Anyone want to talk about the mawkish Reba McIntire video featuring a Chevy and a cemetery?

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So Reba's at the helm of a Chevy SUV, feeding potato chips to a child who I think qualifies as toe headed. The film stock strongly suggests this is an ad. And lo, now we're toggling between domestic scenes inside the Chevy and shots of the SUV itself, from the outside, just, you know, chugging along. But the thing is a video, I assume, because it's going on too long to be a commercial. There may be some sort of barely audible music in the background.

Reba and son arrive at their destination, which turns out to be a cemetery. For the duration she's mourning, and the shots from here on out basically consist of Reba looking down at a headstone, her SUV _still very much visible_ over her shoulder; indeed you can even make out the Chevy logo.

Saw this last night, have no earthly idea what the song is. Now I hate to sound like an oversensitive blue stater (after all I've lived in Georgia and Kentucky) but come on -- cute children, dead loved ones, and heavy handed product placement. Fans of commercial country are smart enough to understand that this is tawdry, manipulative shit. Right?

― Derek Krissoff (Derek), Saturday, 12 February 2005 16:43 (twenty-one years ago)

hmmmm!

― he does guitar with his mouth lmao mint (ex machina), Saturday, 12 February 2005 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

isn't "towheaded" usually used to refer to light-colored or blond hair? the kid in the video has dark hair.

this song ("He Gets That From Me") was my 10th favorite country single of 2004 at the end of the year. I don't know if it would still be there if I made the list now, though. I've watched the video many times and the Chevy thing never really occurred to me. who cares? I like the tearjerking and cleverly structured lyric.

― Al (sitcom), Saturday, 12 February 2005 17:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll absolutely cede the point on toe (sic) headedness, and thanks for the video ID. I'll admit that I'm having trouble expressing exactly why it bothers me; maybe (and I don't mean this in a snarky way) I just don't like the total lack of subtlety this sort of commercial country seems to involve. And I do think this commerce is tacky.

― Derek Krissoff (Derek), Saturday, 12 February 2005 17:26 (twenty-one years ago)

To clarify the last point -- SUVs have nothing to do with dead loved ones. Harnessing light trucks to the cheapest sort of sentimentality strikes me as unusually cynical. Chevy wouldn't do it in a proper ad, so they had to work through a country music video, where considerably looser standards of taste prevail.

― Derek Krissoff (Derek), Saturday, 12 February 2005 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

eight months pass...

Fans of commercial country are smart enough to understand that this is tawdry, manipulative shit. Right?

Wrong. Fans of country aren't smart enough to understand that Gretchen Wilson is tawdry, manipulative shit, either (not that this makes her bad, mind you).

But actually, it's the SUV that's helping to sell the video that's helping to sell the song (and vice versa) (not that I've seen the video, mind you). An SUV will add panache to any graveyard.

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

And the SUV tells us something about the social stance of the dead loved ones, or at least about those who love the dead loved ones. So they indeed have something to do with dead loved ones. (And who's to say an SUV didn't help the loved one attain the status "dead," through air pollution, excess fuel consumption, road rage, or highway rollover?)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

Harnessing light trucks to the cheapest sort of sentimentality strikes me as unusually cynical. Chevy wouldn't do it in a proper ad . . .

Stood there boldly
Sweatin’ in the sun
Felt like a million
Felt like number one
The height of summer
I’d never felt that strong
Like a rock

I was eighteen
Didn’t have a care
Working for peanuts
Not a dime to spare
But I was lean and
Solid everywhere
Like a rock

My hands were steady
My eyes were clear and bright
My walk had purpose
My steps were quick and light
And I held firmly
To what I felt was right
Like a rock

Like a rock, I was strong as I could be
Like a rock, nothin’ ever got to me
Like a rock, I was something to see
Like a rock

And I stood arrow straight
Unencumbered by the weight
Of all these hustlers and their schemes
I stood proud, I stood tall
High above it all
I still believed in my dreams

Twenty years now
Where’d they go?
Twenty years
I don’t know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they’ve gone

And sometimes late at night
When I’m bathed in the firelight
The moon comes callin’ a ghostly white
And I recall
Recall

Like a rock. standin’ arrow straight
Like a rock, chargin’ from the gate
Like a rock, carryin’ the weight
Like a rock

Lihe a rock, the sun upon my skin
Like a rock, hard against the wind
Like a rock, I see myself again
Like a rock

― monkeybutler, Wednesday, 19 October 2005 15:58 (twenty years ago)

http://www.digitaljournal.com/photo/030107Toby_Keith.jpg

― van igloo (van smack), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 16:04 (twenty years ago)

"He's a Ford truck man."

― van igloo (van smack), Wednesday, 19 October 2005 16:05 (twenty years ago)

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