Text 16788, 106 rader
Skriven 2007-03-06 17:43:16 av mike (1:379/45)
Ärende: Hello, I'm a Mac. And Bill's a PC
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From: mike <mike@barkto.com>


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chad-hermann/hello-im-a-mac-and-bi_b_42583.html

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By now you've seen, no doubt many times, Apple's most recent Get a Mac
commercial, in which poor PC can not get a word in (or out) without first
clearing it (Cancel or allow?) through his grim, Secret-Service-style security
agent. If for some reason you haven't seen it -- your television and your
computer have been broken for the past month, perhaps, or you've just returned
from keeping vigil at the morgue where Anna Nicole Smith has been slowly
decomposing -- you can see it here.

And you should see it, because it's the best of the series so far.

This is no small compliment, given how consistently smart and funny and clever
and creative they've been. But this one is pure perfection: a marvel of brisk
pacing, crisp editing, and deft comic timing, showcasing yet again the subtle
brilliance and hilarity of John Hodgman's work as PC. (If they gave Emmy Awards
for Best Actor in a Commercial Series, he'd have to start clearing his mantel.)
It's really quite amazing that, after almost one year and 18 different ads,
these spots not only remain fresh but actually keep getting better and better.

Almost equally amazing is the inability -- or perhaps the unwillingness
-- of someone as smart as Bill Gates to understand how the ads work.
When asked, in a recent interview with Newsweek magazine, whether he was
bothered by the commercial in which PC must undergo upgrade surgery to install
Windows Vista, the Microsoft Chairman replied, I've never seen it. I don't
think over 90 percent of the [population] who use Windows PCs think of
themselves as dullards, or the kind of klutzes that somebody is trying to say
they are.

Mr. Gates, as he is wont to do when he talks about Macs and PCs, misses several
key and painfully obvious points:

1) John Hodgman does not play a PC user. He plays a PC. (Technically, he plays
a PC personified, but using language that sounds like it comes from an English
Lit class might confuse Mr. Gates -- and, for that matter, a lot of PC users --
so I'm just gonna keep it simple.) The distinction is abundantly clear
throughout the commercials -- PC users rarely strap web-cams to their heads,
nor must they don hospital gowns to upgrade their operating systems -- but
especially so at the beginning of every clip; his signature opening line is And
I'm a PC, not And I'm a PC user.

2) PC is neither a dullard nor a klutz. He's a nice and earnest enough guy who,
because he is often jealous of and occasionally frustrated by the status and
achievements of his friend the Mac, is prone to making unfortunate decisions
that sometimes lead to unpleasant consequences. But it's not his fault; he's
just a victim of OS-envy

3) PC is the undisputed star of the commercials. Justin Long exudes an
effortlessly cool, understated, charismatic vibe -- he is playing a Mac, after
all -- but he never really has all that much to do. He is -- and this is the
true, ironic brilliance of the conceit -- the straight man. He's kind and
earnest, sincere and occasionally befuddled, always trying to help out his
friend, but rarely does anything more than stuff his hands in his pockets and
rattle off a few of his own best features and benefits. John Hodgman gets all
the good lines, all the great costumes, all the most absurd and hilarious
moments. He's the one who gets to snap at Mac and snark at their therapist and
bristle at the Secret Service guy, roll around in a wheelchair and an arm-cast,
and react to the relentless hounding of his own angel and devil doppelgangers.
He's the one wearing the hospital gown, brandishing the used-car-lot sales
signs, and storming off-screen with the webcam and the masking tape trailing
forlornly from his head.

PC is to Mac what Wile E. Coyote was to the Roadrunner: the poor, pitiful foil
for whom we feel some strange sort of empathy, even as we can't quite bring
ourselves to identify with him. He won't ever win, and he can't even get his
name in the title, but he's the one who makes the stories worth watching. He
makes them great. And so he makes us -- even long-time, hardcore,
holier-than-thou Apple zealots -- like him and even occasionally want to root
for him.

If Bill Gates understood this, or could at least bring himself to admit it,
perhaps he would feel better about the ad campaign. Or perhaps not. Elsewhere
in that same interview, when he's saying silly and patently untrue things about
Apple computers (Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every
single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over
totally) or bragging about Vista features (the way the search lets you go
through lots of things, including lots of photos... And then I might edit a
high-definition movie and a make a little DVD that's got photos) that have been
possible on a Mac for months or even years, he sounds an awful lot like PC in
those commercials: by turns boastful and dismissive, trying too hard and
succeeding too little, clinging to the tenuous and increasingly unpleasant
company of his own mistaken assumptions. Much has been made of the notion that,
at first glance, Mac and PC bear a more than passing resemblance to Steve Jobs
and Bill Gates. And maybe that's what really bugs Mr. Gates about the
commercials. Maybe he's not bothered by how they may hurt the feelings of 90
percent of computer users; maybe he's bothered by how they hurt his own.

But when he spends so much time upon the release of his new operating system
sniping at Apple and its commercials, he only makes the resemblance more clear,
the comparison more valid. As long as he's defensive and combative and so prone
to being bugged by the cool-seeming competition, he will continue not just to
look uncool, but also to remind computer users and commercial watchers of John
Hodgman's feckless, fretting PC -- a character who, much like his defender, is
just a smart guy prone to foolish choices, a likable but misguided soul who
needs to accept his own flaws, embrace his own character, and, most of all,
stop worrying about that other dude on the desktop.
===

  /m

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