Television Commercial for Communism

[Rusty Shackleford]

The Commercial (http://vimeo.com/42584042)


article on it (http://www.the-propeller-group.com/tvcc)



Ellipsis shared with and then decided it needed to be on the forum. so, DISCUSS AWAY ABOUT PEOPLE IN WHITE CLOTHING SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE OF SMILES.


In all seriousness though, this is a serious project. maybe it needs a discussion.

[Raúl Duke]

I couldn't help but laugh near the end....

But in all seriousness...

I actually don't know what to think, my initial reaction is that it's a silly idea.

The only practical thing I can tell you is that for this to have any effect the commercial would have to be widely broadcasted and often (with newer ones to keep content fresh).
What communist/etc organization has the means to do that?

At best, all you may be able to achieve is to get people thinking about "communism" or something along those lines.

I imagine Situationists being appalled by this idea.

[#FF0000]

you'd think that the media-saavy dummies behind this would try to avoid the mono-chrome-all-white-everything-everyone-is-dressed-the-same look.

Holy fucking shit the language of smiles

edit: someone call an ambulance im dead

edit2: the language of smiles killed me dude

[Rusty Shackleford]

my thoughts on the not knowing what to think part.



but some thoughts:


its def not like the typical proletarian battle hymn, stern proletarian or peasant, a rifle somewhere, and some lofty ideals and criticism of some thing.


its back to the old 'lofty ideals' and thats it part.



but i feel like its just so white-washed. literally and figuratively

[Taters]

The irony is making my eyes bleed.

But, I do like that symbol. As much as I love the ol' hammer-n-sickle, it does look a bit severe.


you'd think that the media-saavy dummies behind this would try to, uh, avoid the mono-chrome all-white-everything-EVERYONE-IS-DRESSED-THE-SAME look.

Yeaaah, that's what I was thinking. Apparently, full communism is Logan's Run or something. XD

[Rugged Collectivist]

Oh god it's so bad. It copies the douchebag aesthetic of most companies that want people to believe they actually care about them. It has all the cliches. Upbeat music, smiling people finishing each others sentences... And the language of smiles shit was the worst. I also take issue with the "everybody's welcome" part.

I would have done it completely differently, but my version probably wouldn't have the widespread appeal that something like this needs. Maybe these marketing douchebags are a necessary evil.

[Nevsky]

I don't like it. It portrays communism as the sterile, egalitarian (in a forced, creepy way) farce. Communism is not about dreaming of some vague equality ideal, it's not utopia. It is the concrete movement which works for the emancipation from capitalism.

[ellipsis]

I just ordered like 3 cases of communism.

[Brutus]

I just ordered like 3 cases of communism.

I ordered 3 crates of market socialism from Yugoslavia

[Bardo]

Is "Communism" a new Apple subsidiary?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Bland, sterile, vague, inoffensive, lacking in colour, non-threatening - this commercial is all the things that communism shouldn't be.

Who the fuck is responsible for this travesty?

[Narodnik]

http://www.the-propeller-group.com/about

[Tenka]

its back to the old 'lofty ideals' and thats it part.


What lofty ideals? Sterile egalitarianism in white clothing, and a language of smiles? Nothing lofty about that.

I feel embarrassed for the white hipsters and their Vietnamese* friends who put this thing together.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

:lol::laugh:
I want more of these, seriously
I hope they don't design our uniforms in the future though

[Rusty Shackleford]

What lofty ideals? Sterile egalitarianism in white clothing, and a language of smiles? Nothing lofty about that.

I feel embarrassed for the white hipsters and their Vietnamese* friends who put this thing together.

like day dreaming inoffensive lofty ideals. like, the first days of a radicals radicalism. (unless they played a lot of Red Alert)

[slum]

did i hear some nonsense about 'equal opportunities' through that whack harp music or what?

man i am so on board for the weird union of proletarian self-emancipation with neo-liberal free market language, the future is now! where can i send my 12.99 USD for my AUTHENTIC white linen tunic and wicker basket?

[Bostana]

Same as everybody else. I don't really now how to feel.

[ellipsis]

At least it's better than mtw videos

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

At least it's better than mtw videos

Only because it's shorter...

