SUPER BOWL STUPIDITY ROUND-UP, PART 1: THE OZZY/BIEBER COMMERCIAL

As promised, last night’s Super Bowl saw the debut of a Best Buy commercial starring Justin Bieber and our favorite sexagenarian celebrity slut, Ozzy Osbourne (whose last product endorsement commercial was released less than a month ago). And the commercial actually turned out to be kinda funny. Not because of the lame jokes about how Ozzy doesn’t understand technology or how Bieber looks like a girl (although I appreciate the acknowledgement that Ozzy has no idea who Bieber is), but, rather, because of the simple but true implication that the Biebers of the world will soon usurp the Ozzys of the world as Lords of Whoring.

“Ozzy’s in the background!” a crew member complains from off-camera, making explicit that which we were all already thinking anyway; even though he’s a sad, dithering old man, the Ozz Man refuses to leave the set, not because he actually has anything to contribute, but because, goddamnit, he’s got crap to hock!

But Bieber nails it on the first take. He’s the guy who’s gonna be trying to sell you shit for the next however many years, until he’s finally out of touch himself, or the sun dies, whichever comes first. Someone thought to toss in the “Bieber looks like a girl” gag to make sure that the Zakk Wylde chapter of Mensa doesn’t get too offended — “Huh huh, yeah, Bieber’s a fag, huh huh!” — but the subtext of the ad isn’t even subtle.

-AR