On a subliminal level

The television advertisement for PC World currently running has to be one of the most wooden and clunky commercials ever aired. It comprises sequences of “customers” talking to “sales assistants” (all played by actors) with pedestrian dialogue that resembles a government information film. The ad ends with a gigantic masonic handshake filling the screen (are they unaware of the cultural implications of this image? Is no-one advising them?).

Previously PC World ran TV commercials that featured a lead “face” (an alpha male sales manager) stamping on the showroom floor, the force of his stamping supposedly forcing the floor lower. The message of the ad is that PC World is stamping down prices. Every time I saw the ad I was reminded of George Orwell writing in 1984: “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever”.

This image has entered western culture, and not just the obvious German goose-stepping example (transmogrified into marching hammers in the Pink Floyd animation accompanying Another Brick In The Wall). You can see the motif in rock music, vacuous Jessica Simpson videos, even a logo for Dover Council’s unit for suppressing anti-social behaviour (on a subliminal level I find the use of this logo by Dover Council disturbing and seemingly a vindication of Orwell’s vision. Anti-social elements could be non-conformists and dissidents just as much as delinquents and vandals. And in any case I would prefer a “hug a hoodie” policy to Orwellian-style stamping on people – but then I live in a rural area where crime is extremely low, and I might have a different view if I lived on a south London sink estate).