Althouse: A beautiful, emotional anti-gun ad.

May 15, 2009

A beautiful, emotional anti-gun ad.

(Via Bloggingheads.)

94 comments:

TWM said...: Hmm, I don't see it. Surely beauty and emotion was what they were going for since facts and logic don't help their case, but all it did was make me want to take a nap. With my Glock safely in my gun safe by my bed.; 5/15/09, 11:22 AM
Pastafarian said...: Or we could stop the bullets by amputating everyone's fingers.

It would make typing a bitch...but it's for the children.; 5/15/09, 11:23 AM
Alex said...: Hmm I went to the range last night and shot about 60 rounds. I was very emotional afterwards because my shooting accuracy/precision was quite poor, does that count?; 5/15/09, 11:25 AM
Salamandyr said...: It was pretty. I love slo-mo filming.

But its message is tantamount to saying to stop falling, let's ban gravity. It's not going to happen (and wouldn't be a good thing if it was). We, as a society are better off concentrating on things we can actually accomplish.; 5/15/09, 11:25 AM
Pastafarian said...: Here's an idea for another beautiful ad: Use ultra-slow-motion photography to show speeding cars smashing melons and pumpkins; then replace the melon with a child's head, and the car with the tagline:

Stop the carnage -- kill the car.; 5/15/09, 11:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Makes me want to go out watermelon huntin'... but they're out of season right now.; 5/15/09, 11:27 AM
Pastafarian said...: grandrants -- if hdhouse was awake, he'd call you a racist.; 5/15/09, 11:28 AM
Anonymous said...: Shoot, could that be considered racist? Okay, how about this:

Makes me want to go ketchup huntin'... but ketchup's out of season.

Is that better?; 5/15/09, 11:31 AM
Anonymous said...: Wait. So it's okay to show video of a bullet going through a watermelon, but you're a racist if you say you want to go shoot watermelons?

I'm confuzled.; 5/15/09, 11:33 AM
TWM said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/15/09, 11:34 AM
TWM said...: Shoot, could that be considered racist? Okay, how about this:

Makes me want to go ketchup huntin'... but ketchup's out of season.

Is that better?Actually, now you are just going to piss off tomatoes which is a very dangerous thing to do indeed.; 5/15/09, 11:34 AM
knox said...: Blake posted on a related story last week.

Guns are bad.

...or good, depending on who the target is.; 5/15/09, 11:36 AM
Sofa King said...: My word! An emotional anti-gun appeal! I never thought I'd see the day!; 5/15/09, 11:39 AM
Big Mike said...: In the end it's really very simple. Do we have a right to self-defense or do we not? If yes, then shouldn't we be allowed to have a handgun to protect ourselves? If the Obama administration believes otherwise, can we have a do-over on the last election?

The real problem has always been how to remove handguns from people who intend to perform a criminal act, but only wishful dreamers believe that handgun bans do that. Everyone sane realizes that criminals cannot be stopped from acquiring firearms, for pretty much the same reason that Prohibition did not stop drunkness.; 5/15/09, 11:39 AM
Pastafarian said...: OK, I watched it a few more times; I'm just not getting the "beautiful" part.

Slow-mo captures of the physics of high-speed collisions (water droplets and such) can be beautiful; but these large objects like ketchup bottles don't really provide us with much of the detail that makes those images interesting and beautiful. These clips are just a mess.

And that keening operatic music is just making my head hurt throughout. Sweet Jesus, make it stop.

And then thrusting the boy's head into the path of the bullet; that's just damned ugly. No beauty there. This ad has all the beauty and subtlety of a crowbar.

But then, I didn't see the beauty in that horrible Will.I.Am propaganda video, either. Maybe it's just me.; 5/15/09, 11:40 AM
former law student said...: The film was racist because it associated watermelons with black youths, just like the "there goes the neighborhood" image of the White House lawn planted in watermelons.

