with whom it is difficult, time-consuming, and very expensive to argue) - it's not happening *yet*.

They HAD to know that it'd rub some people the wrong way, being that the whole climate-change thing is big news all over the world, and they had to have made the choice to run it anyway.

As I said, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but I think it's kind of poor taste, for lack of a better way to put it, and a bit too "edgy".

I fail to see the Nazi connection.  I understand how the connection could be made, but... honestly, I doubt that anyone in the advertising/marketing/image department at AUDI is old enough to make that connection.  Besides, what else would they use for a chorus?  "The Ecologically Responsible Practices Police" doesn't have the same catchy ring

(Edited for clarity)

[erictank]

Okay, am I the only one annoyed by the "Green Police" commercial that Audi had during teh Souper Bowel?

At first, I though they were making fun of the everything green sentiment that's all the rage right now.  I was impressed with their bravery.  I laughed at their wit.  Then I realized they were serious.   

I do believe I'll never buy an Audi.  Just because of this commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM

DD

+1 *MILLION*. 

It was funny, but at the same time, I can see it happening, and I hate the idea that it might.  And Audi will never get my business, either.

[coppertales]

I had a couple Audi's that I bought used quite a few years ago.  Nice cars.  I could never afford one now.

Are the green helmets the same targets as the blue ones?...chris3

[Gewehr98]

More Audis for me, then.

Loved my 200 Turbo Quattro, and my senior translational scientist has a new V10 Quattro that she takes me to lunch in.  Woo-hoo!

Kudos to Audi for having the huevos to make that commercial, IHMO.  The ad was to me totally tongue-in-cheek, I LOL'ed when we saw it during the Super Bowl.

[freakazoid]

Not very funny to me.  I didn't watch the Superbowl, so this is the first I've seen the ad.  I guess I can see where some people would see it as funny, but I just don't.  It looks too much like what I think is really in store for the country.  Maybe not the over the tops raids for not properly disposing of orange peels, but it would not surprise me if things like having incandescent bulbs or throwing away batteries became real crimes.  It's not gonna happen over night, but a lot of the "infractions" in that ad are already in the works.  Like others have said, that ad itself is "harmless", but I know there are people out there who are truly hoping this happens.  That is why this as is terrible.

I think it actually works in our favor. If people see now how absurd that seems, hopefully it will wake them up to where we could be heading... hopefully.

[brimic]

Call me a fuddyduddy, but i don't find the celebration of idealized eco-facism to be very funny.

[KD5NRH]

I think it actually works in our favor. If people see now how absurd that seems, hopefully it will wake them up to where we could be heading... hopefully.

A gay, mentally challenged, biracial, fat male cheerleader is claiming discrimination, and you think absurdity is a deterrent to anything?

[roo_ster]

A gay, mentally challenged, biracial, fat male cheerleader is claiming discrimination, and you think absurdity is a deterrent to anything?

That's crazy talk!


Here is a Jonah Goldberg column on the ad:


http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NzU3MmQ2MjM5YjBjYzUxZWFkYmU4YWFhZGJiZDUyYTc=

Audi’s Gorewellian Super Bowl Ad

The ad is absurd, of course, but not nearly as absurd as Audi thinks.

 
I watched the Super Bowl in the chilled air of the G.F.I.S.Z. (that’s Goldberg Family Ice Station Zebra). Here in Washington, we haven’t seen this much snow since at least 1922. The blizzard of 2010 took out our electricity for a day. Digging out from “snowmageddon” was nothing less than an Augean challenge, though my lower back is, alas, less than Herculean. Meanwhile, snow canceled my daughter’s seventh birthday party Saturday and her school Monday. We’re slated for another foot by Wednesday.

Suffice it to say I’m not panicking about global warming right now.

Perhaps that’s why I was bemused and intrigued by Audi’s Super Bowl ad.

Audi’s “Green Police” (available on YouTube) depicts an America where citizens are arrested — roughly — for even minor environmental infractions. A man at the supermarket asks for a plastic shopping bag and has his head slammed against the counter as he’s cuffed by a Green Police officer. “You picked the wrong day to mess with the ecosystem, plastic boy,” quips the cop. When officers find a battery in the wrong suburban garbage bin, one big cop yells, “Battery! Let’s go! Take the house!”

