Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Irresponsible Advertisement

After this silly commercial, history professors across the country will have a tough job convincing their students that Lincoln was never really filmed.



I wonder if the people who made the commercial realize that they are messing with the minds of citizens whose knowledge of history is fantastically low as it is.

6 comments:

Pagan Topologist said...

This is exactly why I am reluctant to read alternate history fiction, or even historical fiction. It is hard to keep fact and fantasy separate in ones mind.

eric said...

It would have been better if it was in color. Then there could be no confusion. If Abe in this ad would have whipped out a Blackberry and started texting--as scary as this sounds--some people would actually believe that texting was around in the 1860's.

Izgad said...

I liked the ad with the sergeant from Full Metal Jacket much better.

BenYitzhak said...

Eric, if people are going to believe that someone took video with synchronized audio decades before the invention of the technology for it, why would colour make a difference?

eric said...

Ben--
People would be more willing to believe that may have actually been film reels from that era, if it looks all gray and crummy--color would be too "inauthentic." But then again, who knows...

As for the second part of my comment, about the texting, I was being ironic. But then again, who knows...

Clarissa said...

I was reading this early XIXth century novel where a woman's beloved sailed across the seas and she was worried out of her mind because she wasn't getting any news from him. And the very first thing that came to mind when I was reading was "Why didn't she just send him an e-mail?" I hope I don't need to mention that I know how idiotic that is. Still, our daily experiences transform us in a way that often makes it hard to accept that people used to live, behave, and think in very different ways.