The Campaign Poster Debaffler: 6 – The Road Goes Ever On & On…
And so it begins. The most important, epoch-defining, potentially-apocalyptic election since Cain went up against Abel for Emperor of the Trans-Quantum-Multiverse. Blood will flow. Tears will…also flow. Heads will be cracked open with stones. Public discourse will be stained with brain matter and crimson gore. Yay!
To celebrate these imminent and delicious horrors, I'm cranking up the old "Campaign Poster Debaffler" and taking a critical squint at the images that will soon surround and suffocate us. What are they saying? What are they…meaning? Who told that guy that a paisley tie was a good idea with a pinstripe suit? Answers will be found here. And nowhere else.
First up is this pre-emptive (and illegal?) beauty from a dynamic, Waterford-ian, FG tag-team.1.
Bland and yawn-inducing at first glance, but look deeper. Look deeper. Firstly, we have a classical dark/fair, good/evil, fairytale dyad. Voters lap up archetypal shit like this. The fusion of opposites. The (badly-needed) lolz of a buddy movie.
Secondly, behold the romantic and evocative image of the open road. Or, upon closer inspection, the somewhat less romantic and less evocative image of the open bypass or dual-carriageway. Still, it runs off into the future: hinting at a pristine, Autobahnish, EU-topia perhaps. Or, more problematically, suggesting a bullish, M3-lovin', "Fuck you" attitude toward (Lia Fáil-humping) Hill of Tara whingers.
Fine Gael – they'll take a big, stinking shit on our ancient national heritage(s), but (on the totes plus side) we'll get to our work-stations 20 minutes earlier. While listening to a Kraftwerk/Planxty mash-up remix on our Bang & Olufsen car stereos (a poignant throwback to the ostentatious, big salad days of odious Celtic Tiger cuntitude).
More soon.
- Courtesy of the bould Derek Troy [back]
January 25, 2011
12 responses to The Campaign Poster Debaffler: 6 – The Road Goes Ever On & On…
I love Deasy’s subtle but clear “look at the shit I have to put up with” facial gesture towards Coffey. “Get a load of this guy”, he’s saying. “Seriously, go out and get five years of him representing you”
Deasy’s rocking a “weary resignation of the cool/sensible half of a rom-com odd couple” vibe.
Plus Deasy has got cars running down his shoulder (Awesome!). Coffey has naught but empty tarmac (meh).
I will keep my eyes peeled for posters requiring debaffling. Obviously, if they are for tiny but madly ambitious “New Beginning” groups I’ll volunteer to do the debaffling myself.
Guest debaffling is, of course, allowed. I naturally defer to you in matters of “fresh start”, magical-thinky-ness. I slobber and grow tumescent in expectation of the mad-batshit they shall unleash.
Yes, the compressed lips and quirked eyebrow! Fantastic! Rom-com hero indeed.
And this – a pristine, Autobahnish, EU-topia – oh yes, what a vision. Unless it’s everyone on the way to the airport, emigrating out of here…
Aren’t Deasy and Coffey candidates for Waterford? Yet the road in the background is, I believe, the road from New Ross to Waterford, which is in County Kilkenny. And the colour scheme of the candidates’ hair (black and ginger) is close to the colours of the Kilkenny hurling team. Mixed (or inclusive?) signals…
The picture shows FG’s limited vision. Will they bring us motorways? No! “Join us,” they seem to say, “and we will bring you roads with the occasional overtaking lane!”
“Tired of those intolerable traffic snarl-ups delaying your exit to Australia? Vote FG. We’ll get you there…and then out of here. Don’t forget to send the few bob home.”
@Doubtful – Spoken with the authority of a dedicated road spotter. Do you enter roundabouts into your notebook too, or do spotters tend to dismiss them as unwanted arrivistes? Wrecking the symmetry of the rose-mantic straight line to the horizon?
Spoken with the authority of someone who has driven to work on that particular (and incredibly dull) stretch of road at least twice a week for the past five years, so that every numbing centimetre of its dreariness is scored into my memory…
That’s some impressive fake tan…
Poster for an Irish film version of a certain Cormac McCarthy novel? Disgruntled athair drags gormless mac down godforsaken bothar. “We’re the good guys daddy, aren’t we?” the tuber-pussed garsoon tearfully implores. Papa, his skewed cleft of a gob like a grike, exhales a despairing hiss akin to the sussuration of descending scree or the whisper of a mudslide in mid-smother.
I’m nicking that.
You’re welcome to it. I would advise you leave my mis-spellings of ‘athar’ and ‘susurration’ where they are though.