It’s a fascinating commercial. They even got Cheap Trick to rerecord “Dream Police” as “Green Police.” But just as the satire becomes enjoyable, the message changes. Until the pitch for Audi intrudes, you’d think it was a fun parody from a right-wing, free-market outfit about the pending dystopian environmental police state.

The pitch involves an “eco roadblock.” A man driving an Audi A3 TDI is singled out by an inspector. “We’ve got a TDI here,” he says. “Clean diesel,” he adds approvingly.

“You’re good to go, sir,” the cops inform the driver. The smiling Audi owner accelerates to happiness on the open road. The screen fades to black and the tagline appears — “Green has never felt so right.”

So, instead of some healthy don’t-tread-on-me mockery, the moral of the story is that we should welcome our new green overlords and, if we know what’s good for us, surrender to the New Green Order.

Some eco-bloggers disliked the ad because it reinforces the association of undemocratic statism and PC bullying with environmentalism. Perhaps that’s why the New York Times dubbed it “misguided.”

Meanwhile, some conservatives didn’t like it because it makes light of what they believe is actually happening. After all, in America and Europe the list of environmental crimes is growing at an almost exponential rate. The ad is absurd, of course, but not nearly as absurd as Audi thinks.

What was Audi’s intent? Presumably, to sell cars.

“The ad only makes sense if it’s aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police,” writes Grist magazine’s David Roberts on the Huffington Post. The target audience, according to Roberts, is men who want to “do the right thing.” He’s certainly right that the ad isn’t aimed at people (whom he childishly mocks as “*derogatory term deleted*”) who worry that their liberties are being eroded.

But the message is hardly “do the right thing.”

To me, the target demographic is a certain subset of spineless, upscale white men (all the perps in the ad are affluent white guys) who just want to go with the flow. In that sense, the Audi ad has a lot in common with those execrable MasterCard commercials. Targeting the same demographic, those ads depicted hapless fathers being harangued by their children to get with the environmental program. MasterCard’s tagline: “Helping Dad become a better man: Priceless.”

The difference is that MasterCard’s ads were earnest, creepy, diabetes-inducing treacle. Audi’s ad not only fails to invest the greens with moral authority, it concedes that the carbon cops are out of control and power-hungry (in a postscript scene, the Green Police pull over real cops for using Styrofoam cups). But, because resistance is futile when it comes to the eco-Borg, you might as well get the best car you can.

It will be interesting to see whether the ad actually sells cars. The premise only works if you take it as a given that this Gorewellian nightmare is inevitable. But the commercials arrive at precisely the moment when that inevitability is unraveling like an old pair of hemp socks. The global-warming industry is imploding from scientific scandals, inconvenient weather, economic anxiety, and surging popular skepticism (according to a Pew Research Center survey released in January, global warming ranks 21st out of 21 in terms of the public’s priorities).

This week, I don’t want a car that will get past the Green Gestapo. I’m looking for something that can power through the frozen tundra separating me from the supermarket.

[Angel Eyes]

"Gorewellian":  I like it. 

[Tallpine]

This week, I don’t want a car that will get past the Green Gestapo. I’m looking for something that can power through the frozen tundra separating me from the supermarket.

Somebody should do a remake, with a Ford F-350 Super Duty blasting through the roadblock 

[Fistful]

So, instead of some healthy don’t-tread-on-me mockery, the moral of the story is that we should welcome our new green overlords and, if we know what’s good for us, surrender to the New Green Order.

That's what bothers me about it.  I like Tallpine's idea. 

[sumpnz]

Somebody should do a remake, with a Ford F-350 Super Duty blasting through the roadblock 

Language NSFW.

[Doggy Daddy]

Language NSFW.

So, that would be the "E-Effer350?"
 
DD

[scout26]

Language NSFW.

I'd rather have the seats covered in Polar Bear fur.... 

Ad tagline for the Ford E-Effer350  - “Gaia – the Original MILF.”

[brimic]

Somebody should do a remake, with a Ford F-350 Super Duty blasting through the roadblock 

I'd probably buy one then