Now when it comes to food, I don’t have any problem with Subway generally. Sure, their meat is all pre-sliced, processed, and kind of rubbery in consistency, but when you’re feeling lazy but at the same time you don’t want to eat too much like a slob, Subway is that sort of happy compromise of quick food that’s not completely abysmal to your health. Sure, in the end, Subway for me is like the popular joke about Chinese food and I’m often hungry again in an hour, but for those 59 minutes prior, I’m typically satisfied, and not completely guilty.
Granted, the Subway closest to my house is staffed by a bunch of hoods that once tried to swindle me, and actually thought I was gullible enough to believe that subs for three people would equate to $22 but that’s another story for another time.
But this Subway commercial is pretty stupid, as just about the vast majority of commercials typically are. But it’s at the 0:13 second mark where the commercial goes from typically stupid to especially stupid, when they show a bunch of overenthusiastic teenagers dressed to the nines on what appears to be the night of the prom – going to Subway for dinner.
Look, I know the whole world is dealing with some hard economic times right now, but when you’re taking your prom dates to Subway for dinner, there are clearly misguided priorities in play at the moment. Now I’ll give it up to the one kid for really selling the enthusiasm and even keeping up his gentlemanly duties of holding the door open for the girls, but I have to imagine that the actors and actresses were even thinking in their heads “ugh, fuck no, going to Subway on prom night??”
But the rest of the commercial goes downhill really fast. From the Hispanic-looking kid explaining to his date (0:17) how the customization works, as if there was actually a chance that she had never ever been to one of the 37,000 Subways on the planet, to where the same kid is clearly speaking with his mouth full (0:20), probably making a joke about how funny it is that they’re portraying high school kids going to fucking Subway on the night of the prom, while the others laugh in agreement at the irony of the situation.
It also doesn’t help that they’re all minorities; invisibly implying that all the white kids are the ones packing the fancy restaurants, arriving in limousines and eating steaks, lobsters and lavish imported produce, while Pedro and Jamal are buying six-inch turkey subs for everyone. Part of the point of the prom is to have a time that is extraordinary, with hopes that it ends up with some teenage sex. I’d classify going to Subway as something that is quite ordinary, and I’d wager that in reality, would most definitely put the kibosh on any chance of any teenage nookie at the end of the night.
But I’d have to say that in spite of this horrifically misguided attempt at commercial, it’s ironically rescued at the very end by Ryan Howard, the Philadelphia Phillies’ $125 million dollar first baseman, who schills for Subway on the side. But it’s almost ironically perfect the way he goes BAM at the end of the commercial, pointing down at the table. It’s like he’s asked what a stupid commercial really is, and he smiles, leans back in his chair and goes “BAM, this is, bitch.”
