Video Text

4/20/2010
Cai Pencil
Analysis of a Video Text
In a banned commercial advertisement by a insurance company from Apeldoom, Netherlands, known as Centraal Beheer, or more commonly “Apeldoom”, they retell the story of “Adam and Eve”. The ad starts out with a scenery with a bear naked lady, Eve, the character we all know, under a tree on top of a hill and surrounded with giraffes and zebras(being a bit mystical in their presence themselves), with volcanoes in the distance. They zoom in on Eve, and even show a little clip of a rabbit hopping nearby Eve’s feet. Eve then goes on to explores, looking around with innocence and curiosity. She stops to look at a tree with extraordinarily red apples with a serpent guardian looking over them. She looks at the tree with the snake; she smirks, and keeps walking as if she knew that they were there in temptation. She now enters the forest where she is greeted with a full array of natural beauty (lots of green trees, butterflies, flowers, and the songs of the creatures that live there). A butterfly lands on her hand, and she gently blows to lead the butterfly on its way. She then observes a couple of parrots exchanging their affection for each other. Finally she walks past a white horse and a family of ducks to an opening where she finds a breath taking water fall and oasis. Still in awe she hears a noise of branches breaking. A young man (also naked) steps out and seems a bit surprised by her presence (we can assume this figure is Adam) but none the less confidant. Eve looks him up and down and smiles. Adam walks up and says, “HI! I’m Adam”. This sounds normal on paper, but the way he says it and acts is the stereo typical “gay guy” as we all have seen on TV and movies. Adam then goes to sit on a rock next the pool to giggle like a little girl and play with flowers while Eve stares in utter confusion and even a bit disgusted. This commercial ends with a quote saying “just call us”, this doesn’t mean a whole lot to us but in its original text it said"Even Apeldoorn bellen" ("Let's call Apeldoorn"), which in the original context was supposed to have a meaning like “oops”.
The narrative structure of this story we all know. God creates man, man gets lonely, god creates Eve, Adam and Eve are happy, but they defy god by eating the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that no matter what was out of bounds (hence “forbidden”) after being tricked by the Serpent and are subjected to hard labor and pain from childbirth and are banished from the “Garden”. As we are a nation with cultural heritage rich in creationists, it is only normal that we all have the cultural knowledge of the significance of this story in creationist belief. This ads attempt was to surrender the audience to the story of creationism. All the subliminal messages in this ad play a big roll in the actual story telling that builds up to the climax. Eve is shown in an almost African mother land like portrayal of the Garden. Her nakedness shows her grace an almost innocent state of consciousness that we can relate to infants who generally are not known to dress themselves (Though they do wear leaves which are thought to be an after effect of eating the forbidden fruit). At all times Eve is surrounded by green (a color associated with life), and some animals that we culturally associate as being cute or beautiful (like rabbits, butterflies, horses, and a family of ducks). When Eve stops to look at the forbidden fruit which is accompanied by the serpent (“slier than every beast on the field”), she smirks. Now this gets you thinking, was she smirking because she knew better than to eat the forbidden fruit? Or was it because she had already eaten the forbidden fruit and therefore was smirking in the sense that she knew what she had gained from the fruit? It was most likely the fact that she knew not to eat it (because they were more likely placing the leaves on Adam and Eve in this ad to censor their nakedness). As she enters the forest she is greeted with even more green, and also with the pleasant songs of the forest and some butterflies. As the butterfly landed on her hand and Eve blew it away, it adds just a little more to her grace and her innocence. She is then seen on a creek side bed kicking the water (another image that shows Eves childlike innocence) as she observes a couple of love-birds (literally). As she finally walks past the white horse (the symbol of divine authority) and a family of ducks she enters another yet mystical scene of a heavenly waterfall. As Adam walks into the scene to both their surprise, Eve looks the muscular young man with satisfaction (obviously suggesting that to Eve, Adam looks like the perfect counterpart). Adam being a man who God created Eve for, the comical, “Hi! I’m Adam”, and giggling and girlish actions of Adam totally contradicts cultural reinforcement of the “Adam and Eve” story. In the end the ideological value in this narrative was not the whole myth behind Adam and Eve, but the clear statement that a man and woman are made for each other (or in the actual story, the woman created for man.) There for the commercial advertisement contradicts the fact that Adam and Eve are made to be with each other in the original narrative with a homosexual version of Adam.