Assignment task:
YouTube Video: Will Ferrell Super Bowl Ad - General Motors [2021]
After watching video answer the prompt.
1. Tucked in among all the silliness and the totally unrealistic plot elements, GM's commercial does offer some concrete information about their EVs. What is that information and how is it presented in the ad? Should the ad have spent a little more time giving serious information? Why or why not? Explain your reasoning.
2. One of the silliest things about this colossally silly commercial is Ferrell's idea that going to Norway to "crush those lugers" would somehow gain an advantage for the US in a competition for the highest rate of electric car use. In addition to the emphatic "Crush them!" line, the ad is full of aggressive gestures and a bellicose attitude. Give three more examples of such gestures and attitudes. Is the aggressiveness in the ad intended as a satire of US culture, or was the aggressiveness simply an appropriate form of expression during the Super Bowl, an event that, in its essence, celebrates aggressiveness? (In considering this question, you might enjoy watching one of the Norwegian response videos.
3. Before you saw the GM ad (either during the Super Bowl broadcast in 2021 or just now for your class), what was your impression of people who own and drive electric cars? Virtuous protectors of the environment? Rich, arrogant elites? Ordinary budget-minded people, who want to stretch their limited dollars? Status-seeking snobs? Football fans? Never thought about them at all? In what way might the GM ad have been trying to change the image of electric vehicles and EV owners? Whether it was intentional or not, do you think the ad changed people's perceptions of electric vehicles at all? Did it change yours?