Wednesday, September 15, 2010
1984
The Protestant Reformation ushered in the idea of original thought; the idea of breaking away from the conformist ideas that were being circulated by the Catholic Church and starting anew. This commercial was broadcast was on January 22, 1984 during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII.which symbolizes saving humanity from the "conformity" denoting the 1949 novel by George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
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I think naturally humans tend to conform to one way of thinking. I find myself conforming to certain ways of thinking and when someone sets me straight or introduces a new way of thinking, my views change rather rapidly and I'm better from it.
ReplyDeleteI think we struggle to find a balance between original thought and conformity. There are times when both are appropriate and have advantages.
ReplyDeleteWow! I loved the ad, and am glad that you had the opportunity to post it on your blog. I wonder what the people thought when they saw it in 1984?
ReplyDeleteI have seen this ad before, and I think a lot of people think of it as Mac vs. PC, the epic battle. However, the Apple Macintosh(84) was the first graphical user interface used for a personal computing device, and Windows(85) was released later to compete with Apple.
ReplyDeleteI think this ad symbolizes the break from conformity, the ability to 'think outside the box' with a home computer that anyone can use.
Amazing how much of a parallel was drawn.
ReplyDeleteIs there any correlation between the airing of this commercial and the book 1984?
ReplyDeleteYes, it was done because of the book. There's a link on the blog that explains a bit more. Just like the ad says at the end "so 1984 won't be like '1984'" it was talking about putting off the "communistic" style of thinking that was talked about in the book.
ReplyDeleteEre go, the commercial was aired that same year on purpose.