When you buy a car, what's really happening is that you're entering a relationship with your car. And that's how it should be — you and the car, growing with and learning about one another. But what do you do if that car's parents prove to be abusive and controlling? I'm asking for my friend, a nice kid named 'everyone who owns a Dodge.'
Sure, a lot of people have fallen in love with various Dodges recently — Darts, Challengers, Charger Hellcats, and, more improbably, Durangos. And, according to Dodge's new series of ads, once you buy one of their cars, Daddy Dodge owns your ass, and Daddy Dodge has some fucking rules.
See, Daddy Dodge is really insecure, and needs to control as much as possible when you drive one of his cars. Like what you eat. That's right, fucko, you can't just buy a Charger and think you can eat whatever you want. What is this, a Kia?
Just look at that ad up there. The Dodge Corporate Stalker's rules are here carried out by the Dodge Law team, composed of a sub-Muppet monkey and a sophisticated anthropomorphized STD named Richard Rawlings. In this particular example, they pull the Charger driver owner (who did spring for the Scat Pack) over for the crime of eating a croissant.
A croissant? Really? A croissant is too weird for these guys? What were they, born mid-Civil War? Is this like how your grandparents used to call sushi "bait" back in the 1980s? Hell, fucking Pillsbury makes them. Come on, Dodge, even if it wasn't creepy that you're monitoring everything your customers eat like a child beauty queen stage mom, there's way froofier things than a crossaint out there.
Also like a creepy stage mom, they care about your looks, too. A lot. Here they are making sure you don't wear bronzer:
Is that even still a thing? And, remember, this is one of the Dodge Lawmen demanding you avoid any sort of fake tanner:
Your clothes, too, are being monitored by Dodge, as well as the hobbies associated with those clothes. Here, the Dodge Law monkeys apprehend a group of men who dared to take a yoga class while owning a Durango.
Sure, they're wearing stupid-looking exercise clothes, but they're exercising! Of course they look stupid. All exercise clothes look a little stupid. How vain are these Dodge guys? And, remember, this is the guy complaining about their clothes:
The guy with more hair gel and jewelry than my Aunt Frances used to wear and a scarf I'm pretty sure I saw while attempting to masturbate to a Forever 21 catalog.
And, if the point is to say that somehow guys who do yoga aren't manly enough for the Dodge they've already bought, I have two words for them: Matt Fucking Hardigree. Yes, our own Editor-in-Chief does yoga regularly, and I once saw him drop a full-grown yeti with one punch just because he thought it disrespected his opinion on the K-Car.
I just don't get what you're trying to do with this ad campaign, Dodge. These commercials come off as insecure and weird. You're finally building cars that should require no answers to anyone, ever, and yet you're projecting the image that you have to helicopter around the owners to make sure they don't hurt your delicate sensibilities.
Shit, if you're behind the wheel of a 707 HP Hellcat you can wear hot pants as you drive back from your flower-arranging class while eating an entire fucking wedding cake if you feel like it. That's the whole point of that gloriously ridiculous car — you've got over 700 horses under that hood — who's gonna argue with you about anything?
I mean, wasn't your whole advertising MO not so long ago all about freedom? This ring a bell?
Remember that? The freedom? As in eat/wear/do whatever the hell you want in the Dodge you paid for? What happened to that idea?
So, Dodge, stop being so creepy. Back off. People bought your cars, now give them some space, already.
Weirdo.