The Misuse of Antoine

[JOzersky@aol.com]

A number of you seem to have misunderstood me, again.  I did not say that
only white people should buy adidas, or do buy adidas, or anything like that.
 The adidas commercials are clearly not aimed at the black teenagers that are
the usual target for sneaker commercials.  That was what I said, or at least
meant.

Commercials are targeted at certain demographics.  Thus, beer commercials in
super bowls tend to show loutish frat boys surrouned by bikini chicks, etc.
 Obviously, these commercials are not aimed at women, just as the commercials
with a thin woman looking at herself in the mirror and eating Special K are
not aimed at men.  Pepsi's Generation Next spots and all of Mountain Dew's
are aimed at teenagers.  Adidas Antoine commercials seem to be aimed either
at the white majority, or at an across the board (i.e. mostly white)
audience.  Thus there is no hip-hop jargon, flash cuts, in your face dribble
moves, or any of the usual characteristics of non-Nike sneaker commercials.
 The model is not basketball but the business office  ("these are my
coworkers") and its attendant theme of sacrificing self for the
corpororation, the reduction of the individual ("that's me, employee number
eight") to his or her usefulness to the companty ("I make baskets.")  I
realize that celtic basketball is about teamwork, but modern basketball in
the post segregation-era is also about personal expressiveness and creativity
and improvisation, WITHIN THAT CONTEXT.  Antoine's commercials strike me as
being a backlash against the overly individualistic reps of the young
players, hence the portrayal of what we all know to be a very expressive,
free spirited, and exhuberant young star as a hardworking drone  ("Hi, this
is antoine.  I'm at practice.  Hi this is antoine, I'm at practice....").
 The same thing happened with Larry Bird, another  strong personality with a
game full of flair and style who was invariably portrayed as a model of the
protestant work ethic.  ("he's not that gifted, but nobody arrives earlier to
shoot baskets....")

You can't ignore the dynamics and nuances of what goes on in our society.
 You can bet the advertising agencies sure don't.

Josh