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Yo. Check
this out, Esse. Last night I was watching television, when a commercial
for Burlington Coat Factory came on. At first glance, it looked like a
typical back-to-school advertisement, featuring teenagers wearing the
latest fashions, striking a pose, and other crap. To my utter
astonishment, there was a short clip of some dumbass wearing a Che
Guevara T-Shirt! I thought I MUST have seen that wrong. After all, the
"Che" T-shirt image has been copied and used elsewhere (such as the
brilliant "Reagan Revolution" T-shirts).
Half
an hour later, the same commercial came on. I paid close attention
to it, and sure enough, the kid was wearing a Che shirt. Holy shit.
What the hell is wrong with Burlington Coat Factory?
I went to their website (www.coat.com), and tried to get an email address. All they had was an online contact form. Rather than sending an angry complaint
email, which would no doubt be deleted immediately, I sent them the following message:
I
just saw your excellent new Back-to-School ad, and I can't tell you how
thrilled I was to see that you featured a young man wearing a Che
Guevara T-shirt. As a Marxist, I am elated that General Che has become
a fashion statement, and I applaud your efforts. I am currently
marketing a line of Fidel Castro hatwear, as well as Yassir Arafat
exploding suicide belts, and I'd like to know if you would be
interested in funding my marketing efforts. Although I am vehemently
against capitalism, I am willing to sell my work for "the cause." Best
regards, MC
Before
patting myself on the back for being the first person to discover this
ad, I did a quick Google search for "Burlington Coat Factory
Che." It seems that I was NOT the first person to catch this. The
blogger who goes by the name Blind Pig wrote an excellent article
about it a couple of weeks ago. OK, so I'm second. I'll take what I can
get.
When
Blind Pig originally saw the ad, he too could not believe his eyes.
Fortunately, he has Tivo and was able to stop it at the
right point (and take the photo above). I'm adding B.P. to my
links page, and you can check out his site here. Great work, and thanks for the photo!
So,
with school only days away, where are YOU going to buy your children's
all-important revolutionary wear? That's right, Burlington Coat
Factory! I'm not sure if they actually SELL the T-shirts, but with so
many other stores around, I'm not going to waste my time there to find
out. Ever. Fuck 'em.
I
realize there are more important issues right now (Islamists murdering
children at schools would be one), but at minimum this is just more
evidence of the "dumbing down" of America. When these shirts first
started sprouting up, I was annoyed. Every goddamn nose-ring, tattooed
Moe haircut bitch in my town has one of these. Fine. But whose idea was
it to turn Fidel Castro's chief political executioner into a fucking
fashion statement?
'Coop
PS: If I get a response, I'll be sure to post it.
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