I can't wait for the house to house searches to root out and confiscate guns necessitated for the IANSA campaign, that commercial's sponsor. Further, the IANSA idea, that no country anywhere, should be able to overthrow their current dictator, is a bit appalling.; 5/15/09, 11:41 AM
Anonymous said...: ...and all the people who would shoot a kid in the head watched that, repented, threw away their guns, and we all lived happily ever after...; 5/15/09, 11:42 AM
Big Mike said...: @TRO, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was purely fiction. You have nothing to worry about.

OMG, the ketchup! The Ketchup ...; 5/15/09, 11:47 AM
cryptical said...: The ad kind of made me want to go shooting, too bad the range doesn't allow me to bring a bag of produce to shoot.

I'm just waiting for the gun control crowd to drop by so I can ask Joe Huffman's One Question:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?
Just One Question; 5/15/09, 11:49 AM
goesh said...: spectacular imagry - didn't really have a favorite. I think we all winced anticipating some trick photography that would show the kid's head exploding. I'm swearing off hot-loading any ammo from this day hence! It'll be a factory load for any crack monster smashing through my door at night. There'll be no tissue splattered on my walls! Big Mike summed it up best IMO.; 5/15/09, 11:49 AM
AllenS said...: Happiness is a warm gun.; 5/15/09, 11:55 AM
former law student said...: Let's not forget that it was late MIT professor Harold Edgerton who pioneered high speed photography like these shots.; 5/15/09, 12:09 PM
Michael Haz said...: I don't like the word "dictator" as used above. It reminds me of potatophilia, a horrible abuse of innocent young tubers.

In The Attack of The Killer Tomatoes handguns were displaced as the defensive weapons of choice by recordings of Slim Whitman. The Whitman recordings made the aliens' heads turn into ketchup.

I've kept a fully-loaded eight-track of Slim Whitman's Greatest Hits in my gun safe ever since, just in case.; 5/15/09, 12:10 PM
Salamandyr said...: I wonder if they paid someone to fire the gun for these shots. I wonder what his opinion of lawful ownership of firearms is.; 5/15/09, 12:10 PM
dbp said...: I love the technology which allows such beautiful photography.

It is dismaying when it is used for evil purposes.

Perhaps we should ban it.; 5/15/09, 12:11 PM
Richard Dolan said...: "Keening operatic music"? It's 'Casta Diva' from Bellini's Norma, one of the great bel canto arias. It's got nothing to do with guns, of course, not is there anything about the opera that fits with the theme of this ad. Norma is the high priestess of a supposedly virgin cult, whose people have been conquered by Rome. Alas, she strayed from the virginal straight-and-narrow, and secretly got it on with Pollione (a Roman general) and has the (supersecret) bambino to show for it. The bullet-hits-target stuff does end with the appearance of the boy, just as the appearance of the child comes in the opera just before Norma throws herself on the pyre at the end. Not much of a connection there, but that's the sort of way-out riff that some opera directors get off on today.

Perhaps they just wanted a woman's voice, given the presumptive audience for this ad. A more natural fit would have been Sparafucile (the assassin in Rigoletto, and his name is derived from the Italian for gun - fucile). But he's a deep bass-baritone, and likes guns (knives, too, which is what he uses to do Gilda in).

Anyway, 'Casta Diva' seemed an odd choice for the soundtrack.; 5/15/09, 12:19 PM
rhhardin said...: Somebody should do an anti-hammer ad, smashing the same things.

Use it to criticize Obama's economic toolbox.; 5/15/09, 12:30 PM
Mary Martha said...: What exactly is a call to 'kill' inanimate objects (guns) supposed to accomplish?

I hate the anthropomorphizing of guns that we see so often today. The news reports that people were 'killed by guns'. No, they were killed by other people who used a gun as their tool.

That's all a gun is - a tool. It is no more able to be 'killed' than a hammer, or a saw.; 5/15/09, 12:34 PM
Revenant said...: Maybe next they can do a beautiful, emotional anti-speech ad.; 5/15/09, 12:34 PM
Skyler said...: It's pretty effective without sound. I'm at work so I don't know what the sound was.

You know what would make it even more emotional and effective? Put Osama bin Laden's head there at the end.

