The Week Before: The Nike Ad and All These Broken Bodies

The first time I watched the Nike ad I liked it well enough. I mean: how fun! Ronal-doh! But afterwords I was left with a lingering feeling of nothing, and then a growing level of disturbance. This is hardly just an ad after all: it’s the single biggest artistic statement about the World Cup- about soccer in general-that will be distributed in the US. Obviously they constructed it so it could be experienced on different levels, depending on your level of knowledge. But it was just wrong. About everything. For everyone. 


Ok. So. It’s poking fun at the personas soccer players take on. So far, so good. We can all understand that. But it’s the laziest poking possible: it’s all just so obvious. This is a multimillion dollar soccer commercial that doesn’t give any indication of knowing a thing about any existing soccer subtexts. The only piece that touches on more than canned aspiration is Rooney’s; at least it gets at the odd tragedy of his class striving and makes a nod to his mysterious tendency to signify as a Bear. But that’s about it. Sure, I suppose I’m use to a high-level of football satire, but the ladies at Kickette could have written a more interesting script in their most champagne-soaked sleep.