Pimping with Scissors

And now a spot that freaked me out so much the first time I watched it that I managed to block it out of my mind for over a week: “Scissors” from Discover Card. You’ve seen it. And if you haven’t, you will. The spot where thousands of ubiquitous orange-handled Fiskars parade around town cutting up credit cards that townspeople, more or less, feed them.

Basically, it plays out like a prologue to a remake of “The Birds,” only with cutlery. First there are a few scissors skipping about innocently. The townsfolk are puzzled, yet accepting. Then one of them tosses a credit card – how he knew to do this is a mystery – and suddenly humanoid/shears bonding ensues. The streets are lined with adoring throngs tossing their MasterCards, Visas and AMEX cards to the waiting jaws of what? Credit freedom? Maiming? Death? We even see a little baby (not a frickin’ huge baby like Howard Dean) toss one of her mother’s cards to a scissor.

Awwwwwww. How cute.

But the subtext of this spot is much darker than the happy, shiny blade overlords would have you believe. First, from where did these scissors come from? Satan’s own Office Depot? Newman’s Own desk drawer? Albuquerque? Second, and more important, the townspeople have obviously learned nothing from history. Chamberlain’s attempts to appease Hitler (“Hey, what’s a little Poland between friends, Guv’ner?”) eventually led to atrocities far greater than Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor,” correct? So what happens when the citizens of Hooterville run out of credit cards to feed the scissor overlords? Yeah, that’s what I thought, Mr. Craven.

I’ll stop rambling like an over-analyzing marketing manager now.

Later,

Fox