Heineken - "The Entrance"

A lot of people have told me that they like this blog the best when it's clear that I'm really angry.  If I'm at my best when I'm mad, well, you're all in for a serious treat on this one.

Have you ever imagined what Pau Gasol from the Los Angeles Lakers would look like if he was a foot shorter and fronted a hipster indie band?  Thanks to the folks at Heineken I don't have to, because they have mercilessly pounded this bastard into my retinas for weeks.

In "The Entrance," we watch the Gasol-dude stroll into a formal party filled with VIPs, and immediately everyone is ecstatic and honored that he has graced them with his presence.  We don't get any background on who this guy is, but he exchanges salutes and bows with some worldly people and then produces an eyeball to give to the long-haired General Cyclops, who seems simultaneously amazed and gracious.

And it's at about this moment in the commercial that I get extremely pissed (although to be frank, I'm a little pissed from the get-go because of the terrible song that plays throughout - more on that later).

Gasol-dude encounters a guy who looks entirely badass - he's fat, dressed in solid black like Johnny Cash with a bolo tie, and has one of those awesome Lemmy beards where the chin part is missing and the mustache connects directly to the sideburns.  Fucking sweet, right?  Wrong.  The two engage in a mime of a gunfight, and incredibly the guy who looks like he shoots his own dinner from his front porch after swilling a fifth of bourbon every evening plays dead on account of the wispy tux wearing Gasol-dude.  They embrace, and the next scene plays out similarly, with Gasol-dude besting an Asian ninja (what, ninjas can't be anything but Asian?  Come on, Heineken) and giving him his Heineken.

It is at this point that I reach the level of anger normally reserved for Xbox and San Antonio Spurs losses.  Gasol-dude ditches his black tux jacket in favor of a white one, and is thrown a flute.  The music, which had occupied the background the entire time, now swells to the forefront and Gasol-dude launches into an impromptu, Ron Burgundy-esque flute solo over the song.  The song, "The Golden Age," is by Danish band Asteroids Galaxy Tour (yes, I had to Google that shit.  I always try to research stuff that sucks so that I can be sure I'll never accidentally come across it again.  Consider it my own mental warning label).

I can't express how much I dislike this song.  The girl's voice is squeaky and annoying, and she intentionally enunciates her lyrics like a slurring drunken train wreck in a Copenhagen dive bar.  To make matters worse, she is singing about living in the '50s and '60s in the United States and hanging out with the Rat Pack.  I'd at least hate it less if it was about living in the '80s and shooting speed with Nikki Sixx and Stephen Pearcy (the lead singer of Ratt for those of you who aren't into hair metal and are too lazy to Google), but it would still be pretty goddamn bad.

Lastly, I had someone tell me that the tagline, "Open Your World," and the gist of the commercial is that Americans are too self-centered and reluctant to experience outside cultures.  That we Americans embrace only our own creations.  To this, I say "what about all the European metal bands and Asian women that I like?"  Seriously, though, I don't see anything wrong with liking what you want to like for whatever reasons you want.  If I want to drink American beer and drive a German car and play Japanese video games on a Korean television while wearing a Canadian band's t-shirt then that's what I'll do.  And I don't need a fucking beer company and an annoying ass song to try to tell me that I shouldn't.


Final Grade: D