NYT A&L scribe on political ads: "Scary, Like Funny Scary "

[Bozita]

Article is an interesting read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/weekinreview/29stanley.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

October 29, 2006

The TV Watch

Scary, Like Funny Scary
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

It’s not that campaign ads are so nasty. They are always nasty, brutish and 30 seconds long. If anything, the scare tactics that loomed so large in the 2002 election in the wake of 9/11 now seem passé. This time around, many of the most powerful political ads are funny — 2006 marks the Comedy Centralization of politics.

Some are playful, others are mean-spirited, snarky and downright scurrilous. But the new breed of humorous ads don’t just mock the opponent, many of them wink at the absurdity of the entire campaign process.

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In his campaign against Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont has produced ads that make fun of the classic scare tactics found in conventional ads — to engage viewers and deflect, with mockery, incoming attacks of his opponent. One shows Mr. Lamont in black and white as an ominous narrator says: “Meet Ned Lamont. He can’t make a decent cup of coffee.” As Mr. Lamont shuffles papers, red letters cross the screen and freeze into a warning: “Messy Desk.”

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Mr. Corker’s own biographical ads gauzily showcase his conservative family, yet even he seems determined to assure voters he is no square. “After 20 years, he still makes me laugh,” Mrs. Corker says tenderly. In another one, his 18-year-old daughter, Julia, says of her father, “I think he’s hilarious.”

Mr. Corker was undoubtedly less amusing around the house when pictures of Julia kissing a girl on the lips at a college party on Facebook.com began whipping around cyberspace: one of the perils of 21st-century technology is that those who live by the Internet can die by the Internet.

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