OK, I’m probably being too sensitive about this. But I just saw a commercial that offends me a little.
It’s for a furniture retail store, and it has a bunch of people dancing to “Celebrate Memorial Day Savings.”
Have we forgotten what this day is about?
I’m all in favor of the holiday. I’m all in favor of people going on picnics and watching parades (does anyone hold a Memorial Day Parade anymore)? But with two wars going on and young Americans being killed every day on foreign shores, I resent the image of a bunch of young people dancing to “celebrate” the “Memorial Day Savings” which the deaths of other brave men and women have secured for them.
The Author in 1973
Yeah, I know. I’m just being an old curmudgeon here. But it just seems fundamentally wrong to “dance” in “celebration” of “furniture deals” on a day created to recall the ultimate sacrifice—not for the furniture manufacturers selling their wares at “low, low, Memorial Day prices.”
Car dealers are no better. Their commercials show the showrooms crowded with happy customers who honor the sacrifice of young Americans by purchasing gas-guzzling SUVs, making a mockery of the fact that our troops are dying—in part—to maintain the free flow of oil at market prices. And the market is good!
Grocery stores are a bit more dignified as they sell their steaks and potato chips with waving American flags in their ads for their big “Memorial Day Cookout Blowout” sales. Will they donate some of the profits to the families of those dead soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines whom we’re supposed to be honoring this coming Monday?
I’m not suggesting we all dress in black and mourn. I am suggesting that we enjoy the time with our families and reflect on the freedoms we enjoy because young Americans and immigrants to this country have put on the uniform, put themselves in harm’s way—and all too many have paid the ultimate price over the years to ensure that we have these fabulous, this weekend only, Memorial Day Mattress Extravaganzas so that we may ALL “Rest in Peace.”
What next? Martin Luther King Jr. Day sales where a guy in “blackface” tells his TV customers, “I have a dream today...of Saving You Money!”
There’s something wrong with our priorities here, kids.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Benjamin
I couldn't agree with you more, saw a similar commercial for one of the big home improvement stores ... celebrate the savings ....
2 - Ruvy
Good that you noticed there is a lot wrong with American cultural priorities. I couldn't agree with you more. When I saw that sick culture start to envelope one of my sons, I got very nervous. As you may have guessed from my comments elsewhere, I didn't love it - and we left.
It's not that there aren't hustlers trying to make a buck off of holidays here. Of course there are! But the priorities have not been lost. The stores (except for restaurants) close on our Remembrance Day and Independence Day, and in addition to the numerous public memorials of this battle or that, there are plenty of visits to cemeteries to remember husbands, brothers, fathers, uncles and even grandfathers lost in war here.
That used to happen in the States - about a half century or more ago. But you (not you personally obviously, but your culture) have forgotten those whose blood nourishes the tree of liberty - and now you are losing your liberty as a result.
This is an article about banking in Israel. Other than it's first sentence, it has nothing to do with what you have written in your fine article. But I'm posting that first sentence in bold to make my point.
With spending out of control, the U.S. government has become desperate for revenue.
A country desperate for revenue rapidly loses its independence - and its liberty.
3 - Dr Dreadful
Well, a country which insists on having not one but three public holidays to commemorate the military clearly has its priorities somewhat out of whack anyway.
If folks are going to be given a day off work, they don't particularly want to spend it being serious and contemplative. They'd rather go and do things they don't normally have time to do during the work week - like shop.
You can't really blame retailers for taking advantage.
Back where I come from, our holidays are either religious in origin or arbitrary. While we do officially denote days to commemorate important historical events and the sacrifice of the services, they're not public holidays.
On November 11th (your Veterans' Day) everyone stops what they're doing at 11 a.m. and stands for two minutes' respectful silence. That way, we all get an appreciation of the work and sacrifices of the services without being inadvertently encouraged to have fun and forget about it.
4 - FCEtier
When I was in Louisiana, we could choose between Memorial Day and Mardis Gras for paid holiday. Guess which one got chosen more often!
5 - El Bicho
Just so I am clear, you are upset because people are using their freedom how they see fit and not how you want them to? Thanks for your service, but it doesn't sound like you completely grasped the concept of what you were fighting for.
6 - zingzing
judge a culture based on their commercials and you'll come away with a really ignorant idea of that culture. does anyone really think that what they see in commercials reflects reality in any way? no.
advertising is the most pessimistic industry out there. don't doubt it.
7 - ParkyBill
Yes, el Bicho. The thousands of Americans who were killed in our wars did so in order that American advertisers can profane their memories by having actors dance to celebrate the 10 percent savings on dining room furniture. Pardon me, but it sounds like YOU don't understand the concept of what they died for.
8 - Mark Saleski
ok, i'll play. so what DID they die for? so that i must stand on my well-manicured lawn on memorial day, face d.c., sing the pledge, and salute? eh, no thanks.
p.s. i'm not so hot on crass commercialism either, but honestly, FREEdom is what it is.
9 - ParkyBill
Sgt. Thompson: Stay down, Marine! Charging that machine gun position would be suicide.
Pvt. Jackson: But I gotta do it, Sergeant! I gotta do it for the rest of the fellas in this platoon! And so slackers who have never sacrificed a thing in their lives for anyone other than themselves can stand on their well-manicured lawns and barbecue steaks and dance in TV commercials to celebrate our deaths with huge savings on home appliances, mattresses and major furniture purchases. If not for our laying down our lives in these desert sands, those folks back home wouldn't HAVE the gas to pump into those wasteful SUVs they love so much. So don'cha see, Sergeant? I gotta do it. For the huge Memorial Day Savings!
