Bruce Springsteen - Classic or Dud ?

I said bullshitting himself

I don't doubt he believes it

A perfect mom text. pic.twitter.com/MlivBhLeii

— Frank Pallotta (@frankpallotta) February 8, 2021

good thread

How @springsteen and @Jeep created a #SuperBowl advertisement that exalts & perpetuates white christian nationalism. And maybe more later on how this horrific use of religious and patriotic iconography perpetuates white supremacy

A thread, with verbal/visual translations by me. https://t.co/FmvKpV4CeN

— Rev. Phil Woodson (@phil_woodson) February 8, 2021

Saw in a Variety article posted on twitter that an ad agency hack wrote the script and sent it to Jon Landau who loved it. He gave it to Bruce and they all changed it a bit.

Disappointing that both could be sucked into a unity plea without recognizing need for accountability and remorse first.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/bruce-springsteen-super-bowl-commercials-jeep-1234902575/

Bruce's life changed forever when he switched from Buicks to Jeeps.

I thought it was his dad who drove the big ol' Buick(?)

he got to steer it though

Until it overturned

these Jeeps are goin' boys, and they ain't comin' back

it doesn't necessarily sound like a message of finding *political* middle ground, just personal middle ground, to encourage people to mellow out and appreciate the things we have in common

You're half right - it explicitly identifies 'the middle' not as a political middle ground, but as our nations founding christian values, at the 'middle' of who we are as Americans. By showing only crosses, flags, Bruce's white face, his white hands, and his (white) jeep, imo its hard not to read it as an call to despairing right wing christian whites to keep the faith. Shot of the cross in front of the red white & blue USA map made me gasp out. Against that backdrop the v/o lines read as sinister: "our light has always found its way through the darkness". (Lines about "red and blue" are weak tea & echo the self-soothing lines those people tell themselves, "I'm not all-democrat or all-republican, I just think theres some questions that still havent been answered about the election", etc.) If Bruce was doing all that intentionally to reach to Trumpists across the divide on their own terms by speaking their language (big assumption), he forgot to actually deliver a message beyond "I hear you and youre right."

Ad is bullshit and Bruce is a fuckin clown for pulling something like this

Feel like people are overthinking this for the sake of thinkpiece fodder.

i know that sometimes these old rocker dudes like bruce and neil young fumble the ball with this kind of stuff when it comes to political ideas surrounding 'the heartland'/'real america'/etc, but its 2021, standing in front of a pile of crosses at a flag-draped church while telling americans to iron out their differences has a meaning

Suspect they aren't so caught up in the symbolism beyond Americana + Christian + "Real" (middle) America + Springsteen resonates with our core Jeep buying demo on both sides of the political spectrum and social activity will drive brand engagement and brand perception blah blah blah

Feel like people are overthinking this for the sake of thinkpiece fodder.

someone paid somewhere around $20 million to put this message in front of 100 million americans. i think that makes it worth thinking about.

also, as 2-minute rock star endorsed super bowl car ads about middle american places goes, i prefer this more clear and less preachy sell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLD798UrKC8

Feel like people are overthinking this for the sake of thinkpiece fodder.

it was really out of the blue.. like... lol is the deepfake Bruce??

like its not even that its a milquetoast 'unity plea', its literally him telling red america that the solution is for us all to meet inside a flag-draped church ("a hard place to get to, lately"), a place they believe their opponents hate and would never go to. its not even subtext. cant believe he gets a pass on shit like this.

"its not 'red' or 'blue' to think that we all need to go to church more and not be ashamed of the flag. i dont care if youre black, white, red, purple, whatever..."

For context, here's part of what Bruce said on his radio show a couple weeks ago, after talking about Jan. 6th. The last paragraph is the key to why he did this stupid ad, I think.

Now, I don’t know about you, but sitting in front on my TV on the afternoon of Jan. 6, my responses went from ‘What?,’ to ‘Huh?,’ to ‘Whoa!,’ to surprise, to shock, to becoming infuriated, to depression, to deepening anger as the days passed by and what had actually happened, most of which we barely knew yet, began to seep in.

Now, I’m curious: What kind of narcissist are you that thinks you have the right to trash our People’s House, stop the wheels of our democracy, while we are in the process of performing one of our most sacred duties, the peaceful transfer of power, in the most powerful nation on Earth, and to act based on a cheap, easily disproven lie of a stolen election, a lie that has been reviewed, disproven, debunked and rejected by every court in the land, including our own Trump-filled Supreme Court. I mean, who do you think you are to desecrate the halls of our democracy purely on the word of a delusional, broken carny barker of a president, who knows allegiance only … to himself. He is a dime store seditionist and a low-rent traitor to the Constitution, and to the United States of America.

