1984 (Apple commercial)

'''"1984." Ridley Scott, dir. and prod.''' Apple Coporation commercial for Macintosh computer, run nationally once: Super Bowl Sunday, 22 Jan. 1984. 60 seconds. Anthologized on Greatest Commercials Ever Made, CBS, shown in the Cincinnati area 15 March 1995.

Establishing shot of a grey world, with an illuminated tube (with people inside, barely visible). Cut to people walking through tube, single-file, but otherwise very much like the marching workers in METROPOLIS. Flash cut to woman athlete in bright color, carrying a John-Henry size, steel-driving sledge hammer. Back to close shot of marching male heads: shaved, one man wearing a gas mask. Flash cut to running police then back to marchers, shot from chest down, TV monitors in background. Voice-over: Big Brotherish politician, soon seen on huge TV screen. Cut to woman: white top, red shots, bright against grey doorway, running with cops gaining on her. Cut to rows of men (maybe some women) on benches watching TV screen. Intercuts: audience, TV screen, running woman (voice throughout this section: continuation of politician's speech). Climax: woman throws hammer, hammer-throw fashion, into TV screen as cops nearly upon her. Hammer hits screen when speaker has said "We shall prevail." Small explosion. Wind sweeps past audience (first two of whom are open-mouthed). VO of announcer, with titles: "On January 24th, / Apple Computer will introduce / Macintosh. / And you'll see why 1984 / won't be like '1984.'"  Final shot: picture of Apple Corp.'s apple logo. See under Drama Criticism, L. M. Scott, "'For the Rest of Us': A Reader-Oriented Interpretation of Apple's '1984' Commercial," and J. Bergstrom, "Androids and Androgyny," on Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER.

Parodied on The Simpsons, "The Last Traction Hero," season 28, #9, through-number 605, originally aired 4 December 2016. To cut down on fighting, Lisa is made school bus monitor; starting with assigned seats, Lisa successfully achieves, for a while, peace and quiet on the bus. "Later, she tries to make other sitting plans, such as for the cafeteria and for the playground. However, the kids are not grateful with Lisa's plans and they rebel against it. When the bus arrives at school, it is completely vandalized and on fire. The kids get off laughing while Lisa is confused as why her plan didn't work. Milhouse explains that the bus is supposed to be crazy, which makes her a bit happier." Associated with the rebellion is a vision of Lisa on a large TV screen like that in the "1984" commercial, with Bart as the hammer thrower — except here the hammer bounces off the screen. "The uniform she wears later as bus monitor is the same as the one she wore as the imagined 'Big Brother'" representative and "is a reference to Tilda Swinton's character Minister Mason in the movie Snowpiercer."

(RDE, 16/03/95, 27/xii/14), 9April17)