Hell week & the Nike Father's Day spot
It's Hell Week, in which I have two massive papers to write, 400 pages of 109 East Palace to read and analyze, and a semester's worth of "Seminar on the American Southwest" to study in preparation for Thursday's final. I have to give my own final, too, and lecture for three hours tomorrow, but that's the least of my worries right now.
I've been doing work all day, and have had the television on; first, World Cup Soccer, then the U.S. Open, and now the NBA Finals. Nike's been running a spot all day for Father's Day, featuring the Zombies' This Will Be Our Year and various home movie clips of Tiger Woods with his father, who died a month ago and whose importance to his career can't possibly be overestimated. [Watch the ad here.] Woods, so distraught by the loss of his father, took time off since the May 3rd passing and only this weekend entered the U.S. Open, where he failed miserably -- missing the cut in a major for the first time in his career.
So in light of all this, Nike's throwing an ad with a song I will always associate with loss (OK Go's cover of This Will Be Our Year was Track One on the Moveon.org "Future Soundtrack of America" sent to all of us who donated in the pre-2004 election months) along with seeing a kid with his dad, a dad who just died, and...
It's horrible.
I know Nike is trying to pay tribute to "dads everywhere," but, frankly, I find the commercial horrifying. I'm not emotionally affected by much of anything, but I find this spot so phenomenally depressing (and I've seen it about ten times already today) that I literally get teary-eyed every time it starts, and not in the good way of being "touched" but in the fearful, scared, "God, I love my dad, I cannot fathom what I would do without him, I'm very frightened now" way.
I'm sure some think the spot is touching and a tribute. I find it morbid and frightful.
Back to work.
