So, Didn't God Make a Farmer?

In the ensuing couple of weeks since the Super Bowl, I have been fascinated by the varieties of responses sprouting up to the Dodge Ram ad that utilized a voice-over from an old Paul Harvey speech focusing on God's need for farmers, covering various images of said farmers.  Those responses have ranged from tender, melancholic reminiscence to a near-reverent appreciation, to scathing condemnation.  The ad agency responsible for the piece has got to be smiling.  It was, after all, an advertisement whose presumed purpose was to catch public attention and sell a product.  I can't speak to the latter, but as to the former the ad has been a decided success.

As to the ad's critics, their judgments are absolutely fair.  Had the 2-minute piece been a documentary it would have been sadly, shamefully flawed -- leaving out virtually 90-percent of those responsible for moving our food into, then out of the ground, off the stem and into our markets.  The rosy, sentimental pictures of hardworking white families certainly overlooked the vast domination of agribusiness that largely renders such pictures ersatz greeting cards.  And yes, totally neglected were all the migrant farm workers -- mostly non-white and by-and-large stooping to their task illegally -- on which our food system utterly depends.  Only hinted at in the rhapsodic prose were the challenging and sometimes impossible economics that have wedged many farmers between the rock of expensive mechanization and the hard place of harvest vicissitudes and capricious credit -- pressures that have squeezed far too many off their land.  Yes, there are farmers like those depicted in the ad -- many of them -- who work every bit as hard as pictures and the narration suggested.  But fewer and fewer.  It's not that the ad told a false story; it just didn't tell very much of the true one. 

I hope that someone might come along who has as much documentary skill as Ken Burns and as much gravitas as Paul Harvey to tell these real and poignant stories as compellingly as Dodge managed to communicate the ones in its ad.  They deserve to be heard.  They deserve to be honored and appreciated and, well, paid.

But let's face it, that's not what the Super Bowl ad was aiming for.  Dodge didn't buy those extravagant prime-time minutes to air a documentary, and painful sociological statistics don't sell vehicles.  It wasn't trying to "tell the truth," it was trying to sell trucks.  As such, that well-crafted piece of economic art wasn't targeted at those thousands of farm workers who really struggle to survive under the weight of all those challenges and burdens enumerated by that beloved voice.  The ad was targeted at that 10% -- or 1% -- who can actually buy the truck. 

And I suspect I know what images and words might just cross their mind the next time they are shopping for a new ride.