[one10]

I don't like it.

At the very least, the idea can provoke people to start looking into communism.

But that commercial is just terrible.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Way to make us look like a fucking cult...:rolleyes:

[Forward Union]

One of the rules of marketing is that you need to provide answers to questions the audience may or may not have had. You need to give them an instruction of what to do, in standard commercials this is to buy the product, in most political ads it's either to Vote for the party or not vote for the other one. This offers absolutely nothing.

Most people already say that communism is a good idea but that "It doesn't work" so what is really needed is to make it workable. This means organising.

Anyway I looked up the organisation that made this, it seems to be a rather strange hipster agency based in Vietnam. Which almost explains everything. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go try and reclaim the last few minutes of my life by taking mind altering drugs.

[KurtFF8]

The idea that "Communism" can be re-branded like a capitalist commodity (and in particular a hip, newly produced tech. product like a new Apple computer) doesn't really make sense.

Plenty of folks on the Left like to talk about the need to "re-brand" ourselves (which is itself perhaps partially a symptom of the epoch of capitalism that relies more and more on advertising (http://monthlyreview.org/2009/04/01/the-sales-effort-and-monopoly-capital) and the deepening of "post-modernism") but I don't think this is quite what even those folks had in mind.

It would be interesting to learn more about the group behind promoting this (all the info seems to be on the advertising group itself) and why they would bother.

This video needs to be shown in academic Left circles though, they would have a ton of fun with it.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Oh god, I threw up in my mouth right when it started with "We the People". That was so freakin' horrible and embarrassing, here's to hoping this travesty doesnt get airtime, especially where I live.

[Aurora]

You sure it's not an ad for washing detergent? New Communism dual power tabs, bang and the filth is liquidated!

[Agathor]

Looks like a Scientology advert.

Also if you're going to call yourself a communist, particularly in the US, you should be very specific about what you believe, otherwise people will get the wrong impression.

[Vanilla]

are we going to be required to wear the white clothing?... that was the first thing i thought when i viewed that. they seem like a bunch of hippies. no thank you.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

You know, upon reflection about this commercial, it was clearly very poorly executed but there's a real 'rational kernel' to it that makes it significant: a successful contemporary communist mass movement will likely have to abandon 'revolutionary' aesthetics and culture, and instead will have to compete for the attention and goodwill of the general public in (culturally) inoffensive ways. At least in the United States, communism has to shake off the air of being 'foreign' and 'un-American' (let alone its association with democide and the gulag), and perhaps part of that will be a 're-branding' process.

Then again, this commercial reflects a very different situation politically with a CP in power, and strikes me as repulsive. Maybe this looks nice to Vietnamese folks, but to me it looks like a fucking white-hipster-cult nightmare.

[RadioRaheem84]

Was that a new Apple product commercial? I mean it was horrible.

It looks a PR firm helped dress that commercial up. People on the left have to do something before communism gets into the hands of rich hipsters and gets promoted like a new commodity.

Old commie propaganda was more effective than that. The sheer critique of us imperialism, the alienation of capitalism, the question if workers are getting a fair wage? Where is all that?

The idea that a poor violin concerto player doesn't have to live on the streets playing his talent for pennies.

How are we light years behind what the old Commies thought of in the past?

I just get the impression that young leftists today are some what afraid to just conduct class warfare, simple as that. They think its akin to being a racist or sexist. My two cents

[Luís Henrique]

fucking cult...

Sounds great.

Where do I join, and whom do I get to fuck?

Luís Henrique

[p0is0n]

this is what happens when you let middle-class liberals claim words like "socialist"

edit: i just realized it isn't an actual ad for communism, thank the seven gods of westeros

[RadioRaheem84]

this is what happens when you let middle-class liberals claim words like "socialist"

edit: i just realized it isn't an actual ad for communism, thank the seven gods of westeros

Yes, middle class liberals who think socialism = welfare state. It gets annoying.

Also, this is not an add for Communism, then what is it?

[Futility Personified]

This is an ad for not taking too many drugs, I think. Nonsense.

[p0is0n]

Yes, middle class liberals who think socialism = welfare state. It gets annoying.