Sgt. Thompson: God speed, Marine. When I get home... IF I get home... I'll tell everyone how your needless death made their incredible savings on refrigerators, plasma screen TVs and mattresses possible.
10 - Mark Saleski
repeating your "argument" does nothing.
11 - zingzing
parkybill, if you really pay attention to commercials, you deserve all the bullshit you can suck in. it's just a fucking commercial. they're designed to make you feel helplessly stupid. don't fall for it by taking it seriously.
12 - Ruvy
Mark,
Do I, a foreigner who left America because he didn't love it, have to explain to all of you why you have a Memorial Day and the proper behavior on it?
You visit the graves of kids who died when they were 18 or 19 or 20. Kids whose potential was ended by a shell or a bullet or a rocket that exploded so near that it ended any chance for them to live. And when you visit, think of all the kids they could have fathered, all the things they could have done with the lives they no longer have. I see too much of that here. Our entire country is dotted with memorials to just those kinds of kids who died that I could walk as a free man in my country after 2,000 years of persecution and Exile.
You don't appreciate the freedoms you are fast losing. And the fact that you don't appreciate them is a big part of the reason you are losing them.
Your commercials are the funny mirror that sells your culture overseas. And if in your commercials, there is no respect for those who died defending you, it says a whole lot about what matters and doesn't matter to you.
13 - zingzing
ruvy: "Your commercials are the funny mirror that sells your culture overseas."
maybe, but they're utterly false mirrors.
14 - roger nowosielski
Are they, zing? Can you say it with a straight face?
We're not talking about a fringe here but ethos which characterizes the bulk of American society: consumption, consumption, consumption.
15 - ParkyBill
Once again, and my point is established by many of the commentors so far, these men and women are dying for nothing. Their sacrifice is meaningless to so many of their fellow Americans. It's sad news, so we change the channel to get the latest on Bret Michaels' health or who won American Idol. We have one commentor saying, "What am I supposed to do? Salute?"
FUCK YES! THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO ON MEMORIAL DAY!
Take a minute -- a fucking MINUTE -- to think about the men and women who are fighting in far away lands to keep you safe and keep you free so you can dance in fucking commercials to celebrate their deaths because it means huge savings on refrigerators.
16 - roger nowosielski
Parkybill,
You shouldn't take comfort in the fact that some commentors agree with your POV.
Your argument should stand on its own two feet. We're not in the business of counting noses.
17 - ParkyBill
The point being established is not that commentors agree with me, Roger... it's that they're proving my point. They are proving what a shallow, soulless nation we have become.
18 - roger nowosielski
Yes we have, but there are reasons. Not all our wars have been just. Many have given their lives needlessly, not in support of freedom, as you claim, but national interests.
Are these the same in your book?
19 - ParkyBill
The soldier follows the lawful orders of his or her commanders. He or she does not set the policy. His or her sacrifice is no less because of the unjustness of the policy.
Memorial Day has become just another commercialized sham holiday because we are a commercialized shallow nation of commercialized shallow people who think "Entertainment Tonight" is "the News."
20 - roger nowosielski
I don't disagree with you on a human level. So yes, we should all mourn our dead. But I don't like it to see it turn into an endorsement of American foreign policy.
Do you realize our death toll in Afghanistan reached 1000? What are we doing there?
21 - zingzing
roger "[the] ethos which characterizes the bulk of American society: consumption, consumption, consumption."
well that's a rather bleak view. and yes, i do think that if you view american culture through the lens of the advertising industry, you're going to come away with a completely distorted, utterly false understanding of that culture. the only person who is doing a dance for savings on appliances is the guy in the commercial, no one else. and he's doing it for the money. from a script written by a guy doing it for the money. commissioned by a business owner who's doing it for the money. it's certainly not an accurate representation of any value of mine, and it's not an accurate representation of the values of those that are actually doing it either. it's advertising. you ever work in advertising? it's the biggest load of bullshit. nothing more.
memorial day is a day to celebrate freedom. do what you want. if you want to go visit a graveyard, do so. if you want to have a bbq, do so. if you want to sleep in, do so. if you want to call your dad, do so. if you're forced into doing something you don't particularly want to do, you're missing the point. thank you veterans, but i'll do what i please with my day off, whatever that may be.
22 - doug m
Roger is correct. Pick up a history book and put down the recruiting office pamphlet. You weren't fighting for America's freedom in 1973.
The author comes off like an egomaniac. Posting a giant photo of himself and demanding people salute him. Sounds more like a Communist leader than an American soldier.
23 - ParkyBill
That's odd. I think doug m comes off like someone who pretended to read an article and didn't understand a bit of it.
Doug. My, dear, dear Doug. I didn't die in a war. Memorial Day is not about me. Now, after that has seeped through, re-read what I wrote and see if you can make some sense of what I'm saying about crass commercialism.
24 - ParkyBill
Oh, and doug? Every day a soldier, sailor, airman, Marine or coastie puts on his or her uniform, that's a day when he or she is making a statement that he or she is part of something bigger than his or herself. He or she has sworn an oath and is willing to die, doug. For you!
25 - Mark
Memorial day?
Remember to just say, "No."