Posted by
Desert Blue on Friday, March 13, 2009 2:21:43 PM
My father's favorite bumper-sticker is, "Eschew Obfuscation," which is a fancy way of saying to avoid confusing speech (get it?) This joke would be way over the heads of the advertising firm making commercials for Hillshire Farms. The latest commercial takes place on an airplane and contains the following dialogue:
Disturbed Passenger: Oh, my, oh me, that lunch meat's bourgeoisie!
Smiling Flight Attendant: First class!
What? This is so obscure and ignorant that it makes no sense. The stewardess doesn't seem to be contradicting the passenger; is "bourgeois" supposed to be the same as "first class?" In airline terms for economic classes, the aristocracy (land owners) fly first class, the bourgeoisie (business owners) fly business class, and the proletariat (workers) fly coach.
More disturbingly, there seems to be no understanding of the difference between a noun and an adjective. (For those who work for the advertising team on this, a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea; an adjective describes a quality of such a person, place, thing, or idea. In the phrase, "bad marketing," the word, "bad," is an adjective, while the word, "marketing," is a noun.) Of course, bourgeois and bourgeoisie both mean "middle class," but the difference between the noun, "bourgeoisie," and the adjective, "bourgeois," is important: a bourgeois lunch meat may disturb an aristocratic airline passenger, but a lunch meat consisting of thinly sliced members of the middle class should disturb a great many more people.
Please note that the line does not scan or rhyme without that final "-sie." The marketers have deliberately chosen this word! I stand in solidarity with free agents, independent contractors, and business owners in rejecting Hillshire Farms until this deplorable policy of cannibalism has been abandoned. When will this class warfare end?
(For those on the advertising team, that's a joke, by the way. I'm only boycotting Hillshire Farms until you get fired; at some point you have to face the consequences of your own ignorance.)