Sarcastic Saturday :: discussing troublesome commercials, part sixteen of howevermany.

28 Jun

(A man is scaling the outside of a fancy, tall, urban building.

Cut to: a young man, who we will soon learn is named Blair, and young woman, the Priceline Negotiator’s Daughter, entering a room.)

Blair: Wow, this hotel is amazing!

(She sees the window, where the Priceline Negotiator is currently stuck with giant super-spy suction cups.)

Daughter: Oh, no.

Oh, no, like despite the fact that previous ads would have us believe that she just reappeared in his life after an unspecified amount of time, he’s done this before and she knows the warning signs.

(The Negotiator turns his suction cups into glass-cutting lasers and makes a hole in the window, then sticking his head in.)

Negotiator: Who are you?

Blair: Who are you?

Negotiator: Wrong answer.

Daughter (dragging him closer): Daddy, this is Blair.  He booked this room with Priceline Express Deals to save time.

Blair: Yeah, I didn’t have to pay and I got everything I wanted!

Negotiator: Oh, good!

Blair (in a lower voice): I always do.

Why are you being creepy?  I mean, I get that it’s to incite the Negotiator’s rage, but why would you want to do that?  Why would you think it would make you attractive to your date?

Negotiator: Oh, good.

(Grabbing Blair’s wrist, he throws him out the window and down into the pool below.  It’s still high enough that I’m skeptical that the fall wouldn’t injure him, but whatever.  The Negotiator and Daughter look below.)

Negotiator: He seemed nice.

(And then the male announcer speaks.)

Okay, so here’s the thing.  This is the same mentality as those Dads Against Daughters Dating assholes, something that’s such a trope that people don’t even realize it’s problematic.  Daughters may sigh about how annoying it is, and dads may only be joking, but it’s still gross and annoying.  It’s still unacceptable.

The Priceline Negotiator and his daughter (does she even have a name?  I don’t think so off the top of my head, not that I pay that close of attention, really) are playing out the trope that despite the fact that the daughter is an adult (Kaley Cuoco who plays her is 28) and should be making her own decisions, of which this was clearly one, she is not here with this Blair against her will, the dad is affronted by the notion of his daughter dating.  He’s physically creeping on her, destroying a building that his company is affiliated with at least loosely for the sake of creeping on her (and any number of strangers who’d look out their window and see a grown-ass man suctioned to the glass), and then potentially injuring the daughter’s date without even speaking to him hardly at all (or worse).  All… what, exactly?  To protect his daughter’s virtue?  To stake his claim on his daughter’s autonomy?

It’s not a funny joke, media.  Stop telling it.

–your fangirl heroine.

ahaha no

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