Or put the head of a burglar up.

Yep, that would be a more appropriate way to end the ad.; 5/15/09, 12:38 PM
Revenant said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/15/09, 12:40 PM
Simon Kenton said...: This makes me feel very bad. I shot my TV with a .45, and I was too cheap to set up a high-speed photoshoot. Just swept up the fragments of glass and plastic and dumped them hugger-mugger. Didn't even recycle it. Now I've seen this ad, I realize I made my TV die in vain. It died for nothing. Other than keeping crap like ads out of my kids heads, that is.; 5/15/09, 12:41 PM
Anonymous said...: I would have pegged you as a .54 cal Pennsylvania longrifle man, Simon Kenton.

Alternately, I can picture you putting a tomahawk through the CRT.; 5/15/09, 12:52 PM
Bill White said...: This seems to be an ad for carpet cleaner: apparently, if you shoot a criminal in the head it'll make a helluva mess.; 5/15/09, 1:01 PM
Anonymous said...: There is nothing beautiful about the desire to turn classrooms full of students and other people in crowded places, women walking the dark garage to their car or people quietly sitting in their own homes into sitting ducks.

Nothing beautiful at all.; 5/15/09, 1:06 PM
Juan Pablo said...: hmm, nice but it's been done before (and I think it works better):

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/the-blackberry-storm-ad-that-might-have-been/

On a serious note: I manage a small property in NE Washington DC. Yesterday our Porter was out, cleaning the buildings when a mentally-unstable tenant came out of his apartment and pulled a knife on him! We called the police etc, etc, and it ended. At around 9pm I got an emergency call: as he was closing up the Laundry Rooms another tenant, who was drunk, pulled a knife on him! What are the odds? Police came and arrested the tenant.

Thankfully time nothing serious happened to our porter (although I gave him the day off, he was on the brink!).. but this ad makes me think: what if something did happen? and how many people are stabbed in DC daily... and when is someone going to make a slow-mo ad with knifes perforating fruits, etc?

Stop the stabbings, kill the knife!; 5/15/09, 1:11 PM
Ron said...: So if we have the slo-mo shot of the bullet going through the melon of the "pilot" who has taken control of the jetliner and we show the plane -- in slo-mo of course -- NOT hitting the large skyscraper...is that emotional also?; 5/15/09, 1:12 PM
Sigivald said...: Makes me want to buy the parts to finish my AR build.; 5/15/09, 1:19 PM
Unknown said...: I'm impressed, 37:1 in favour!; 5/15/09, 1:22 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: The apple and the watermelon blew up in identical patterns. Very cool but the commercial not so much.

There is an Acura car commercial that has a bullet going into a bottle too. That is pretty neat.; 5/15/09, 1:24 PM
former law student said...: I don't like the word "dictator" as used above. It reminds me of potatophilia, a horrible abuse of innocent young tubers.

Which reminds me of the story of the Princess of the Potato Kingdom. Her father the King wanted only the best for her, so he bought her a computer and a high speed Internet connection. While surfing, the Princess discovered the left-wing blogosphere, and eventually became an avid viewer of Keith Olbermann.

Her attraction turned to love, and she announced to her father her intention to marry Keith. Shocked, the King protested, "You can't marry Keith Olbermann! He's only a common tater!"; 5/15/09, 1:27 PM
madfolly said...: This is why I love the Althouse commenteers. What a (mostly) sensible and funny group...; 5/15/09, 1:33 PM
Palladian said...: "Triumph of the Will" is a beautiful, emotional film.; 5/15/09, 1:34 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: How about slow motion shots of men raping things set to opera music. Ends with a shot of a woman and words that say, "Stop the rape. Arm the women."

(Not perfectly parallel text, but "Kill the ____," conveys something else entirely.); 5/15/09, 1:36 PM
Anonymous said...: How about slow motion shots of men raping things set to opera music.I believe the movie you're thinking of is "A Clockwork Orange."; 5/15/09, 1:40 PM
Simon Kenton said...: "How about slow motion shots of men raping things set to opera music."

