Monday, October 10, 2011
The Force: Volkswagen Commercial
While reading McCloud, which was almost too enjoyable to be an assigned reading, I couldn't help but think back to this commercial.
It's only a little over a minute, but just in case you don't watch it, I'll give a brief description. This little child is running around the house trying to move various things with "the force." Nothing works as frustration builds. The car pulls into the drive, and the child runs out to try to make it start. After a few seconds of intense concentration, the car magically starts and the child freaks out. The camera then shows the father in the kitchen along with the car's remote starter.
Now, do we know the sex of the child? No. Do we actually know it's a child? Really, we don't but we are to assume this Darth Vader is their kid. I instantly assumed this was a little boy who just finished "StarWars: The Old Republic." But in a brief scene there is a moment when the child is in an all pink bedroom with a bunch of things that are associated with females, yet we never see a sister.
Now, the advertisement itself isn't really my point. What I'm getting at is we know Darth Vader. You could have been born under a rock and kept in a cave, and you probably still would know this iconic character. We, as an audience, know exactly what this child (I'll just call the child a boy from now on) was trying to do; he wanted to use "the force." So where does all this imagery come into play? The "real" Darth Vader doesn't really exist, but the actor playing Darth is number 1. Then we have the Darth we get to see in the movies. He's number 2. Then we have the child in the Darth costume, being number 3. And lastly we have the character we see repeatedly on this commercial at number 4. And that's the most simplistic layers. So how do we get from number 1 to number 4? That iconic costume. The heavy breathing and music in the background certainly helps as well, but even without that we'd still know who that kid is dressed up as. "The treachery of images" is laced so tightly with the language of our lives that we don't even notice anymore when it sneaks up on us.
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Kaitlyn, I've never thought to include actors as icons of their characters. It's true, of course, but the layers you're talking about could probably be separated into concepts. I know Darth Vader, but I have no idea which actor plays him. However, I know Brad Pitt. I could have never seen a movie Brad Pitt was in and still know Brad Pitt. I don't know if it's because he's pretty or because he married Angelina Jolie, but I'd say Brad Pitt is an icon. The guy who plays Darth Vader has no iconic value if no one knows who he is, but maybe I was just living in my rock for too long. Maybe everyone knows who this guy is. I don't know. That's not my point.
ReplyDeleteThe same rings true for this kid in the commercial. No one knows who he is, and we don't care. We know that this is not really Darth Vader. We know that it's a kid in a costume. Since we don't care about the kid, I'm thinking that we only have one icon. It's a mixture of the kid and the costume, but we don't t think of them separately. Our icon is kid in costume.
McCloud specifies the symbol to be a representation of a philosophy or idea, something quite different from an icon. I think that in the case of this commercial, since the creators are using this child to represent the well known character of Darth Vader, he is an icon of the symbol that is Darth Vader.
ReplyDeleteAn icon is a representation of the subject, embodying characteristics that vary on degrees of resemblance. To me the child is an iconic parody of Darth Vader, who is a symbol of cruelty and "the dark side." The icon is all about what you can see, what your eyes perceive.
Brad Pitt is definitely a cultural icon, but I think in the terms of McCloud's discussion his physical representation is what matters. Therefore he is an icon of a good looking and well known actor. On the other hand, he is a symbol of talent, acting, and stardom.
I guess I'm trying to get at the concept that icons are based on the subject's outer appearance, while symbols are focused more on the meaning and significance of how that outer appearance is received.