{"id":65120,"date":"2019-05-17T03:39:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T03:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=65120"},"modified":"2019-05-17T03:41:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T03:41:08","slug":"the-magic-of-advertising-or-the-commercialization-of-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=65120","title":{"rendered":"The magic of advertising or the commercialization of magic?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; beer and cars, cars, cars, is that all there is to life? &#8212; never mind &#8212; fourth in my magic and commercials series, links to earlier entries at end of post ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>There are some commercials that imply &#8212; or come pretty close to admitting &#8212; that magic of one sort of another is what tbhey&#8217;re up to:<\/p>\n<p>This Dos Equis ad, for instanxce, features a state magician, and we are left with the impression the beer may somehow be the power behind nhis feats of illusion &#8212;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bkrsTECz7Og\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>*<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8212; and the fact that &#8220;his beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man&#8217;s entire body&#8221;..<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s so-called &#8220;magical thinking&#8221; in this commercial by Mercedes-Benz. But this isn&#8217;t at allm original, in fact it&#8217;s a positively hubristic borrowing: when God does this in the first chapter of Genesis, it&#8217;s called &#8220;creation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/R84j8pmH-d0\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a well-known trope in state magic we can call &#8220;Behind the curtain&#8221; &#8212; since it&#8217;s echoes in a take-down of the creator-God &#8212; and seeming miracles &#8212; in The Wizard of Oz:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k4RxamUh9GM\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And for your extended pleasure, here are two alternates:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z1SwhphPpas\">distinguished gentleman disguised as a race-car driver<\/a>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/share\/oLAU\">Espresso &#8212; guess it only works on cars<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>And perhaps best of all there&#8217;s what I&#8217;ll call &#8220;he Gandalf blind-man&#8221; &#8212; blindness is noit of the essence here, the essence is knowinjg the contours of the world at a level beyond that of mordinary knowing <\/p>\n<blockquote><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g_h6Jojip2Q\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8212; one might equally call this &#8220;the Dumbledore blind-man&#8221;, though in a contest of wills, UI&#8217;d back Gandalf over Dumbledore &#8212; and its archetypal essence is to be found in Merlin, court mage to King Arthur, now lost in the mists of Avalon..<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>Earlier in this seriesz<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>:<\/p>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=64391\">Advertising series 01: Music<\/a>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=63956\">Eros, the Renaissance and advertising<\/a>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=65020\">Authentic, spiritual magic!<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=65125\">In my next<\/a>, I&#8217;ll return to authentic magic..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; beer and cars, cars, cars, is that all there is to life? &#8212; never mind &#8212; fourth in my magic and commercials series, links to earlier entries at end of post ] . There are some commercials that imply &#8212; or come pretty close to admitting &#8212; that magic of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[734,482,1909,526,742,286,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advertising","category-alcohol","category-automobile","category-charles-cameron","category-magic","category-series","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65120"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65139,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65120\/revisions\/65139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}