Things? You mean, like the liver that was slated to be the family's dinner in Portnoy's Complaint? It would not be as photogenic as the apple, and it would lack the reversed symbolism of the apple in the ad.; 5/15/09, 1:48 PM
chickelit said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/15/09, 2:00 PM
chickelit said...: The video doesn't play for me. I'm sure it was was drivel anyway.

Hey Palladian, thanks for that link!; 5/15/09, 2:01 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: Yeah, there's sonmething wrong with the video--it hangs just when it's getting good.

Coincidentally, I just rented "The Punisher" last night--it takes the art of the exploding head to a new high. Very cool in Blu-ray.; 5/15/09, 2:20 PM
The Dude said...: Bellini wrote good music - that tune should be number one with a bullet.

The photography is excellent - but it's been done. I hear an empty plastic soda container makes an excellent one-use silencer.

The message is wrongheaded, but that's liberals for you.; 5/15/09, 2:31 PM
Unknown said...: Somebody should do an anti-hammer ad, smashing the same things.

I'm thinking slow motion footage of Gallagher in action.; 5/15/09, 2:45 PM
1775OGG said...: Ah yes, the power of one!

Alex needs to get back to the range! So do I!; 5/15/09, 3:15 PM
Ray said...: Actually, replace the shot of the kid at the end with a title that says "Is that cool or what" and it's a "beautiful, emotional" pro-gun ad.; 5/15/09, 3:16 PM
Palladian said...: "How about slow motion shots of men raping things set to opera music.I believe the movie you're thinking of is "A Clockwork Orange.""

That wasn't slow-motion or rape. If you're talking about the scene with the two girls from the record store, it was super-fast motion. The music was the William Tell Overture. The scene with the rape of the writer's wife is shot normal speed and with Malcolm McDowell singing "Singin' In The Rain".; 5/15/09, 3:23 PM
Anonymous said...: Why did they cast a black person as the criminal who use have the gun?

Isn't that racist?; 5/15/09, 3:25 PM
KCFleming said...: First-person shooter video game commercials use pretty music all the time.

The dramatic irony increases sales.; 5/15/09, 3:27 PM
Anonymous said...: Palladian: I was joking.; 5/15/09, 3:33 PM
Palladian said...: "Palladian: I was joking."

NO ONE JOKES ABOUT STANLEY IN MY PRESENCE.; 5/15/09, 3:52 PM
Dale said...: I quit discussing gun control 15 years ago with people who can't get that evil exists in the world and that all the talking and making nice isn't going to change that small but determined group of evil doers who just want to mess you up.

Right to carry. Everywhere. Colleges, Churches, shopping Malls, Doctors Offices.

What's so hard about realizing that sociopaths and mass murderers don't pick places that might have armed people around.; 5/15/09, 4:00 PM
Anonymous said...: NO ONE JOKES ABOUT STANLEY IN MY PRESENCE.Duly noted. Are we still droogs?; 5/15/09, 4:04 PM
KCFleming said...: We need a beautiful anti-emotional gun ad.

Or mebbe just a beautiful aunt in an ad for guns.; 5/15/09, 4:11 PM
KCFleming said...: Mebbe Sarah Palin is available.

Does she sing?; 5/15/09, 4:23 PM
Richard said...: I was convinced guns were bad by the time the poor apple was shot.

It is a pretty commercial with the slow motion and the music. Though I am not sure about it's effectiveness as an ad. Do you think it will actually sway anyone over to the anti-gun side?

If anything, showing things getting blown up in awesome ways makes me more interested in guns, rather than being disgusted with them.; 5/15/09, 4:31 PM
Donna B. said...: I loved the shots to the apple and watermelon. Very nice.

Beautiful, yes. But the only emotion I felt was disgust and anger at the finish.; 5/15/09, 4:31 PM
Joe said...: If that's an anti-gun ad, just how cool would a pro-gun ad be?; 5/15/09, 5:04 PM
Cedarford said...: Big Mike - The real problem has always been how to remove handguns from people who intend to perform a criminal act, but only wishful dreamers believe that handgun bans do that. Everyone sane realizes that criminals cannot be stopped from acquiring firearms, for pretty much the same reason that Prohibition did not stop drunkness..

