Did you find the new John Lewis advert emotionally devastating? Here’s why you should calm down
When John Lewis began doing Christmas adverts in earnest, they were a harmless, albeit sickly, appeal to the nation’s sentimental streak. John Lewis needs that streak to flourish in order to sustain itself. No one’s used a department store for any reason other than sentiment since 2002. Since then, however, they’ve got greedy. They’ll go to any lengths to force people to cry, plumb the depths of human despair to find the trigger for that emotional response they crave. John Lewis feasts on festive tears, and every year they’re forced to up the intensity to get them. And what happens as television becomes more interactive? Individually tailored montages of family member’s dying moments? Probably presented by a cartoon duck, who gets shot through the back of the head at the end by the only person he’s ever got close to during his pathetic existence as a cartoon duck.
This year, Adam&EveDDB – the agency responsible – has gone for more of a Fight Club vibe.
Last year’s so-called ‘event’ saw a cartoon rabbit give a cartoon bear a clock. Presumably to remind him of his own mortality, and the life he could have had were it not for his need to sleep through it all. The population wept. They saw in it all of their own regrets, their wasted moments, death’s shadow looming ever-larger on the horizon. This year, Adam&EveDDB – the agency responsible – has gone for more of a Fight Club vibe. If you’ve yet to see it and you’re desperately avoiding spoilers, have some respect for yourself. The twist is that the penguin’s a cuddly toy. It’s all in the little psycho’s imagination. A cheap narrative trick that redefines the reality of everything that’s come before it. He went swimming? How could a cuddly toy have gone swimming? He’d be fucked. So that didn’t happen. He played football? I guess not. So what did happen? Possibly none of it. It’s two minutes of lies and manipulation. The terrifying fantasies of a child who looks old enough to know better. Yet people across the country, ostensibly sane people, often grown men who should know better, tweet proudly of the tears flooding their living rooms. Why? Maybe it’s because the penguin they’d grown to love throughout the course of the advert is, in effect, dead. Ripped from them.
The advert touches every base in its quest for sadness, even reaching out to the fears of mothers – the We Need to Talk About Kevin market. The horror in his mother’s eyes as she watches her future Charles Manson rub stuffed animals together, undercut with a hint of relief that she’s been locking the little fucker in his room at night, speaks to every parent who’s ever realised they fear and despise their own child. They also appear to be the most permissive parents in the world, letting their delusional infant son ride the bus alone. Maybe they thought his imaginary penguin friend would provide adequate protection from child slavers. Maybe they just wanted an excuse.
This is what we’ve come to as a society, crying over a problem child fixing up his cuddly toys. What about the old widower forced to spend Christmas alone? Wouldn’t it be nice if he got a girlfriend? He’d probably settle for a cuddly toy. And what happened to dogs? Are they not good enough any more? Is John Lewis going to work its way through every animal on the arc? Turner and Hooch. That’s a real tear jerker. Homeward Bound, Beethoven, Marmaduke – they’re all devastating. Who gives a fuck about penguins? They’re terrifying. Apparently though, John Lewis adverts are now a ‘tradition’, so we can look forward to many more years of mawkish sentimentality and morons writing how many ‘feels’ it’s giving them. The fuckheads.