Audi's Super Bowl Commercial

Audi’s Super Bowl Commercial

As most people who watch American football, soccer, baseball, or other sport related activities, some of us enjoy watching the goofy and witty commercials during the breaks, because it gives us the break from the seriousness that is the game. Even so, companies seem to want to push the envelope of seriousness into commercials and make the commercials more important instead of the game. An example of this would be Audi’s commercial that was broadcast during the Super Bowl. In this commercial, the narrator talks about how women are considered less in society and that people should change it with an Audi car. A radio talk show host, Dennis Prager, in his article, “Audi: The Car for the Unhappy Woman.” implies that government politics and other groups politics should not be able to use commercials as their outlet. Prager’s article purpose is to identify the outrages claims that the Audi commercial has shown during the Super Bowl. He creates a serious tone in order to express to the audience that these type of commercials need to stop pushing this political agenda. This essay will cover how Prager uses ethos, pathos, and logos in his article to further prove his point.

In his article, Prager objects to political agenda in commercials, he uses sports for an example, also wants America to stop “politicization of everything”(Prager para 2). However, he bases most of his arguments in a factual and judgmental view and his conclusions seem pretty reasonable with what evidence he provided. His article opens by summarizing the Audi commercial and then explaining to the audience that he is “a believer in free market and the free exchange of ideas,” and has had no bias for both the political left-wing and political right-wing. Yet, he implies that Audi “crossed a line” between what can be used to inject viewers with certain political agendas and what can’t. Which seems quite absurd, considering he had just stated that he has no intentional bias between political parties, regardless of what they use as an outlet. Prager Continues to state that America should stop “politicizing of everything” (Prager para 3) and that this advertisement is sending inaccurate and immobilizing to the females of America. Finally, he gives some sort of statistics in order to debunk the myth of women getting paid less than men and states that no one should buy and Audi according to his argument. Evidence wise, Prager either uses what common knowledge he knows of current politics and issues with women in working spaces and other areas of work or uses Audi as an example of incorrect use of politics. One paragraph he mentions that “many feminist are unhappy human beings”(Prager para 3) according to his book “Happiness Is a Serious Problem” which is a possible logical fallacy since he is hastily generalizing feminists that they are all unhappy individuals. Also in his first few paragraphs, he mentions that basically, he is open to the idea of free marketing and free exchange of ideas and that he, “rarely advocated or participated in a boycott of a company for the political positions of its owners or directors.”( Prager para 1) and continues to mention that he consumes Ben and Jerry’s regardless of their left-wing position. Nonetheless, Audi is the company that pushes the envelope for him, which is a possible advocate of contradictory. Basically, he shuns Audi for their left-wing political using commercials as their outlet, while he is enjoying a Ben and Jerry’s which also has left-wing agenda.

Alternatively, Prager uses ethos in this article, considering he is America's most famous and respected radio talk show host in Los Angeles, making it easy to make an argument and for everyone to basically agree with what he is saying. Furthermore, he is quite familiar with political ideology and familiar with current politics. Which suggest that his audience would be individuals who are not quite familiar with current politics and with people who were quite upset with this commercial going on during a sports game. Although, he leaves out the people who are either for this commercial or have the same political viewpoint within the commercial. In fact, he completely disagrees with the individuals who want to add more of these political commercials into sports games or other areas in media. In addition, he is biased, even though he had mentioned that he barely suggest boycotting on these political ideas. Still, in his first few paragraphs, he mentions that “I would feel the same about right-wing propaganda, but the right believes in allowing people to enjoy life without injecting politics wherever possible.” (Prager para 2) which suggest that he is uncertain of what is and isn’t bias.