One big problem is that gun-banners do not realize that making firearms is a pretty low-tech endeavor, and labor saving innovations like electricity, interchangable parts, CAD - allow us to mass produce them - about as easily as bottles of moonshine. A friend made a fully automatic 9mm submachinegun in his home shop just to see if he could do it, then destroyed it because it was as illegal as all heck.

The second fallacy gun-banners have is that you ban something like guns, heroin, fireworks - and you can magically deter all smuggling by magically repealing laws of supply and demand.

There 3rd fallacy is that you can criminalize a huge mass of citizens and somehow suppress them from partaking in something you seek to ban or have government in firm control of under existing US Constitutional and state rights structure. The true gun nuts have their own fantasy that the "armed citizen" can defeat a ruthless armed government, which is almost never true..But establishing the totalitarian police state structures and severe punishments awaiting anyone found with a "non-government approved printing press, firearm, Bible, etc." would mean creating a very different American society than the one the gun banners propagandize we would have "if only government agents were allowed to have firearms so Our Children! The children gangstas! Could be safe from themselves!"; 5/15/09, 5:06 PM
KCFleming said...: That ad makes me want to kill fruits and vegetables.

Especially zucchini.
I want to spread zucchini guts on the floor, to tear cucumbers to bloody shreds with my shells; to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their veggie dead; to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of the wounded watermelons, writhing in pain; to lay waste the humble gardens with a hurricane of fire; to wring the artichoke hearts with unavailing grief, blast their roots, blight their leaves, protract their bitter berries, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded fennel!; 5/15/09, 5:14 PM
al said...: Freeman Hunt @1:36 has the right idea. Dead rapists don't commit any more crimes. Every woman should be armed.

Pogo @4:23 - Sarah is busy this weekend. She's getting a custom AR15 chambered in 50 Beowulf at the NRA Convention.

As for the video - it makes me want to go to the range and put a couple of hundred rounds through the guns.; 5/15/09, 5:20 PM
KCFleming said...: I am somewhat angry with wheat and corn as well, so they'd better watch their step.; 5/15/09, 5:24 PM
KCFleming said...: And cantaloupe; oh, the satisfying sound it makes when run through with a .45 bullet.

The cantaloupe is surprisingly easy to sneak up on. Lord knows how it ever survived in the wild.

The muskmelon, in contrast, is a wary fruit, so camouflage is required. Best to dress as a dishwashing machine repairman.

They never expect that.; 5/15/09, 5:30 PM
The Dude said...: Where I live the person shooting the black youth at the end of that agit-prop would be another black youth. Happens all the time. And yet very few people seem to think it's a problem.

Curious, no?; 5/15/09, 6:16 PM
chickelit said...: I just checked again and the video works for me now.

It is pretty stuff. I'm immediately struck by how the kinetic energy of the bullet transfers so symmetrically to most of the objects. Stuff splatters both forwards and backwards. I think that this kind of photographic technology could have come in handy during the analysis of the Zapruder film.

I'm going to the shooting range with my son tomorrow. I might show him this cool video before we go, so thanks for the link!; 5/15/09, 7:32 PM
Simon Kenton said...: Pogo, how you bring it all back! The whup-whup of the choppers, Madonna the casta diva fronting the Nylons doing their a capella version of the Ride of the Walkure, the ripping silk of Puff the Magic Dragon sluicing them out at 6000 rounds per second, the terrified herds of brussels sprouts rolling back and forth across the plains, and the smell of broccoli steaming in the morning.; 5/15/09, 8:14 PM
bagoh20 said...: Can't we just be against murder and make it illegal or something. I mean really illegal, like a capital offense and stuff. That would stop it PDQ.; 5/15/09, 8:54 PM
KCFleming said...: If you outlaw carrots, only carrots will be outlaws.; 5/15/09, 8:55 PM
JAL said...: What's with the "CHOICE" thingey on the right?

