Daisy Annembom Shen Befoune

Historical option: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964

I chose the campaign ad for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 election, entitled “We will bury you.” The main objective of this ad seems to be to use the innocence of children to tap in to the hearts of the American public. The ad sells him as a protector of the rights of the children and their freedom to grow up to be Americans and nothing else. The components of this ad are: The video starts with a shot of the front of the school and something that looks like a flagpole, although the flag is not in the shot. The video immediately cuts to a classroom with a flag hoisted in the front of the class and other unclear images, intentionally placed in the background, near the blackboard. There is a toy structure of what looks like the white house, on a table in the background. Then, we have the children rushing in from both sides of the class to the front of the flag. The girls rushed in on one side and the boys on the other. Their teacher instructs them to place their hands over their hearts, as they recite the pledge of allegiance. All the children in this video are white and their dress code emulates what middle-class to rich American children wore, going to school. Also in the video, even though half of the children in the video were girls, we only see the boys’ faces. The only female face shown in the video is that of the teacher. Already, the video seems to be aiming towards the rich and middle-class, white, male Americans. These are the people he is pledging to look out for and so everyone else that did not fall into these categories was not of much priority. As the children recite the first or first two lines of the pledge, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America..,” the video cuts to Russian leader, Nikita Kruschchev, giving his speech in Russian, and the video lends us subtitles and translates what he says in that moment to “ WE WILL BURY YOU.” The video then goes back to the children in the classroom still reciting the pledge, “…for which it stands; one nation under God…,” and then goes back to the Russian leader’s speech, which he says, “YOUR CHILDREN WILL BE COMMUNISTS.” Kruschchev is addressing his people in a very harsh tone and harsh facial expressions. His hand movements are forceful as he points his finger out to the people. Then it cuts back to the classroom where the pledge was finished, and the children and teacher were walking out. At this point in the video we get to see and hear from Barry Goldwater himself, who then expresses his want to make sure that the children grew up as Americans, and he also urges that the possibility of that happening relies on the clarity of those intensions. Then there is a still of him and a voice-over that comes on to say, “In your hearts, you know he’s right. Vote for Barry Goldwater.” Throughout the video, there is no background music, which creates a really serious tone for the video and really pronounces the seriousness of the issues he is presenting and his commitment as well.