Chocolate Covered Cyanide—
the Little Ad That Thought It Could, and Did!
By Dale A. Beaulieu, M.S.
See George.
See George hug sad girl.
See George, our Nation’s Father.
See George run and win.
“He’s the most powerful person in the world; and all he wants is to keep me safe.”
“He’s the most powerful person in the world; and all he wants is to keep me safe.”
I saw the ad, heard the litany, and trembled at the sheer, unmitigated brilliance of its use. When I awakened at 3 a.m. the morning of 11-2, and heard W. would probably win, the phrase and the image of the ad take on haunting significance.
“He’s the most powerful person in the world; and all he wants is to keep me safe.”
The ad is sweetly lyrical—but also powerfully designed to meet us in our solar plexus. Like the horrid, booming roar and savage face of Theater Room of The Wizard of Oz, it unravels us from our collective core.
Blanketed within this depicted loving encounter is sheer fear. Fear that makes lions run from the room and hide. Fear that makes scarecrows long for even the ripping touch of flying monkeys. Fear that makes gentle-hearted Tin Men so distressed, that even without glands, they perspire.
The Magnificent, Powerful Monster of Oz within this ad hides around the edges of one maple-sweet presentation. To see, feel, know this monster, we must take the pieces of the ad apart and look with discernment. We must look at more than what is there, more than the content, but at that, too, which is implied and veiled as well. (“My opponent will not keep you safe.”
I know journalism, media and political advertisments are more about getting a perception of the truth accepted by a broad audience, and filling air, text space, etc to generate income, and less about truth. Less about presenting objective truth … this is the nature of the commerce-generating beast.
Please note that the insidious twist to this arrow into the heart of the American psyche launched by this ad is diabolically clever. Whether or not this statement/image is an enduring truth, whether it is based upon studied reflection, thoughtfulness, carefully measured observation or not … we must consider that it comes from the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, a young adolescent girl in the midst of tremendous personal loss.
See, George.
See, George, the Great White Father, hug.
See, George comfort.
It is as if W. takes a ride in a time machine back to WWII and gathers Anne Frank in an embrace that comes from all of us.
The twist in the ad is that our relationship with our president is not logical. This relationship is woven in a strange mix of pride, patriotism, father-hunger, and faith in the systems and institutions that are a part of our heritage. With a some healthy mistrust and skepticism that arises from our strong individualistic stock. We also love our leader. We want to even when we don't understand choices and decisions he makes. This love, or a hunger to have it alive in our patriotic hearts, is as much a part of U.S. citizens as our bones, our sinews, and our hearts.
Of course, screw ideological complexities, dismiss accountability, override easily observable inconsistencies, and even overlook the unabashed failure to acknowledge flaws or mistakes. See how easy this image makes our choice.
See the man.
See the good man.
See the good man offer comfort.
Who understands healthcare, who is smart enough? Noone. Why fuss over social issues from groups outside our direct concern and involvement? You says spending is a bit out of control, creating incredible debt for future generations? So. You site the more than 100.000 dead Iraqi people, dead, dead, dead—the people the U.S. claims to be spreading sweet freedom and democracy in the name of Lady Liberty. So, thousands of American sons and daughters in fresh graves as well. Not to worry. Look at the ad. See George.
See the picture.
In George we can trust. See, we are all a bit scared, just like that little girl. And, George, it is overwhelming and hard in my life. The terrorists could be anywhere. Please put your arms around me. Make all the hard work of sorting things out go away. Hold me, Great White Father.
I remember in group therapy an adult who was badly abused, as a child was very scared one night. The fear probably came from a regular series of uninterrupted beatings. Regardless, this night, the child, so spoke the reflecting adult, turned to the source of the abuse, his mother, holding onto her skirt and legs to ward off the fear, the terror. Only years later did he know realize that he was seeking comfort from the very source of his horror.
I cannot look at the photo-op ad's from W. re-election campaign, and the adolescent girl in it, without seeing this person from my therapy group share; his eyes, torn and dull; his form, shaking. I am not blaming George W. for 9-11, but I have severe concerns about his reluctance to have his actions reviewed. For me, the image presented in the ad is certainly not representative of his four years in office.
I believe this ad won the election for W. I believe it struck into the desperate longing of a people who are confused and inundated from a constant media bombardment of ideological fracturing, division and hate-mongering, and alternatively postured truths from disparate sources. This ad gives the Ultimate Kodak Moment, an answer everyone would love to snuggle into, a reduced response to the very complex challenges that face us.
But this ad is not an encapsulating, defining moment; if we look at W.’s entire record, this sophisticated contrived presentation is chocolate-covered cyanide. We pop what looks like a sweet treat into our palpitating mouths. We let the sweet, syrupy goo initially propel us into realms of sheer euphoria.
Only when the initial, glorious satiation subsides do we wrap our teeth around the unavoidable core. A core which holds are death as a people: the bitter pill of being duped, the trusting country farmer who buys a new horse that quickly turns up lame. We are, however, thanks to the sophisticated machinations of the Republican advertisement creators, granted the tender dignity of dying with a smile on our faces.
