Friday, September 30, 2005
Miles Away From Ordinary
Chasing other women and running around to sex parties can sometimes take its toll. When I kick back and relax, I like being in warm places, where the color scheme is basically all blue and gold. Like those Corona beer commercials are always depicting.
I've been a fan of their commercials for a while now, even though I don't touch the stuff. But I like their cheekiness.
The first one aired a few years ago, and was by far their best. Pretty racy for American TV. It depicted the corner of a hammock protruding into the frame. A man in swim trunks gets up from it, his back to us, and heads towards that improbably blue ocean. The camera pulls back to include more of the hammock, and now we see the departing man was not alone. Two sets of shapely, female legs also occupy the space. Three bottles of Corona are on a small table close by.
I noticed the sly fun going on right away. Apparently the Powers That Be did also. The commercial quickly disappeared. Those uptight network boys, don't they realize how perfectly surf, sand and sex go well together? And with beer too.
Of course, given my druthers, I would have altered the commercial just a little. Why not make the other pair of legs shapely but strong, leaving us uncertain whether it was two guys with a girl? (those threesomes we can more readily tolerate when it's two girls/guy). But two guys in the same hammock with a girl? And afterwards we all know they're going to take her back to the tiki hut and double her until she screams for mercy. And when the guys are done with her, they're gonna look at each other, and still want more, and then...well, hhmmm, well, as we say in the tropics, it's all about skin down here.
Well, then you know we'd really be "Miles Away From Ordinary," which is the Corona tag line.
Still, we have to start somewhere in this ongoing struggle to expand sexual awareness among the general public. Maybe it makes more sense with fine wine than beer.
Since then, Corona has come out with two new ones.
In one of them, a man and woman are debating something as they are seated in deck chairs. Facing that great ocean again. She holds a pair of return plane tickets. Abruptly she tears them up and sets them on the table between them. They now become coasters for the couple's Corona beers, as they go back to enjoying yet another shitty day in paradise.
The other new commercial is racier, although not quite like the very first one. But there's coded stuff going on if you care to read it, as I like to. Sometimes it's good we were settled by Puritans. Think of what we'd be like if the French had their way with us early on. We end up giving off very subliminal messages about sex, because we are too afraid of being any bolder.
This new commercial returns to the couple motif, sitting side by side on that damn beach. He holds up a bottle, now empty, and tilts it sideways, so the opening is facing the woman. On the horizon, a sailing ship appears, seemingly sailing right into the opening of the empty bottle.
Is it just me, or is this a wonderful metaphor for sex about to take place? And since the ship sails across the screen from the girl's POV, we may pose the burning question: did she bring her strap-on along to use on her male friend? Because the male seems to play the receptive role in this ad.
Of course, the all-time greatest visual gag for sexual intercourse, in my book, has to be chalked up to that master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. Remember the ending of North By Northwest, where Cary Grant pulls Eva Marie Saint up into the train berth at the end? This comes right on the heels of another scene, when they are on top of Mount Rushmore and he is pulling her up the face of George Washington to safety.
Then the train enters a tunnel and the film ends. Even the youngest members of the audience, assuming they have arrived at puberty, get that joke. Everyone in the theater laughed when I first saw the film, and this was back in the late 50's.
Much as I love the explicitness of porn, sometimes it's nice to have the sexual messages gift-wrapped a little. Your own mind has to tease it out a bit. But isn't that where the fun lies? The Corona people are obviously tapping into that.
Pardon me now, I must go mix up a mojito and continue my useless existence hanging poolside in our apartment building.
- - - - - - -
I've been a fan of their commercials for a while now, even though I don't touch the stuff. But I like their cheekiness.
The first one aired a few years ago, and was by far their best. Pretty racy for American TV. It depicted the corner of a hammock protruding into the frame. A man in swim trunks gets up from it, his back to us, and heads towards that improbably blue ocean. The camera pulls back to include more of the hammock, and now we see the departing man was not alone. Two sets of shapely, female legs also occupy the space. Three bottles of Corona are on a small table close by.
I noticed the sly fun going on right away. Apparently the Powers That Be did also. The commercial quickly disappeared. Those uptight network boys, don't they realize how perfectly surf, sand and sex go well together? And with beer too.
Of course, given my druthers, I would have altered the commercial just a little. Why not make the other pair of legs shapely but strong, leaving us uncertain whether it was two guys with a girl? (those threesomes we can more readily tolerate when it's two girls/guy). But two guys in the same hammock with a girl? And afterwards we all know they're going to take her back to the tiki hut and double her until she screams for mercy. And when the guys are done with her, they're gonna look at each other, and still want more, and then...well, hhmmm, well, as we say in the tropics, it's all about skin down here.
Well, then you know we'd really be "Miles Away From Ordinary," which is the Corona tag line.
Still, we have to start somewhere in this ongoing struggle to expand sexual awareness among the general public. Maybe it makes more sense with fine wine than beer.
Since then, Corona has come out with two new ones.
In one of them, a man and woman are debating something as they are seated in deck chairs. Facing that great ocean again. She holds a pair of return plane tickets. Abruptly she tears them up and sets them on the table between them. They now become coasters for the couple's Corona beers, as they go back to enjoying yet another shitty day in paradise.
The other new commercial is racier, although not quite like the very first one. But there's coded stuff going on if you care to read it, as I like to. Sometimes it's good we were settled by Puritans. Think of what we'd be like if the French had their way with us early on. We end up giving off very subliminal messages about sex, because we are too afraid of being any bolder.
This new commercial returns to the couple motif, sitting side by side on that damn beach. He holds up a bottle, now empty, and tilts it sideways, so the opening is facing the woman. On the horizon, a sailing ship appears, seemingly sailing right into the opening of the empty bottle.
Is it just me, or is this a wonderful metaphor for sex about to take place? And since the ship sails across the screen from the girl's POV, we may pose the burning question: did she bring her strap-on along to use on her male friend? Because the male seems to play the receptive role in this ad.
Of course, the all-time greatest visual gag for sexual intercourse, in my book, has to be chalked up to that master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. Remember the ending of North By Northwest, where Cary Grant pulls Eva Marie Saint up into the train berth at the end? This comes right on the heels of another scene, when they are on top of Mount Rushmore and he is pulling her up the face of George Washington to safety.
Then the train enters a tunnel and the film ends. Even the youngest members of the audience, assuming they have arrived at puberty, get that joke. Everyone in the theater laughed when I first saw the film, and this was back in the late 50's.
Much as I love the explicitness of porn, sometimes it's nice to have the sexual messages gift-wrapped a little. Your own mind has to tease it out a bit. But isn't that where the fun lies? The Corona people are obviously tapping into that.
Pardon me now, I must go mix up a mojito and continue my useless existence hanging poolside in our apartment building.
- - - - - - -
