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Skate and Then, Die

There’s a new commercial for the Air Force in which they show a bunch of kids cruising around on scooters, I think, then riding skateboards in a parking structure, then progressing to serious downhill when they’re a bit older. Finally, the scene shifts to an Air Force jet rolling off to one side and the tagline reads something like “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Now, it used to be that skaters were a pretty anti-establishment (for lack of a better term), individualistic bunch. Of course, there were a few freaks who joined up, at least one of whom quickly got a psych discharge, but for the most part, skaters were creative types who went to art school, played music, or at least worked lousy jobs so that they could skate whenever. They do/ did it because it is/ was an outlet for a lot of things, including creativity, and there was no graduation to the “Big Boy Toys” implied in this commercial.

It’s pretty scary that the Air Force marketing department has extended the whole “Extreme Sports” phenomenon to include flying a warplane. Last time I checked, dropping bombs and killing people didn’t exactly fall under the heading of “Sport,” (although the ancient Rome analogy seems to be popping up again) but that’s exactly what military marketing/ recruiting wants us, or rather, young boys, to think. And they do it with an exceedingly glamorous representation of it all, one in which you’re still allowed to be a little wild and a little crazy. To the casual observer, it’s not a stretch that some wholesome kid riding a skateboard should end up in the Air Force, a maverick to the end.

08/29/03 09:54AM Four-Wheeled Toy

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