Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Using the dead


I don't know if any of you have seen VW's latest commercial which features the deceased Donald O'Connor and the deceased Gene Kelly. I recognized them immediately, but I felt creepy watching the commercial. It didn't feel right to use their images without their approval. I'm sure VW got the permission of their estates or heirs, but still, it seems a little macabre. This isn't the first time VW has used Gene Kelly. Here's their first commercial with him below:




I know this is done all the time, but for some reason, I'm not bothered when Elvis' image is plastered all over the place, and I'm not bothered by other still picture ads, but to physically animate a dead celebrity into pitching a product just seems somehow worse to me.













It's kinda like walking around with a corpse and treating it like a puppet, posing it, making it do ridiculous things. That's okay for a bad movie (Weekend at Bernie's), using a live actor playing dead, but it's just wrong somehow to me, to take a dead actor and reanimate him. Does this bother anyone else?

3 comments:

OldLady Of The Hills said...

I think it is terrible and they need permission from someone to do this---WHO in their right mind would give permission? And further, I would think it really doesn't serve Volkswagon, At All!
It is downright weird....!

Knock knock - it's cancer! said...

V V!!!

OH.MY.GOD.

YOu are still posting! Halleluia! It's been forever since I've read you. It's been even longer since I've ever written in my blog.

It's michelle here from "Once upon a Time" and "One Full House" - I've quit both of those a few years ago, and just got busy living life...

But a ridiculous diagnosis of cancer has propelled me into the blogging world again, so here I am.

Looking forward to reading you again,

VV said...

Michelle! I actually went to your old blog again last week to see if you had posted and looked at the comments to see if I could figure out where you've gone. I'm heading to your new blog now. Glad to hear from you!

For CK the book lover