I ask my good American brothers and sisters to value yourselves and your allegiances more deeply. Donald J. Trump does not deserve your good soul and your honest and heartfelt commitment. Your country, your real country, awaits and needs you. So I say this with pain and love in my heart: Don’t waste your compassion on those who do not deserve it. You are better and worth much more than that. In this world, God’s world, no infallible truth resides in just one man. There is only one truth, God’s truth, and it is a truth of deep inquiry, humility in the face of facts, and it is grounded in the faith and love and respect you carry for your neighbors and your country. Let us all pray to God we have the strength to see clearly with our mind, heart and eyes, and that we may hold our faith high, humbly, and in service of our country and the truth.

i totally understand one eye open's reading of it, but at the same time bruce is an old man and his ideas of "unity" and "america" were formed in the middle of the 20th century so i think it's not surprising that he has blind spots to how the commercial would come off that can be explain more by his age/frame of reference rather than mal intent

ums otm, especially after reading his autobiography a few months ago, I think he's just clinging so tightly to his 1950s version of "unity" and "America" that he has almost no frame of reference for how wildly out of touch this looks in 2021. I'm not giving it a free pass, because there were a lot more people involved than just Bruce and someone should have checked this along the way, but I don't think is nearly as pro-MAGA as some folks on Twitter are trying to spin this.

Maybe he just decided that after decades of correcting the rampant misreading of "Born in the USA" he needed something new and contemporary to confuse people afresh.

Anyway, this remains Bruce's definitive Super Bowl statement:

https://149363654.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/bruce-springsteen-slide-super-bowl-halftime-show.gif

I just watched the commercial now, and that's exactly what I flashed back to too.

(Your previous post, I mean.)

"hes a superwealthy white guy clinging like grim death to a midcentury vision of what america ought to look like, he has a few blind spots"

Ah yes, how can I forget the time Bruce's crouch came rocketing at us like a missile?

Jeep's main concern is whether their demo agrees with that vision

xp

*crotch

America's crotch.

I don’t know a ton about Bruce, I guess I just didn’t know he was that into Jesus and stuff

same

his crotch surrounded us, everything went black

I don't think it showed before, but after the E Street Band reunited he worked the Catholic imagery like hell. On tour it was like a gospel revival, but then when he did The Rising it's all the lyrics, and of course he's made numerous references to his Catholic upbringing with his recent projects. It's like that old saying about people getting old and going to services more like they're getting an insurance policy - I've had priests and rabbis confirm the same thing, they typically see a lot of older faces they've never seen before.

*all over the lyrics

I can think of few artists as famously rooted and steeped in Catholicism as Bruce. Scorsese, I guess.

He talks a lot in his book about how important religion was to him as a kid, to a surprising degree. That was new to me as well.

"hes a superwealthy white guy clinging like grim death to a midcentury vision of what america ought to look like, he has a few blind spots"

Well, yeah. I was more just responding to the people I've seen on Twitter arguing, somewhat strenuously, that this was actually a pro-MAGA commercial. Which it wasn't. Just a tone deaf, earnest "unity plea" that falls flat.

I don’t know a ton about Bruce, I guess I just didn’t know he was that into Jesus and stuff

same here...

I just watched the ad, and didn't find it as shocking & hardcore as I had assumed it would be (from some of these reactions) - but even assuming the best intentions, I don't know how he thinks that it will change a single heart or mind. I also agree that sending this msg in the context of an ad feels somewhat cynical or clueless. Mainly, I just thought he looked silly in that crisp jacket & scarf, driving the Jeep, putting on the hat, etc.

Bruce has had that tent-preacher streak for a while, but he used to disguise it as shtick, or as The Church of Rock And Roll, or as allegory or something; him coming out and saying "yup, I believe in God and Jesus" is pretty new. I think it's partly that he's getting more religious in old age and partly that he's deliberately leaning into religion to try to speak a language that will appeal to Trump supporters.

sorry jon i dont mean to come at you about it, it just got me hot under the collar for a sec

I can think of few artists as famously rooted and steeped in Catholicism as Bruce. Scorsese, I guess.

A lot of the great auteur filmmakers deal with Catholicism or Christianity - Bresson, Bergman, Rivette, Ford, McCarey, etc. (and don't forget Paul Schrader).

Not so much rock though, not unless you go back to something like the Sun artists (Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, etc.) or soul artists who already have gospel connections (Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, I think Marvin Gaye, etc.)

sorry jon i dont mean to come at you about it, it just got me hot under the collar for a sec

I didn't think you were and I don't disagree with you, really - he's not the guy to be delivering this message at this point in time. I was more reacting against the motives being ascribed to him on social media, which I think are pretty wrong.

Oh yeah, Schrader for sure. (Especially because I was thinking of living folks, anyway.) Rock ... there's U2, of course.

craig finn

Hey it didn't work for the right-wing either

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/08/the-3-worst-things-about-that-terrible-jeep-super-bowl-ad/

Can't help thinking of the guy near the middle of this Dan Melchior drawing

https://www.instagram.com/p/CHYs7Jalp8z/

Yeah I remember being surprised to hear that U2 kind of started off like a Christian rock band. Not lyrically, but in terms of how they saw themselves, their faith, what they were doing with their music, etc. I'm sure that's had some role in shaping their music over the years, but I don't find it noticeable.

I've been looking at reactions to Springsteen's ad around social media - i.e. people I know - and it really drives home the point that anyone who thinks they can make a message that will speak to all Americans and unite them is kidding themselves. It ain't gonna happen - the differences in opinion make it impossible. Springsteen's much more of a romantic than I'll ever be, but I don't think he's so delusional that he thinks he can craft a message that will have a profound effect on everyone across the entire sociopolitical spectrum, and see who's responding positively to it (and why) I think Lily's pretty much got the right idea.