Fracktured Fairy Tale

Of all the TV commercials the oil industry is bombarding us with, to convince us how eco-friendly they really are, this one by ConocoPhillips is far and away my favorite. It's also the most subversive.

It's every professor's fantasy (well one of them): Three attractive students so excited by the lecture topic that they gather around the prof after class to hash it out.

"Aren't you getting a little emotional," the white dude with the headphones says.
"Aren't you getting a little industrial," the crunchy white chick responds. (Ouch!)
Then the Mr. Headphones and the black chick try to convince Miss Crunchy that there's plenty of energy right here in America ("Over a hundred years' worth"). She accuses them of ignoring the environment. The black chick turns on her with a look of withering contempt: "Actually, it's safer" (you stupid bitch).

What's safer? Cheaper? Provides jobs and helps the economy? Well, that's left unsaid as they leave the hall joking about how they might be able to get jobs when they graduate after all (thanks, ConocoP!).

As you watch this mini-masterpiece--and I've watched it dozens of times--ignore all the high tech little arrows and factoids projected onto the scene. Instead, keep your eye on the fifth man: the custodian buffing the floors, which apparently they do daily at Douchebag U. He's the Everyman of the piece, a silent reproach to the avuncular (and complicit) prof. At the end of the ad, his energy-sucking machine is still there, along with a vintage overhead projector, but he is nowhere to be seen. Bergman or Brecht could not have done it better.

Oh, by the way, that's the ominously named Marcellus Shale natural gas deposit the prof is pointing to, which stretches from North Carolina to southern New York State. They just can't wait to frack us up. (Go here more about fracking in New York State.)