Also, this is not an add for Communism, then what is it?
Well it is an ad, but not by ctual communists, at least so far I understood. Skimmed through the article though. It mentions crap like (and I'm paraphrasing) "what if the 5 remaining communist countries would hire a hip hipster 21 century ad firm to rebrand communism" or some such, and this would be the result.

[TheEmancipator]

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9w2uda9uZ1rafbkgo1_400.jpg

I think this works better.

[Rugged Collectivist]

You sure it's not an ad for washing detergent? New Communism dual power tabs, bang and the filth is liquidated!

That would explain all the white clothes. They don't have to worry about it getting dirty.

[MarxArchist]

Everyone in white, "live as one"....this is reenforcing westerners fear of communism as being some sort of blue coverall wearing cult. Inject a little realism here, this looks like a cult commercial.

[Starship Stormtrooper]

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9w2uda9uZ1rafbkgo1_400.jpg

I think this works better.

That reminds me of those "get in the car, there's no time to explain" memes that were going around a while back :D. But seriously, advertising communism is a bad idea. The whole point of advertising is to facilitate in the sale of commodities, its bad enough that Che shirts etc. have been turned into vehicles for capitalist profit. Why should we participate in turning our own ideologies into merely something else to be bought and sold?

[Lucretia]

Felt like I was watching this, though at least this had cool music. YCMkaBIg4O4

[Yuppie Grinder]

I don't if i should throw up or laugh hysterically.
"The language of smiles"
brb joining the libertarian party to avoid being associated with this

[Yuppie Grinder]

The "target market" for communists should not be middle class white people who are into new age philosophy and the democratic party, it is supposed to be the disenchanted blue collar folks.

[Comrade Samuel]

I thought that's what communism was! A society in which we all wear white and have been turned into statues.

Well....whoever these folks are they've throughly fucked this opportunity up. I'm going to go hang out with my creepy looking friends and speak the language of smiles now.

[human strike]

There is a spectre haunting Europe - the spectre of smiles.

[La Guaneña]

I didn't sign up for this hippie bullshit.

[Fourth Internationalist]

Change some of the language and get more colour in it and it's good to go! :D
EDIT: I like the symbol mostly because I don't like the hammer and sickle though I don't know how it symbolizes communism.

http://www.everyoneisequal.com/images/big_logo.png
EDit again: is it a bunch of smiles?

[CryingWolf]

"We the people..." stopped watching, right there.

[Delenda Carthago]

I dont know, I kinda liked it.

[Delenda Carthago]

I m gonna play it to the pakistanis that got shot in Manolada, I m sure they ll love it too.

[Rafiq]

behold, modern utopianism. scumbags, theyre counter revolutionaries, worse than our open enemies. Communism is not smiles, it is the hammer we use to crush the class enemy.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2

[Comrade #138672]

I thought Communism was about rainbows and holding hands with each other.

[Bostana]

The only way to fix this is to make a counter-commercial:lol:

[Lenina Rosenweg]

For a US audience something like the OP advert, as cheesy as it is, might just work. Americans have had decades of intense indoctrination against anything connected with "communism"-its associated with gulags, repression, deprivation and now the "mad dictator in Pyongyang".

The advert is a very basic introduction to a society communists aim towards, its not an investigation into neo-liberalism, global capitalism,current class struggles, the over accumulation of capital. Its ahistorical....

It reminds me of the utopian society in the opening scene of the Star Trek film Insurrection.

My guess is that Propeller produced this as a sort of self advert. They aren't advertising communism so much as their own ability to advertise, perhaps for the Vietnamese Communist Party.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Haha.. it was fun to watch but awful at the same time. In a very post-modern way I think it will be attractive to Centrists who are largely ignorant of communism; by this I mean it could be that "re-branding" that could get these kind of people to investigate Marxism and Leninism (etc).

In regards to the over-saturation of white: it seemed to me to be a very realistic move, one which represented that humanity as a whole is more similar than different, that under communism the ultra-individualism of capitalism will be replaced with the intimate individualism of communism. I think it is the kind of move I would have done had I been through years of film-school and advertising. In all not something that particularly concerned me. Same really with the "we the people" at the beginning; an obviously ploy to get peoples attention through harkening to pre-established ideals of equality. For the direction of the video it worked (albeit in an absurdly cliched manner).

