Saturday, May 19, 2012

Coming Soon? Computer Generated Hate

When the Times broke the story of the Ricketts Rev. Wright project, and it was repudiated by Ricketts and Romney hours later, it seemed like it could be a one day story.  But it was still alive on Friday and is to be a topic for the Sunday mostly Republican white guy talk shows.  It's being kept alive primarily by FOX News, which I should have realized would happen, because I happened to catch a reference to it the evening before the Times story broke--so the plan to bring it up as a campaign issue was obviously coordinated.

One part of the Ricketts proposal that caught my eye and I haven't seen commented on: the centerpiece of the project was to be a five minute "unusually unique" film (their words), which would not use mostly old footage like most political ads but new footage shot in high definition which would utilize "face replacement technology" to place President Obama's "computer-generated face on the body of a similarly sized actor."

In other words, the film would not just tell lies, it would lie with the images used to tell them in an unusually unique way.

For example, the sample script makes the point that instead of helping the economy, President Obama devoted his time to starting expensive unnecessary socialistic Obamacare. So in one scene, a "proud struggling family" would be shown in front of their house, as "BO" strides by, pushing a gurney, and smiles at the camera.  The family looks on in disgust. (It's on pages 21 and 22.)

As far as I know, this level of deceit hasn't yet graced a political ad, but its potential is clear.  Shots of tornado and hurricane victims, and there striding through the devastation laughing and singing an Al Green song is "BO."   And look--who is that in the first row as Reverend Wright shouts about goddamning America? And smiling too!

Of course, as the proposal notes, face replacement technology is expensive.  Good thing these guys have unlimited funds to go with their complete lack of ethics.

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