Movies, and pants.
Yesterday I went to see The Box with Anthony, which, by the way, was pretty confusing and not at all what I expected. But beforehand, during the inevitable pre-preview commercials, I saw something I've never seen before. A commercial soliciting volunteers for the French Army! And I was struck by all the differences in the advertising campaigns. Lately, the US Army ads I've seen have been all electric guitars and montages of guys doing things like scaling cliffs alone, or drilling with rifles in the rain. The French ad, on the other hand, was all about interspersing images of soldier life and personal life -- I guess kind of like the ads for the Reserves at home. The guy would be on a motorcycle with his girlfriend, and then he'd be leading a troop of uniformed soldiers out of a helicopter, and making hand signs. There was always lots of technology in the picture, and no silly feats of strength. The shots never focused on the guns. There were no swords, and there were no...