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The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Andrew Mickel
You probably thought Currys were just trying to flog a few cheap electricals in its adverts. They're actually making a serious statement on contemporary Marxist theory...
Published on Dec 20, 2007
Adverts: if it’s not Phil Collins, it’s perfume, price comparison sites or power ballad best-ofs. Or so you would think. But actually, there’s a lot more going on under the bonnet than they would have you believe.Take Currys, the most densely-nuanced set of adverts currently on television. They started off with three inoffensive, thirtysomething commuters, running the downmarket chain store from their high-definition future offices. Then the Irish one was taken away (presumably moved to another chain for flirting too much with the blond one), leaving her and the Danny Wallace-a-like to get on the hard work of pointing at pictures of electronics.
So far, so innocuous – but then we were introduced to the mass of workers. While our remaining management duo strutted up and down a runway, barking rules about delivery and packaging, the workers – a mix of overalled ex-miners and store drones – unquestioningly listen to their orders, before getting to work. And you know why they are getting on with shifting white goods? Because that’s how we communicate our love in the 21st century: by buying the missus a Candy washing machine slash dryer for Christmas. Why, that’s a nice bit of commodity fetishism.
While the alienated proles toil away at shifting white goods just off the boat from China, Blondie goes off with the Wallace-a-like for a suckjob and a punnet of sushi. Exploiting the masses is hungry work, see. How this can be interpreted as anything but the bourgeois’s oppression of the proletariat mass is unfathomable.
Currys have even obliquely tried to smuggle in more incompatible concepts than the average Matrix film. After proleing it up for a bit, we suddenly discover that above the bourgeois is an all-powerful queen, shooting off barbed comments and withering looks at the be-desked workers. They actually seem quite scared of her. It might explain where the Irish fellow went to – one withering look too many and he was taken away for electrical treason.
We’ve also recently stumbled onto what may be the Nietzschean Ubermensch (have I written about the flu-ridden weekend I spent convinced I was the reincarnation of Nietzsche? No? We’ll save that for next week.) Sure, loveable Teutonic Klaus may be keeping quiet at the moment, but behind people’s backs he’s able to fix Christmas lights by just smiling benevolently at them. Some may say that he’s supposed to be Santa, but he could be both. After all, Santa seems quite happy to eternally return year after year, flying around the world. And it never really made sense how a saint was able to fly, did it?
So the next time you flick away from Currys for rotting your brain, remember: this is significantly better telly than what you’re watching in the first place.
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Users Comments
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By twosheds 1 December 20, 2007 03:09:48 PM
But this is madness.
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By garlicsmack 1 December 20, 2007 10:26:39 PM
You know that thing where you write an article, thinking it is quite possibly the best article anyone has ever written, and then you read it back and wonder what you were thinking?
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By Matt 1 December 21, 2007 08:45:34 AM
I think it's a shame that Currys are spending so much time coming up with bizarre advertising campaigns. Perhaps if they invested that time in their staff I wouldn't consider having to buy something from Currys on par with dying an ebola virus death. Worse, even.
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By Robmac 1 December 21, 2007 03:47:48 PM
its funny as the people in this ad are attractive and seem to know what they are doing, quite unlike the reality of Currys where you are faced with a mass of brain dead mongs who dont know there MP3 player from there blu-ray and are more interested in selling you commission based warranties that are about as useful as bard wire toilet paper. My mate used to work in Currys computer repair place he said it was the worst place imaginable to work as the staff took no care at all of people kit and had PCs from months past stacked up on shelves left to rot and it was far far removed from the hi-tech customer focused santa employing imaginary place they had on the adverts.
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By creativewriter1985 1 December 21, 2007 08:01:55 PM
I used to work at Currys and I'm not a brain-dead moron. In fact, I used to take great pleasure in a (usually male) customer coming in and asking me to fetch someone who knew about computers. I'd then walk away and come back. Knocked 'em dead every time.
So rest assured many of the staff, I agree, are totally airheads, but myself and some of the staff I worked with actually had a brain cell! I'm told I may even have two!
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By Robmac 1 December 22, 2007 12:57:55 PM
sorry Lucy - didn't mean to offend - I have just never met anyone in Currys who was of any help to me at all...maybe its a midlands thing I dunno. I didn't mean to start a flame war or to insult anyone...but after a day trudging around the shops yesterday a little venting on shop customer service was good for the soul.
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By creativewriter1985 1 December 23, 2007 04:34:50 PM
I'm from the Midlands :) Which store were you in?
You didn't offend, anyway, I just wanted to point out that not all Currys staff are morons. Just most of them. Plus you'll find at this time of year most of them are Christmas temps and therefore have bugger all training.
Re: The Big Idea - Marxist Theory by Currys
Posted By Robmac 1 December 25, 2007 04:47:19 PM
twas the big one in tamworth - in (los) Ventura park...with its nightmare parking and snowdome goodness down the road.
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