At the core of this 1950s, Norman Rockwell-meets-Harriet’s Ozzie image of this ad is sheer, unadulterated reduction, deception and manipulation of a tragedy for political gain. We swallowed it, though it offers no more lasting nourishment than the mirage of a luscious oasis in the desert, because we are hungry, hungry, hungry.
The picture holds an image of what *we would love to be real.* Our longing is the secret entranceway carved out by the scalpel-like penetration of W’s media illusionists; it allows them to bypass cognition, factual realities, recorded past performances and failures, and hit us at the prime emotive component at the core of the human experience. Hold me, Father. Make the hurt better, Daddy.
When children are lost, confused, bewildered they will seek food from any cabinet, without looking to see if there is a skull-and-cross-bone marking on the box. The majority of my fellow Americans bought this ad. This ad, coupled with a Republican-created agreement reality about Kerry won the day. The Republican strategists reduced the 20-year career of a thoughtful, measured opponent with the courage to allow convictions to grow and change in time, into “a politically expedient flip-flopper with no core convictions,” decided this election.
I am sick to my stomach.
Why?
Because I see the craft behind the mind(s) who designed this ad.
Readers may ask, “Why and how do I see the picture of a comforting hug as harmful and dangerous?”
Let us consider. If a child, young man or adult was in grief, isolated or in dire need of having touch-hunger needs met, it is conceivable that, pushed to the limit, the touch-hungry person might even welcome a live rattlesnake into their boudoir, or bed. If this occurred, the person would have the comfort of close proximity to another life form. However, if the snake, true to its nature, decided to inflict a poisonous bite, the inviting host would have to relinquish some rather basic freedoms: like being able to inhale, exhale and having a pulse. Like W.’s hug it comes to one at first glance like a sweet, ocean breeze, the ultimate warm fuzzy—BUT the image and its subtle construction carries a hidden, terrible cost: we also get the parts of the man that are not shown in the image-ad. We must see clearly. We must set aside our terrible hunger. We must be wise and reflective in selecting our bedfellows.
Now remember, if you want to believe W. is loving, caring and compassionate, feel free. That is what our country is made from. But, for me, when I put the drama of the 2004 election in contrast with the great stories, the fictions that hold truths that tell us volumes about ourselves, the verities that define us, that sort order from chaos, the story that most comes to mind, for me, a die-in-the-wool Kansan, is the previously referred to Wizard of Oz.
What if when casting this great musical, the character of Dorothy’s dog, Toto, was omitted?
There may have been no homecoming. Dorothy’s crew might still be taking orders from a loud voice, a scary figure, and an intricately orchestrated impostor. Then, dire consequences: no clicking red slippers back home. Auntie Em out of the picture forever.
Looking carefully, cutting through nonsense, is the job of media, Toto noticing the curtain swaying. Media is not about choosing sides and presenting what sells. We need Toto, the wise animal, the guide in so many fairy tells, the instinctual, the intuitive, the one who will not settle for partial or convenient truths. Without Toto we will never have the opportunity to find that at the core of the Great Wizard of Oz Theater is a frightened, wrinkled old man who hides behind skilled magicians who do nothing but make smoke and mirrors seem real. They create fantasy banquets. We go to gloriously filled tables. We devour the seeming delights before us. We walk away with a much greater hunger than with which we arrived. This is an ancient story, repackaged for our times; and we bought it.
We bought it because we want to believe in America. We want to stand tall at ballgames; we want to grieve our fallen warriors and not have to face the fact that they may have died without due cause. We want to have our voices ring when we reach for the high notes of the National Anthem. We want our tiny children, with serious, sacred faces, to sound a pure, honoring tone each morning at class. We want the words from the Pledge to blaze with meaning and truth. We want this Pledge to have teeth, and not be reduced to a monotone routine, deplete of meaning. We don’t want the sweet words to die harsh in the mouths of our children. We want to believe in our country, AND, our leader’s greatness.
There is coming a great day. When American shall rise from the ashes of its lost path, its shattered dreams. We shall arise, like Jesus in the Temple, with truth and the power to destroy in a cleansing hand. We will rise and tell every division-creating pundit—from both extremes—and we will teach them that truth has two faces, that truth has graciousness and space, that tearing, ripping, exposing every conceivable flaw in our leaders and systems, is dissection and death dealing, not honorable inquiry.
Sure, folks are drawn to the dirty. We love novels of serial killers; we have a heightened level of intrigue for the macabre, the horrific. We read Stephen King to see the shadow-self we seldom honor in the light. The tiny child in us who, when no adult was around, pulled the wings off of butterflies, never truly dies.
But we are more than our fascination with the dark.
I believe, together, we will choose a world where journalists-entertainers who play for robotic followers, fame and bags of dirty coins will be forced to stop pulling down the pants of the Emperor With No Clothes. If we did, indeed, on the impetus of one incredibly, artfully designed ad, elect W. for four more years, let us not despair. Still there is hope.
Lao Tse’s Tao Te Ching says, “When the country is confused and in chaos, loyal ministers appear.”
See.
Let us wait and see.
See George tear it down.
Tear it down.
Tear it down.
Tear it down.
See George tear us all down.
See—loyal ministers appear.
Dale A. Beaulieu (c)
