Biting Humor?
– – I like dark humor and black comedy, but they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. For this reason, the recent Snickers great white shark commercial has rubbed some shark conservationists and shark attack victims and their families the wrong way, plus done little to dispel the erroneous notion that humans are the preferred food source for sharks.
In the commercial, a group of well-animated and voiced-over CG great white sharks are participating in a focus group where they are questioned about a “blind taste test” of people that they have just eaten. The preferred victim is revealed to have eaten Snickers Peanut Butter Squared, while the less tasty victim had consumed peanut butter cups.
Now the commercial is intended to be comical, harmless, and light-hearted rather than educational and sensitive, and is a vehicle intended to entertain and linger in the mind so as to sell more Snickers products. Some contend, however, that the ad was released too close on the heels of actual shark attacks in Egypt and elsewhere, and has accordingly gone too far.- -Sick or slick? You decide!
Tags: Snickers shark commercial
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February 21, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Personally, I considered this ad no more offensive or insensitive than those old “Land Shark” skits Chevy Chase used to do on SNL.
February 22, 2011 at 1:57 am
I tend to see life and the world in terms of grays rather than black and white, but if no offense is intended none should be taken. Comedy by its nature has an edge of some type, and as Steve Martin well expressed it, “Comedy isn’t pretty!”