It isn't something I would have made and truly cannot see how it would be more effective than organizing workers on a large scale. Perhaps if it directed people to some kind of educational hub to learn about basic Marxist theory it could be used as a jumping off point, much like a "revolutionary connection board" but such is surreal to even think about.

In all it wasn't a horrid video as much as it was just a extremely silly and melodramatic video directed towards the remnants of the so-called White "middle class".

[human strike]

http://www.the-propeller-group.com/tvcc

[Le Socialiste]

What the fuck did I just watch? :blink:

[Crabbensmasher]

Side effects may include revisionism, reactionaries, moderates, reformists, or in some cases, moderate to severe civil war. You should contact a doctor if your revolution lasts longer than 8 hours.

[o well this is ok I guess]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/the-propeller-group-is-on-our-radar-guggenheim-symposim_n_3103573.html?utm_hp_ref=arts


For the commercial, what we did was we hired an advertising company, TBWA -- a big global ad company. They work with Apple commercials, and take care of Nissan and Gatorade. So they are really big. They had just opened an office in Ho Chi Minh City, maybe four or five years ago. And we asked them to create a new brand for Communism -- to re-brand Communism, basically. The final product ended up being in the form of television commercial, which we are trying to get aired on national television.
So you see that's why it's so lame. It was made by an actual legitimate advertising company.

[Red Commissar]

This frightened me more than inspiring me. But I guess it makes sense considering who made it.

[Bostana]

The more i watch this the more it pisses me off. Wtf? We the people??

[o well this is ok I guess]

I think the point of this was to show just how similar communism and capitalism really are.
That's obviously backfired. It shows just how little they have in common.

[Vanilla]

It just seems like they missed the Marx by quite a bit here. (I promise never to make a pun again...)

[Rugged Collectivist]

In regards to the over-saturation of white: it seemed to me to be a very realistic move, one which represented that humanity as a whole is more similar than different,

I feel like that's a really cheap, lazy way to send that message though. Couldn't they represent that just as well by showing people coming together?

EDIT: I mean, they did show people coming together, but they dressed them all in white cult clothes, and they were just sitting around playing guitar and shit.


Perhaps if it directed people to some kind of educational hub to learn about basic Marxist theoryREVLEFT NEEDS A COMMERCIAL!!!!!!

[Red Commissar]

REVLEFT NEEDS A COMMERCIAL!!!!!!

Well, we have this old deal...

TgTikifxVLE

[Rugged Collectivist]

Well, we have this old deal...

TgTikifxVLE

Yeah, that's actually how I found out about this site. I meant a TV commercial. Maybe during the superbowl.

[ckaihatsu]

Because we need more children commies.

And then we all drink the Kool-Aid.

The end.

[GPDP]

It looked and felt like one of those commercials for investment or insurance firms you see on CNN or something.

I mean, I've heard about investing towards the cause, but come on now.

[Prometeo liberado]

I wanted scream and trash whatever crappy set that was filmed on. The thing reeked of petula oil, hippie and some kind of new T.V. based religion I'm being sold on. I don't know what happened but by the end of that garbage my wallet felt less heavy and my soul more vacant. I get it already, you got the old person, the cool tattooed guitar couple and who knows what other cliches going on. I mean c'mon are we all gonna hold hands to make this thing happen?

C- for effort though.

[Red Commissar]

It looked and felt like one of those commercials for investment or insurance firms you see on CNN or something.


Well, I guess it shouldn't be surprising considering what the group that made this commercial does in reality.

[ellipsis]

my order hasn't shipped yet...

[Yuppie Grinder]

The commercial for communism needs to be threatening as fuck. It should be shot like a gangsta rap video.

[ckaihatsu]

The commercial for communism needs to be threatening as fuck. It should be shot like a gangsta rap video.


Yo! Why is b****es always be taking my communism???

[#FF0000]

excuse me but is anyone else sick of having to press one for smiles?

