Modern Day Commercials and "Persuasion Nation"

Saunders has written some interesting stories featured in Persuasion Nation, and one of the most recently read ones is titled “In Persuasion Nation”. This short story has a set of different plot lines that make it unique from other short stories we read this semester. For the first half of the story, we are introduced to new characters and a different plot every page or so. This is because the first part of the story is a collection of satirical commercials that Saunders has made up.

            These fakes are diverse in that they make fun of our present day commercials, but one thing they have in common is that they use the absurd to achieve their goal of satire. This element of over the top plot line is what makes these commercials hilarious. In all of the vignettes, there are some similarities to what we see on the T.V. today, but one of Sunders’ creations that stood out the most to me was number 4.

            This was one of the shorter sections, but also one of the weirdest. Its plot is based around two friends who are looking through a microscope at their penises. One friend ends up telling the other to go hang his penis off the Grand Canyon, and when he does, the friend steals his car. (To be completely honest, when I signed up for this class I never thought that I would write that sentence). Anyways, this vignette was, surprisingly, the one that I thought shared the most similarities with some modern day commercials.

            The first thing that is important to look at when comparing this vignette to modern day commercials is to think about what Saunders is trying to satirize. There are a lot of possibilities that we discussed in class, but the main one is a common theme that he makes fun of throughout his commercials in “Persuasion Nation”: meanness. This was a common theme in all of these “Persuasion Nathion” (as well as the previous story “Brad Carrigan, American”) as is seen in the ending where a man ends up going down the Grand Canyon to retrieve his penis while his friend steals his car.

            This vignette reminded me of two specific commercials that I have seen. Although these might not be exactly what Saunders was trying to satirize when he wrote “In Persuasion Nation,” I think they still fit into the group of commercials that he does make fun of. The first has the similarity of meanness for one’s own benefit, and cheating a friend out of something. Here is the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdCwsattfMwv. In this commercial, just like in the story, someone is tricked out of something in a painful way. Saunders may have been joking when he wrote a vignette about how an awful person steals a guy’s car and tricks him into making his penis fall off, but this commercial is very close to what he satirizes. I felt that this modern day commercial almost perfectly fits with the theme of how commercials are becoming meaner.

            There was one more commercial that this vignette reminded me of, and this one was a car commercial. Although this commercial had nothing to do with mean spirited people, the vignette reminded me of it because of the abrupt ending. In the vignette, they are trying to make their penises longer, and then all of the sudden the car is stolen and the voiceover says: “Pontiac Sophisto: So sophisticated, it might just make you trick your best friend into dangling a brick from his penis!” This ending is one that gives you the name of the product at the end of the commercial, leaving you wondering how it fits into the rest of the story and it reminded me of this commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMpZ0TGjbWE. I remember this specific one because it was very long and played during the super bowl, and although it was a nice commercial, nobody knew that it was for Ram until the end. Although I doubt it was this genre of commercial that Saunders was trying to make fun of it still ended up working in this case.

            Saunders’ vignettes managed to satirize many different types of commercials in an over the top, hilarious way, and I am sure there are plenty of other modern day examples that are comparable to some of his vignettes. These were simply the two that I remembered, and I feel that they fit pretty well into the themes of the fourth vignette.