Imagine...

While watching my favorite show to watch online, Chuck, I came across something a little unusual: A commercial featuring a talking dead man. To put your fears to rest, I'm not talking about a zombie or anything of the sort. I am however talking about an odd, cleaver and very disturbing manipulation of a man's image and a not so well impersonator creating the voice to help a charity.

At first I didn't know what I was watching, it starts so subtle that you have to listen to the key words or wait for the image to fully come clear. It sounded like a member of a certain British rock band from the sixties. But no, thought I, it couldn't be this man has been dead for more years than I have been alive. I've scarcely seen actual footage of him, unless you count that one movie based off of the one of the bands songs that I owned as a child. No not that one, the first one they did, before all the tripped out drugs and eastern learnings. The keys words then echoed in my mind, 'Imagine", "Learn", "Dream", "Achieve anything they want". Then came the most obvious statement: "I tried (past tense mind you) to do this with my music..." As I kept watching the images came into a focus, a picture on a screen of a man who seemed to be saying the words I was hearing. Yes that is right, the picture was of John Lennon, the Beatle who died in 1980.

Upon seeing this I was shocked, and instantly went to work researching the ad. Had they really just used John Lennon to try to promote their cause. Why would someone do such a thing. Why would they use someone who is dead when surely they can get someone who is living, someone who can actually give their opinion about the cause to help the cause. But no, this could not be done. This company had to "resurrect" someone, to try to get supporters. I was shocked to find out that the departed's wife Yoko Ono was supportive and gave them the footage to use.

If you look closely you can see that the words you hear are not the ones that John is speaking on the Television Screen, though they are close. And if you have actually seen and heard Lennon before, weither in real life or from recordings you would know that this voice isn't his. But to the untrained it might sound similar.

Again, my question is why? Was it to stir up the prolateriete, to get everyone in the country to wonder about this add so much that they tell their friends, blog to the world, and ultimately spend hours upon hours just thinking about it? All so that their name and reason for being could be heard? It seems the same as digging up a corpse. These praverbial Dr. Frenkensteins have uprooted a legend. Brought him back to life, and forced him to speak in their behalf.

Just to clarify, I'm not knocking the cause, just the means about which they do their buisness. Or advertising rather. Is it ethical? Well that would be something to think about.

My words to you One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) are thus: As another Beatle would so fondly put it, "Live and Let Die."


By the way, the video in question can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b4GkGMiBDQ