"Peace on the Streets."

Visualize whirled peas.; 5/15/09, 9:23 PM
Anonymous said...: The medium is the message.

Subtext: Kill your gangsta enemy with a baseball bat.; 5/15/09, 9:28 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: Looks like one shot one kill to me. How come no humans, sea kittens, or Bambis were injured during this ridiculous ad?

Beautiful, yes. Stupid, yes.

God, guns, and rock and roll maked this country great and safe; YES!; 5/15/09, 10:24 PM
Lance said...: Cryptical asked...
Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

Dodge City, Kansas. 1870-1880.

(I'm pro-2nd Amendment, by the way, but figured you'd want an answer to your question.); 5/15/09, 10:38 PM
Lance said...: (And by pro-2nd Amendment, I mean pro-individual-right-to-self-defense. Sorry if that wasn't clear.); 5/15/09, 10:39 PM
TMink said...: Beautiful video!

I wonder what a larger round would do? That would be WAY cool.

Trey; 5/15/09, 11:44 PM
Anonymous said...: lance,

Your comment along with this article, the world's most murderous people, and the comments are appropriate thinking material to sleep on tonight.

http://www.livescience.com/culture/090515-hn-waorani-revenge.html; 5/16/09, 12:46 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Lost most of its, ah, impact since I read the post title. Pretty predictable after that.; 5/16/09, 1:03 AM
Jennifer said...: I'm with Donna B. Beautiful, for sure. But, I was appalled and then disgusted at the end. Doubt that was the emotion they were going for.; 5/16/09, 10:20 AM
Kevin said...: Here is a beautiful site full of gun-related photos.

A Human Right by Oleg Volk. Oleg is a brilliant photographer who came to the US from Russia as a child.; 5/16/09, 10:28 AM
1775OGG said...: Kevin, you done good!; 5/16/09, 11:44 AM
Nichevo said...: C4, the barrel is the hard part. how did he fabricate that?

fls,
Let's not forget that it was late MIT professor Harold Edgerton who pioneered high speed photography like these shots.

I believe it was actually a british gent in the 1840s who bet another gent that a galloping, or perhaps a running horse, lifts all four feet off the ground at once. stop-motion photography stems from the work done to win this bet. not sure if edgerton involved at this stage.; 5/16/09, 12:05 PM
former law student said...: a running horse, lifts all four feet off the ground at once.

The key words were "like these shots." Muybridge's fastest shutter speed was 1/2000 of a second, while Edgerton got down to 1/1,000,000 of a second. These pictures were taken using Edgerton techniques and not Muybridgean techniques.

http://www.agallery.com/Pages/photographers/edgerton.html; 5/16/09, 12:25 PM
Harrison said...: It's pretty tough to think with your heart. I prefer my head for that.; 5/16/09, 3:10 PM
Harrison said...: It's pretty tough to think with your heart. I prefer my head for that.; 5/16/09, 3:10 PM
plumcolr said...: Speaking of pissing off tomatos - anyone remember the drive-in flick "Attack of the Killer Tomatos"? Thought not. God, I'm getting old!; 5/16/09, 4:56 PM
JAL said...: plumcolr, see 11:34 and 11:37; 5/16/09, 11:03 PM
Unknown said...: Frankly, if that egg or water bottle breaks into my house, threatening my family with a gun...darn tootin' I'm going to defend myself and my family with my legally purchased firearm.

You know, someone should really create some huge gov't agency that sucks up billions of dollars a day to investigate the social fabric of society that makes eggs and water bottles so violent in the first place. Maybe it's poverty or those nasty white eggs or flavored water or whatever. I'm jus' sayin'...; 5/17/09, 10:53 AM
kentuckyliz said...: This is a British PSA. There is gun control in the UK, so I'm not sure why they need the PSA. Only the police have guns.

Unless they're making an appeal to illegally gun-owning gangs, who are probably hollering at the TV, "Pop a cap at that n-word!" and laughing hysterically, to intimidate and amuse their friends.; 5/20/09, 5:42 AM