Le peuple US à l’attaque du pouvoir, — par la pub

Surprise dans la pré-campagne présidentielle US : des publicités négatives fabriquées par des personnes individuelles, contre des candidats. On n’arrête pas le progrès. On s’en sert même d’une façon inattendue.

Explication de The Independent de ce jour :

«It is the most striking, perhaps most powerful advertisement to come out of the US presidential campaign to date: a 74-second spot in which Hillary Clinton, recast as Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984, spouts platitudes from a giant screen as her worker-drone supporters march in lock-step to offer their support.

»The advertisement is a dramatic pitch for Mrs Clinton's strongest rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama, and quickly became the talk of the political punditry.

»But the most striking of all is that the ad did not originate with the Obama campaign and required no political campaign money either to produce or distribute. Rather, it was made by a single unknown Obama supporter working with a laptop and a suite of video editing software, who posted his handiwork on YouTube, the video-sharing website.

»The ad is a clever “mash-up” — or re-edit — of a famous television spot for Apple computers which ran on network television during the 1984 Superbowl, the culmination of the annual American football season.

»In the original, directed by Ridley Scott (fresh from making Blade Runner), a young woman athlete hurls a hammer at the Big Brother screen and causes it to explode, symbolising the way in which Apple hoped its then new Macintosh computers would smash all orthodoxies. In the ad's revamped form, it is the image of Hillary that explodes, and the young athlete sports an Obama 2008 logo on her shirt…»

Bien entendu, cette initiative individuelle fait courir un vent de terreur dans le monde politique US (y compris chez Obama, certes). C’est le cauchemar de la perte de contrôle par ce monde d’un des aspects essentiels de l’activité politique, portant qui plus est sur ce qu’il y a de plus précieux pour l’homme-femme politique d’aujourd’hui : l’image, la bonne réputation, le conformisme moral et ainsi de suite. C’est ce que l’article exprime avec cette remarque : «Whether it changes any minds, the advertisement marks a radical departure in the way politics is conducted in the United States and suggests that the 2008 campaign could be an uncontrolled, and uncontrollable, free-for-all in which ordinary citizens could hold as much sway as fancy consultants and advertising agencies lobbying the main candidates for their business.»

Terrible situation au pays du “laisser faire”, de la libre entreprise et du lavage permanent du cerveau standard. La perspective de voir le citoyen se servir du progrès avancé du système pour attaquer vicieusement les représentants du système est terrifiante. D’une certaine façon, c’est une orientation semblable, quoique plus technologique et plus individuelle, donc plus américaniste, à celle qu’on distingue en France. Comme on vous dit, il y a quelque chose de spécial entre France et USA.

Mis en ligne le 20 mars 2007 à 08H24