During this course I have noticed more the use of Hurricane language to sell things in our capitalist market. Enter in the wonderfully awkward HurryCane commercial. (The link provided is the commercial, however, it is recorded on a phone from a television.)The commercial is an advertisement for a tool used to help, in the case of the commercial, old men walk (hurry) to catch up to gorgeous women they are missing out on. This commercial is a performance of freedom using language that has a deep juxtaposition of its actual meaning.
Taking a typical walking stick, adding circular movement to it, naming it after something that is known to cause so much destruction, but instead, using that new and improved walking stick to pursue romantic relationships, seems quintessential capitalism with romantic undertones. Something the class has touched on numerous times during the semester. This commercial’s performance is simple, if you get this new and improved circular movement cane, good things will happen to you, including being able to catch up to women. However, the choice to use that particular word is odd. During this class we have learned multiple times over the amount of destruction, a simple circular movement with low pressure over an ocean, can cause to a nation. Yet, here this commercial is forgetting all of those things, and only remembering the base of what it is; a circle of water in the ocean that is powerful. This cane is a tool for men to keep their power and their freedom. It has nothing to do with actual destruction from an actual hurricane. The commercial is tone deaf when it comes to anything other than movement. The advertisement of the HurryCane commercial shows that this added swivel in a walking stick will cause you to move fast, possibly as fast as a hurricane, and in doing so you will be able to create a new destiny for yourself. Unlike a real hurricane which would come in fast and strong and destroy a chance at destiny. After the semester discussing hurricanes and the destruction they cause, this commercial brings uncomfortable feelings towards the founders of the company along with questions for them. Questions wondering if anyone on the naming team of this walking stick has ever bore witness to the destructive power of a hurricane, or if they only understood that a hurricane forms in a circular patter.