Think For Yourself

A group of friends went to see Beowulf & Grendel on Friday night. Awesome movie - it didn't possess the slick Hollywood veneer that would have robbed it of its gritty realness and of course how could two hours of Gerard Butler be a bad thing? There were plenty of funny parts, and the characters were great, the story interesting. I highly recommend it.

But here's the thing, which actually had nothing to do with the movie. It took place during the previews. This ad comes up. It fills one half of the screen with one word and the other half with an opposing word - captivity / liberation, something like that. It does this two or three times, then it overlays the screen with this message - Think for yourself.

So I'm sitting there for a few seconds taking this in and suddenly I blurt out - "Uh...doesn't telling us to think for ourselves kind of defeat the purpose?"

Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for people thinking for themselves. I wish more people would take up this worthy cause. But somehow telling me to think for myself seems to rob me of the ability to choose to do so for myself. Which then totally eradicates what the message is trying to say.

Did the marketing people of this brilliant ad not think of this before they aired it? Did no one in their department get a funny little feeling in their gut that said, 'hey, wait a minute...'? Nobody? Not one single, solitary person? No?

Hmm...guess no one was thinking for themselves that day.