From: RobertB 

Ahh, I'll have to check the site to see who wrote this. It's a wonderful
analysis of the ads.



In article ,
 mike  wrote:

> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chad-hermann/hello-im-a-mac-and-bi_b_42583.html
>
> ===
> By now you've seen, no doubt many times, Apple's most recent Get a Mac
> commercial, in which poor PC can not get a word in (or out) without
> first clearing it (Cancel or allow?) through his grim,
> Secret-Service-style security agent. If for some reason you haven't seen
> it -- your television and your computer have been broken for the past
> month, perhaps, or you've just returned from keeping vigil at the morgue
> where Anna Nicole Smith has been slowly decomposing -- you can see it
> here.
>
> And you should see it, because it's the best of the series so far.
>
> This is no small compliment, given how consistently smart and funny and
> clever and creative they've been. But this one is pure perfection: a
> marvel of brisk pacing, crisp editing, and deft comic timing, showcasing
> yet again the subtle brilliance and hilarity of John Hodgman's work as
> PC. (If they gave Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Commercial Series,
> he'd have to start clearing his mantel.) It's really quite amazing that,
> after almost one year and 18 different ads, these spots not only remain
> fresh but actually keep getting better and better.
>
> Almost equally amazing is the inability -- or perhaps the unwillingness
> -- of someone as smart as Bill Gates to understand how the ads work.
> When asked, in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine, whether he was
> bothered by the commercial in which PC must undergo upgrade surgery to
> install Windows Vista, the Microsoft Chairman replied, I've never seen
> it. I don't think over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows
> PCs think of themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that
> somebody is trying to say they are.
>
> Mr. Gates, as he is wont to do when he talks about Macs and PCs, misses
> several key and painfully obvious points:
>
> 1) John Hodgman does not play a PC user. He plays a PC. (Technically, he
> plays a PC personified, but using language that sounds like it comes
> from an English Lit class might confuse Mr. Gates -- and, for that
> matter, a lot of PC users -- so I'm just gonna keep it simple.) The
> distinction is abundantly clear throughout the commercials -- PC users
> rarely strap web-cams to their heads, nor must they don hospital gowns
> to upgrade their operating systems -- but especially so at the beginning
> of every clip; his signature opening line is And I'm a PC, not And I'm a
> PC user.
>
> 2) PC is neither a dullard nor a klutz. He's a nice and earnest enough
> guy who, because he is often jealous of and occasionally frustrated by
> the status and achievements of his friend the Mac, is prone to making
> unfortunate decisions that sometimes lead to unpleasant consequences.
> But it's not his fault; he's just a victim of OS-envy
>
> 3) PC is the undisputed star of the commercials. Justin Long exudes an
> effortlessly cool, understated, charismatic vibe -- he is playing a Mac,
> after all -- but he never really has all that much to do. He is -- and
> this is the true, ironic brilliance of the conceit -- the straight man.
> He's kind and earnest, sincere and occasionally befuddled, always trying
> to help out his friend, but rarely does anything more than stuff his
> hands in his pockets and rattle off a few of his own best features and
> benefits. John Hodgman gets all the good lines, all the great costumes,
> all the most absurd and hilarious moments. He's the one who gets to snap
> at Mac and snark at their therapist and bristle at the Secret Service
> guy, roll around in a wheelchair and an arm-cast, and react to the
> relentless hounding of his own angel and devil doppelgangers. He's the
> one wearing the hospital gown, brandishing the used-car-lot sales signs,
> and storming off-screen with the webcam and the masking tape trailing
> forlornly from his head.
>
> PC is to Mac what Wile E. Coyote was to the Roadrunner: the poor,
> pitiful foil for whom we feel some strange sort of empathy, even as we
> can't quite bring ourselves to identify with him. He won't ever win, and
> he can't even get his name in the title, but he's the one who makes the
> stories worth watching. He makes them great. And so he makes us -- even
> long-time, hardcore, holier-than-thou Apple zealots -- like him and even
> occasionally want to root for him.
>
> If Bill Gates understood this, or could at least bring himself to admit
> it, perhaps he would feel better about the ad campaign. Or perhaps not.
> Elsewhere in that same interview, when he's saying silly and patently
> untrue things about Apple computers (Nowadays, security guys break the
> Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total
> exploit, your machine can be taken over totally) or bragging about Vista
> features (the way the search lets you go through lots of things,
> including lots of photos... And then I might edit a high-definition
> movie and a make a little DVD that's got photos) that have been possible
> on a Mac for months or even years, he sounds an awful lot like PC in
> those commercials: by turns boastful and dismissive, trying too hard and
> succeeding too little, clinging to the tenuous and increasingly
> unpleasant company of his own mistaken assumptions. Much has been made
> of the notion that, at first glance, Mac and PC bear a more than passing
> resemblance to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. And maybe that's what really
> bugs Mr. Gates about the commercials. Maybe he's not bothered by how
> they may hurt the feelings of 90 percent of computer users; maybe he's
> bothered by how they hurt his own.
>
> But when he spends so much time upon the release of his new operating
> system sniping at Apple and its commercials, he only makes the
> resemblance more clear, the comparison more valid. As long as he's
> defensive and combative and so prone to being bugged by the cool-seeming
> competition, he will continue not just to look uncool, but also to
> remind computer users and commercial watchers of John Hodgman's
> feckless, fretting PC -- a character who, much like his defender, is
> just a smart guy prone to foolish choices, a likable but misguided soul
> who needs to accept his own flaws, embrace his own character, and, most
> of all, stop worrying about that other dude on the desktop.
> ===
>
>   /m

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