[Delenda Carthago]

excuse me but is anyone else sick of having to press one for smiles?
I m sickle.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I feel like that's a really cheap, lazy way to send that message though. Couldn't they represent that just as well by showing people coming together?

EDIT: I mean, they did show people coming together, but they dressed them all in white cult clothes, and they were just sitting around playing guitar and shit.

I dunno. It isn't the best way to get your message through but when you are aiming for something that is "high brow" It gets the job done. To me it seemed the "cinematic" equivalent of modern art (meaning, pretentious and ill-defined).

I think a much more coherent commercial for revolutionary ideas would take the form of serialized briefs. For instance: you know how some companies have a entire series of short commercials with each one advertising a different angle of their product from a shifting premise? Well I think such a format would be best adopted to revolutionary ideas if one was so inclined; imagine short one or two minute briefs with working class people explaining what concepts like Imperialism, Historical Materialism, owning the Means of Production, and Class Warfare (etc) means to them. Sounds corny but I still think it is better than the "language of smiles" stuff.

[one10]

The commercial for communism needs to be threatening as fuck. It should be shot like a gangsta rap video.

A Commie straight outta Cuba music video would be serious.

[RedHal]

this is an art piece at the Guggenheim Museum

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/31319

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

this is an art piece at the Guggenheim Museum

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/31319

Dog shit is what Khrushchev would call it, and on that point, he'd be right. Like buildings designed by Frank Gehry. Crimes against taste, affront to anything pleasant and good.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

A Commercial for communism? It sounds incredibly hypocritical.

[Tenka]

A Commercial for communism? It sounds incredibly hypocritical.

Like a Commune for Commerce. Seems to just be an hipster art project though. Not as edgy as I've come to expect from these people.

[Kalinin's Facial Hair]

Too hippie.

Where are the red flags? The enraged masses? The glorious and powerful hymn? The dark sky being prepared for a new dawn? The hammer and sickle. Where are the hammer and sickle?

They don't know the first thing about communism.

[The Jay]

Too hippie.

Where are the red flags? The enraged masses? The glorious and powerful hymn? The dark sky being prepared for a new dawn? The hammer and sickle. Where are the hammer and sickle?

They don't know the first thing about communism.

Lol. If they included an AK would that make you happy? It would make me happy.

[Red Nightmare]

I don't like it, I know that they were trying to show that true communism is not state repression and gulags but they went too far in the other direction, reinforcing the other stereotype that communism is bland utopian conformity, especially since everyone in that video was wearing the same white uniforms.

[Brutus]

Yep. If that's communism I'm out. I don't want to sit around a bloke with a guitar in the same clothes as him! God damn Vietnamese, stop pretending to be communists already!

Maybe this is a covert way to ensure communism is never truly understood by the masses so the state capitalistic regime of Vietnam can pretend to be marxist for a while longer...

[KurtFF8]

So was this made directly for the exhibit in the Guggenheim? (I may go see it then)

[mo7amEd]

I think all people (or most people at least) misunderstood the whole point of this commercial... or maybe I am retarded.

Reading this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/the-propeller-group-is-on-our-radar-guggenheim-symposim_n_3103573.html?utm_hp_ref=arts) article it seems evident that the point is not to propagate for communism, but to see how communism would've been advertised had it been a commodity. Take this quote "The three artists imagined what it would be like if the five remaining communist countries banded together to create an ad campaign for their ideology. In fact, TPG went as far as hiring a global agency to actually bring the ad to fruition; an elaborate project that endeavored to see how the favorite child of capitalism -- advertising -- would digest this sort of demand" for instance.

I was too lazy to read the whole article and I might be wrong, but I think it is a satire... they are "artists" trying to be "artistic" and "new-thinking" as aesthetes usually try to be.

The fact that most people got the "commodity"-capitalist-commercial feeling about the whole might be exactly what they were looking for.

But as everyone else pointed out, yeah, the whole commercial was crap :D but funny... weird seeing what I see and at the same time hearing the word 'communism'.

[The Jay]

That makes perfect sense. I definitely see how it could have been done 'ironically' but I'm also slightly enraged at the fact that it was done by hipsters.

