The latest Six Flags “More Flags More Fun” commercial is just plain creepy. The old man encouraging the comely young lass to “churn,” alone, is gross. But I also recently watched the film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s “Choke” (the book is good but the film sucked), which includes lots of sexualized scenes of a woman churning in the same fashion, so this commercial now seems doubly disturbing.
You may have noticed that theme park chain Six Flags recently merged their two annoying mascots into one Super Jerk. Back when it was just the funny dancing old man, I didn’t mind the ads at all. In fact, they were a delight! Here’s the spot that started it all:
The old dancing man’s reign lasted for many long months, and it was good, even though the cognitive dissonance caused by the man’s old face and young body drove some mad.
Then the Six Flags people seemed to decide it was time to freshen up their image with some good old fashioned racism. Observe.
The Asian stereotype guy freaked me out enough, but even worse, the ads now began with even more obnoxious scenes of people attempting to have fun in terribly dull ways (i.e. waving hand puppets around and making noises). And to top it off, they didn’t even take away the most annoying part of the ads since the old man danced his first step….that goddamn Vengaboys song!
Anyway, I thought that would be the end of it, but no! Now they’ve gone and combined the two ad campaigns, eliminating the questionable aforementioned Asian stereotype mascot but retaining his catch phrase, “More flags, more fun!” Now they just have the old man doing it, and somehow when he talks he becomes about 100% less funny. See for yourself.
What a long, strange trip it’s been.