Once each week I try to find a commercial or short video that reflects an aspect of the Kingdom of God in some positive way. Today, however, I instead present a commercial that I think illustrates a common problem of our day: excessive idiosyncrasy. The singer in the background croons, “We are all strange,” while the footage shows some of the strange and outlandish ways that people dress and act today.
I suppose that back in the 1950s and before we were a little too conformist, and many people were pressured to comply to a rather narrow and rigid definition of what was proper. I would argue that today we have gone too far in the other direction. Every day things seem to get stranger and stranger. There is a kind of existentialism prevalent that says, “I’ll make up my own reality and live within it. You need to adjust to me.” At some point such an attitude offends against the common good.
What is displayed in many of the images in this commercial is more than mere cultural diversity; it seems to be just weirdness for its own sake. It’s as if people are daring me to make a comment so that they can upbraid me for my narrow-mindedness (or bigotry or hatred). The overall effect of the commercial is not a positive one. The depictions are strange, chaotic, and unappealing—in some cases even ugly. To a large degree, though, this is where we are in this country today.
Watch it, and see what you think!
Cross-posted at the Catholic Standard: Weird Is as Weird Does
The agony of ecstacy. Don’t do drugs. That’s what I see in this commercial.