Jeep Ad still poses a good question —
A friend emailed this essay A Better Middle by Diana Butler Bass to me
A Better Middle - Fixed it for you
I had watched ad during the game. After reading A Better Middle I have gone back to review. Then I responded to both ad and the Fixed Version
Middle America a continuing search
The Springsteen Jeep commercial is a Super Bowl ad trying to reach for a larger statement. The Super Bowl has become a national event even ads draw critiques from all political and religious camps. I must say I try to keep it a football game often do not watch the halftime or pre-game acts. I am then surprised by the reactions that fill social media discussions. People who have never seen Shakira and J. Lo perform maybe shouldn’t whine, unless they also want to condemn the cheerleaders. The Green Bay Packers do not have cheerleaders unlike the Chiefs and Bucs who are among the twenty-six teams that do. America tunes into an event bringing their prejudices and willingness to complain. Super Bowl entitles everyone to pass judgement on the interpretations of the National Anthem, the Left Shark, or the inaccuracy of a field goal kicker. Chrysler ads try to speak to America’s mythology. Chrysler ads attempt poetry. The attempt to capture the American mythos, often reveals the myth of viewer.
Chrysler has had a series of these larger statement ads. The Clint Eastwood ad and the Eminem ad with their themes of gritty Detroit knocked down but not out. The intended message often lost to the bias of the viewer. Clint Eastwood was accused of boosting Obama and the Democrats. Criticisms that may have led him to the empty chair soliloquy at Romney’s convention. The Paul Harvey ad for Ram pickups celebrating rural America was a big hit in pick-up truck country. Paul Harvey’s ‘God created a farmer’ was all myth and nostalgia, even when it first aired in 1986. Certainly, it was more of a romantic time travel fantasy than a real-life depiction of farm life in 2013. Already the consolidation in agriculture had gutted farm communities. Small towns existing only as ghost towns not the bustling retail centers of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Now comes 2021 and the Myth of the Middle. A wandering soul searching for a middle ground, a geographic middle. A post-apocalyptic mood sets in as our lonely soul arrives in middle America. A small shrine of a chapel devoid of life found in the middle of nowhere. In 2021 the myth of the middle is as needed as any other foundation principle. Many of us view the middle ground as some no man’s land between the trenches of two warring armies. I felt the small, abandoned church a perfect metaphor of our lost ideal of Middle America. Those are hometowns we want to believe exist, but Mayberry and Walton’s Mountain no longer exist.
Yes, the little chapel doesn’t represent America, it reflects rural Kansas. Ruby red Kansas as we define political partisanship now. A chapel to America should honor the First Peoples, our diverse peoples, our diverse religious beliefs, but it is near Lebanon Kansas. Lebanon had a population of 218 in the 2010 census; it is now estimated to have a population of 198. Diverse America does not exist there, neither does the growth economy. If the little chapel were to represent America more realistically, the help would have to come from the outside. It will not come from the rural Kansas community. Of course, finding the Middle is a metaphor and more people watched the commercial than will ever drive through Lebanon Kansas.
I drive through places like Lebanon on my searches for historical places. I interact and enjoy those folks in the ruby red areas. I am viewed with suspicion as all outsiders are but having grown up on a farm two miles outside a town smaller than Lebanon, I speak the language. I do not promote my liberal, probably communist from their perspective, viewpoint on our nation’s politics. I am just as careful about religion. Some evangelicals are delusional white nationalists, but I am not going to create an epiphany in their life. I am simply interacting on the way out of a café or at the gas station. My own mainline denomination, the United Methodists, are a combination of bitter warring camps. We United Methodist have allowed our divided politics to divide us. Somehow, we are no longer all one in Christ. I would hope our faith communities could lead the journey to the middle. It seems the people of faith are not ready for reuniting. Honestly, it is difficult to identify as a Christian. Most Americans have an image of a hate spewing, Trump supporting, delusion spreading kook when they hear the term Christian. I might rather be associated with the old time do gooder, no drinkin and dancin, suspicious of movies Christian. I am not a rigid anything, I am sincere in caring. I look for the spark of God in each human soul. I simply try to be kind. My type of Christian is a Jesus seeker. Yes, Evangelicals have little use for seekers.
The little Christian American Nationalist themed chapel didn’t bother me. Our New Jersey cowboy seemed a little like me. He was seeking, rambling around empty places a soul of solitude. Simply there to observe letting a person or place speak for itself. He believes in the myth still hopes to find that idyllic Middle America. I have found a little bit to worship in every place and person I’ve encountered. I have loved the preserved sites of the First Peoples, the Civil War, and natural habitats. There are too few of them. I slide through America on my solo journeys becoming more in touch with my humanity.
Slowly I have learned to interact on social media more like real life. I have a Trump loving Tea Party flag flying neighbor. I don’t go try to enlighten him; I wave as I meet him. Far too many people want other people to agree with them. They fear the other, the person unlike them. All we need is to respect the other and be respected in return. We have lost the permanent communities. We are a mobile society now. We do not have to meet in a common space. We do not even have to know a neighbor. In the farm community I grew up in people knew the neighbor would likely be a neighbor for life. Even if they could not stand the neighbor, they would still meet in the common ground of the store, school, and church. We need to respect a person as a part of the community, as we used to in our small towns. We do not need to agree with them. This is the middle we must reunite in. A middle of respect that we all belong in the common space. We are all aspiring Americans none of us are ‘Real Americans.’ We must bring the middle in our own souls, we must offer respect, a common ground within our own being. I do not ignore the evil I encounter, but I will not let it define me. I seek not just the middle ground; I seek a higher ground.
With one Covid vaccination down I am looking forward to a return to my searches of solitude. One imperfect being poking around America discovering other people and other places. I do not drive a Jeep, but a now aging Chrysler Crossfire. An aging man who seems a curiosity simply following his own curiosity. If you encounter me, I cannot tell you where the middle is to be found. I will offer a smile, a jest, a story. I will meet you in the common ground within me. Keep making ads Chrysler, keep offering prayers, and dreams. Keep giving Amerrica something to discuss besides what was it with all those white faced masks at halftime.