Advertising, Part 1

There’s a commercial out about coal mining and how it’s not actually destructive to the environment around the mine, hazardous to the health of the miners, and so forth. And mining is done entirely underground as opposed to blasting off entire mountaintops. Well, those things are implied. The only thing actually spelled out is that America has lots of coal, enough to last for a couple hundred years while we develop alternate technologies that might not require us to go to war with various desert nations every decade. Or something. The tag line is “Coal is attractive,” and the “miners” are all supermodels, both male and female.

The trouble is, the song accompanying the commercial is “Sixteen Tons.”

Yes. The Merle Travis song that refers to the exploitation of actual coal miners. You know, the one that says the miners can never make enough money to get away from coal, because they have to buy their groceries and supplies on credit from a store belonging to the mining company. Also, the miner singing the song is such a badass that no “high toned” women makes him walk any lines. Oh, and he wins all his fistfights.

The sad thing is, most people know the song, but they don’t think about the lyrics. The idiots that thought this one up would have made a perfectly good commercial if they’d just used the tune. Then all of us sheeple in front of the TV would have nodded, and thought, “I know this one, it’s the coal song, how apt.” Instead, we hear this doleful male voice singing about how he can’t die because he owes his soul to the company store.

Nice going, GE!