[Fionnagáin]

That video, abridged:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/a13494fb3cda1e40ab39211973a094f9/tumblr_mm0038sZGH1qdlh1io1_400.gif

[Rooiakker]

The fucking hipster with the guitar...
"The Language of Smiles"...
The fact that everything is white...

What the hell does this have to do with communism?

[Tim Cornelis]

But, I do like that symbol. As much as I love the ol' hammer-n-sickle, it does look a bit severe.

I suppose the bows in the symbol could each represent a producers' council, and they are faced inward to represent cooperation and a 'federation' of councils.

http://everyoneisequal.com/images/big_logo.png

[#FF0000]

it's a cute thing and a neat idea (as, like, an art project and not a serious thing)

[Calvin]

This makes it look like communism is some neo-liberal cult.

[ckaihatsu]

We'll just step in and patiently explain once they're done laughing....


(8 p


= )

[John Lennin]

I like the idea, but this video is done much to much in a New-Age-We-all-wear-the-same-colour-because-we-are-all-equal-beneath-the-almighty-sun-and-we-are-soooo-happy-about-it-Cult-way. Weird stuff.

[ckaihatsu]

I'll do a little cross-promotion here for a free group since I "promote" RevLeft through my profile at CouchSurfing.... The trailer video itself is rather well done, stylistically.


Official Trailer 'One Couch at a Time' documentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6KXs978mAM


Chris Kaihatsu

http://www.couchsurfing.org/profile.html?id=35E1KX5

[The Intransigent Faction]

Jeez, that's almost worse than this...almost:

TIuWbFZiQrE

[Ocean Seal]

Should have been more aggressive to appease the punk crowd. Honestly this ad wasn't put up to spread communism, it was put up to see if the left liked it. We've done nothing but preach to ourselves in the past 20 years.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

you'd think that the media-saavy dummies behind this would try to avoid the mono-chrome-all-white-everything-everyone-is-dressed-the-same look.

Holy fucking shit the language of smiles

edit: someone call an ambulance im dead

edit2: the language of smiles killed me dude

LOL, yeah, tell me about it. The whole time I was hearing about smiles and white dressed smiling people + Communism I was thinking *Civil War, Foreign Invasion, Famine, Gulag, Bloody Purges, Blood*. That's the reality of Communism. Always will be the reality of Communism so long the Bourgeoisie is still armed.

[Clarksist]

The art itself is really clever. Can commodity capitalism integrate even its fiercest enemy into its spectacle? On that side of things I think it is great.

And then it got me thinking...

This is actually the kind of project that real communists need to get going. Too many communist organizations want Soviet style, severe propaganda, or they want newspapers with unrealizable claims in bold across the top. That isn't what people are going to respond to. It isn't cool. Face it: if you want people to listen to you, you have to make them want to be you.

We need a Red Madison Avenue.

Right now, most working class people look at socialists and they look like bookish weirdos, or basement dwelling conspiracy theorists, or nutjobs a la holocaust deniers. That is what we are dealing with, and flags with the profiles of Marx, Engels, and Lenin are really really cool to us, but not to them. Resistance to change is natural, but the style of propaganda we use as a movement now hasn't worked in the first world since the 30's, and it's been losing out in the 3rd world to radical Islam since the 80's.

If it is worth doing, it is worth actually doing something about why it isn't being done. That should not be our slogan, by the way.

[Craig_J]

I don't really like it, it seems like it's literally trying to portray heaven or something. But at least some people are ATTEMPTING (albeit perhaps not well!) to connect with people through the power of television. As cheesy and far feteched as I find this advert (with very little information) I'd rather this than seeing another catchy jingle or created want to try and force sales of a product.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

.....Was that a commercial for communism or an advert for Scientology?:confused:


Seriously though....I like the sentiment, I do. But the weird hipster vibe is just so utterly tangible that it comes off like an ad for the new iPad.

.....But that new symbol I can kinda get behind. Reminds me of a circle of people joining hands in friendship.

[MarxSchmarx]

I think all people (or most people at least) misunderstood the whole point of this commercial... or maybe I am retarded.


Interesting post. Just an FYI, please refrain from using the term "retarded" in this sort of context (as a synonym for "stupid") in the future. Thanks mate.