[Hannah]: Uneasy Feeling

So I'm a little freaked out by the GEICO caveman ads (you know, the ads show a caveman in a suit in an airport or something, and he walks by a sign that says "GEICO: it's so easy even a caveman can do it." and he gets upset that this is a discriminatory message.)

What makes these ads funny is that the guy *is* a caveman - hairy, primitive looking, different. He talks about how he deserves respect, and he speaks in a very mature and educated way, but the truth is that he really is a freak - very different from a normal human. Thus, when he complains about discrimination against him, and we laugh, the joke is really on him.

Maybe this is oversensitive, but I'm not comfortable listening to a bit of "we deserve equal rights" rhetoric and knowing that the setup expects me to laugh at that person, going, "ha ha, but he IS a freak who's different from us!"

I think there's a subtext here that's way more loaded than anyone admits.