Editor’s note, February 12, 2023: This article was originally published on October 16, 2020. We’re reposting it today in anticipation some awesome or weird new Super Bowl car commercials. Enjoy!
I’m sure most of you know that famous film director Ridley Scott who is behind alien, sword runner And Legendary (the the movie that inspired the look of Goth girls for decades) from time to time earn a little money by directing ads to high paying customers like Apple. Scott also directed a commercial for Nissan, but it was only aired once because of concern with some monitoring groups. Looking back, it’s hard to believe that this ad caused such panic.
The ad was shown during Super Bowl XXIV in 1990, and it was titled Dreamer. It’s the cinematic story that recounts the dream of the owner of the Nissan 300ZX Turbo, who is perhaps facing some fear and stress in life, this comes as a dream about pursued, and I suspect, threatened.
Here, see:
I mean, it’s an interesting commercial, at least for one set in some backward wasteland, where well-equipped gangs go after the owners of the cars. New Japanese sports car.
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In the ad, the narrator describes a drive down a long, open, and deserted road as he is chased by a pair of motorcycles followed by a menacing F1 class car. Matte black paint, a mysterious “X” on the dial. front and a series of rectangular closed-beam headlights mounted on the rear wing:
After the motorcycles and racecars failed to catch the Nissan, a plane was sent to somehow stop the driver. (I’m not sure how, but this isn’t just an advertisement, it’s an advertisement for a dream, so that really doesn’t matter.) Impressively, the Z manages to get out of the machine. flying thanks to a INSIDE-started twin turbocharger.
It’s clearly some sort of Mad Maxican fantasy, and while there’s plenty of fast-driving scenes, there’s no traffic other than the dreamer in his 300ZX and the unnamed members of the gang. party X, whoever they are.
That’s why I find it so surprising that the ad is banned by groups like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Representative of the National Association for Highway Safety, and others. protest.
American Academy of Pediatrics? There aren’t even any kids in the ad! And not a single kid wasn’t there who didn’t do anything like eat poorly or change hats and get lice. What is the problem here?
The point is that the ad was supposed to glorify speeding, which I assume to some extent it did, in the sense that the excitement of fast driving was part of the ad. , No doubt about it. But the whole situation is so far removed from reality that it doesn’t seem worth protesting.
But that’s just me. Brian O’Neill, president of IIHS at the time, strongly disagreed, saying…
“This is the worst example of an out-of-the-box speed ad we’ve ever seen.”
…a statement implying that he has a category of “speed ads” in mind for which this fits.
Nissan of course defended the ad, and while the company didn’t pull it out of the Super Bowl, which would have been a huge waste of money, it didn’t show it anywhere else. Later.
New York Times article from January 11, 1990 quoting Nissan’s defense:
“We do not believe that Turbo Z advertising promotes irresponsible driving behaviour,” said Mr. Hannum. He added that the ad is clearly fanciful and so viewers will not mistakenly represent actual driving.
Yeah, I’m on Nissan’s side with this one. I would even go as far as to say that any motorist in a similar situation – being chased by various vehicles from a malevolent, unknown organization in the middle of a desert highway deserted – should drive fast to escape.
Really, by the logic of the complaints, any car ad that proposes interesting speed in any way is going to be just as bad, and I think the unrealistic environment of this ad makes it all the more frustrating. be more harmless.
Maybe when New Nissan Z car eventually sold Ridley Scott could make a sequel to the ad, and if the Insurance Institute wanted to complain, they could decry it on Twitter like everyone else in the world currently does.
