Through the Drinking Glass

I understand that viewers aren't supposed to take commercials very literally. Ads are meant to be over-the-top, so that we'll catch whatever exaggerated point they're lobbing at us. I get it. Thing is, though, that the characters in the ads still need to have a tenuous link to actual humanity. If a lady dressed as a clown did a triple backflip into the room and screamed "DRINK MINUTE MAID!!!!" into the camera, you'd be flummoxed, and rightly so. Though I may mutter about a clear mislead here and a wild character inconsistency there, I'm generally inclined to let most of these things go. But when a commercial is entirely composed of nothing but idiotic events and people that only exist in Commercial World, I have to point it out.

Take it away, puffy Luke Wilson, who's wearing a jacket that appears to have been stolen from my grandfather:

That was thirty seconds long. And in this infinitesimally tiny little slice of time, the following things assault my brain:

1) What's up with the overall design of the restaurant? Why are there brilliantly-lit hanging lamps blazing in what seems to be the middle of a sunny day? Why are there so many speakers hanging from the ceiling, and why are they so obtrusive? What the hell is that thing at the right that looks like one of those eighteenth-century folding screens to hide the modest as they get dressed? This place looks like an actual restaurant like the old Star Trek sets looked like actual outer space.

2) The lady who whines "Where are all my apps?" looks like Amy Poehler. Distractingly so. Every time she pops up, a microsecond of my mind fires off with "What the hell is Amy Poehler doing in this commercial?"

3) There has been nobody in the history of time, nor will there ever be a person in what remains left of humanity's reign who grouses: "Where's my cool phone?" unironically.

4) You'll note that nobody complaining about their phone complains about placing, receiving, or dropping a TELEPHONE CALL. Those with developed senses of inductive reasoning can guess why AT&T would like to shift the focus away from network reliability.

5) And why are these people taking out their frustration on the restaurant? Is that a glass breaking sound in the background? Acting like a tantrum-throwing child is supposed to be cute or amusing now?

6) Actually, that feeds into the biggest problem I have with this ad. Nobody's eating solo at this restaurant. Everyone has a dining companion or two. And yet, every single person is ignoring everyone they're with in favor of their phones. Who cares where your apps went, when you should be paying attention to your husband/boyfriend/coworker? If your download is so slow, maybe you could spend the downtime setting down the phone and -- Horrors! -- having an actual conversation with someone present. We're supposed to watch this commercial and think "Tee-hee! These poor folks had the wool pulled over their eyes, and have to put up with an inferior product! Burn!" I see this commercial and think "Everyone in this place is a raging asshole."

I've taken some teasing for railing against this commercial. "It's a commercial," people say as they roll their eyes at me. That's fine; I'll take the hit. It is silly to overanalyze ads. But it's not like I'm tossing and turning in bed, unable to fall asleep because I'm just so darned angry at that stupid lady and her "cool" phone. It's just that I find it weird that someone wrote this idea down on a piece of paper, and a sizable group of other people listened to it and said, "Great! Run with it!"