Lincoln, the beaver, and me
I few months ago I was troubled by the bizarre Citibank ad campaign built around some master-slave relationship I didn’t quite understand.
Now I find that I can’t figure out why Lincoln and this… beaver?… are hanging out together. The online vid at theymissyou.com shows a drowsy insomniac lurching into his kitchen in the predawn hours to find Lincoln and this beaver awaiting him. “We’ve been expecting you,” Lincoln says as the beaver prepares to make a chess move.
Although this metamessage seems beyond one’s immediate grasp, I suspect that the subconscious grabs hold of it immediately. The beaver I think most of us would equate with nature’s most reliable sleep aid (what the French call “the little death”). Lincoln was kept awake many nights by the horrors of the Civil War and his own depression, although I wonder how many people associate him with that. Mostly, he probably means three things to most Americans:
- the war and emancipation
- the dollar and the penny
- an extra day off, with corresponding sales events
I don’t think one sees Lincoln and thinks about insomnia, nor do I think one sees a beaver and thinks about insomnia. (Of course, prior to “The Shining,” I never thought of oral sex with a bear as a sign of madness.) When it comes to sleeplessness, most of us think of counting sheep. So (stovepipe) hats off to whoever came up with fresh imagery for this. And on a meta level, I am confident that anyone having neurotic dreams about Lincoln and a beaver playing games in one’s kitchen would gladly take a pill that would make it stop.
When I first stumbled across this little campaign in my local CVS drug store, I peeled off a coupon for further investigation. I’m ordinarily of the take-no-drug school of self-prescription; my mother’s cure for all ailments was a shot of whiskey and bedtime. But I was curious. I’ve been suffering from various forms of sleeplessness even before the Reagan Administration (to which I originally ascribed blame). According to the website, this pill is for those “who have trouble falling asleep.” That leaves me out; I can fall asleep just fine. It’s waking up 46 minutes later that makes me crazy. Not crazy enough to want to drug myself, but all bets would be off if I were seeing dead presidents and large rodents.
March 26th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
Hey, you forgot about the guy in the old style diving suit in the background of that commercial.
Paul
March 30th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Once again I am late to the table of pop-iconography in this matter of ‘The Deep Diver” So how about that? Let me add another observation as to the taunting/irony of the Beaver’s comments generally, to wit: HARUMPH!
March 31st, 2007 at 3:32 pm
If the beaver represents the ‘little death’ and Lincoln’s hat is an obvious Freudian symbol, it all becomes clear. Doesn’t it?
April 6th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I believe that top hats at the time of Lincoln were made of beaver pelts. I sure don’t know how that works into the ad, but if I were a beaver, and I saw a really tall, powerful guy wearing a hat made of my cousins, I’d have trouble sleeping. Then again, I guess if I were an intelligent, caring fellow like Lincoln – hey, I am! – and I saw a little animal whose pelts were used to make my impractical chapeau, perhaps that would give me insomnia.
So there! I’ve just proven the brilliant rationale of the ad.
But I still don’t understand the guy in the diving suit. Hmmmmm.