irack

Commentary

MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series that stopped being aired in 2009 in the USA.

Much of its comedy parodies popular television shows, movies, and music, and covers topical, political, and pop cultural humor.

As usual with MADtv, this particular sketch was taped in front of a live audience.

In fact, this video entitled ‘iRack’ pits an aggressive man against a hostile audience.

Actually, the man embodies two people at the same time (the CEO and founder of Apple Inc., Steve Jobs and former US President George W. Bush) while the audience also represents two groups of people: Apple Computer shareholders and investors and American citizens as a whole.

At first, the man is proud to present Apple’s products which include well-known high-tech products like the iPod or iPad but also a few (fake) novelty products like the ‘iVacuum-cleaner’, the ‘iMicro-wave’ or the ‘iLamp’!

Therefore, right from the start, this sketch ridicules Apple’s propensity to always innovate even if the previous product still sells on the world market.

Then, the man unveils a brand new product called the ‘iRack’.

From this point onward, that man is no longer Steve Jobs but George W. Bush and the new product stands for the country called Irak (also spelt Iraq), which was invaded by the US and British armies in March 2003.

We could call this substitution of one man/thing for another one an extended metaphor that runs through the whole video.

At the beginning, the audience applauds and cheers the man because he is Steve Jobs but then they turn into US citizens and start being puzzled and keep protesting against George W. Bush’s foreign policy, more particularly his handling of the Irak war.

For instance, a woman remarks that the product/country looks unstable while another man claims that (the) ‘iRack/Irak’ looks like something America shouldn’t be involved with. Another spectator says that the ‘iRack/Irak’ looks so shaky that it needs to be fixed.

The US president replies to these three comments with a kind of self-confidence , even self-assertiveness whch borders on arrogance, for example when he says ‘Mission Accomplished’, a phrase that makes reference to a famous speech President Bush delivered in 2003.

Bush stated at the time that this was the end to major combat operations in Iraq. While this statement did coincide with an end to the conventional phase of the war, Bush's assertion became controversial after guerilla warfare in Iraq increased and the vast majority of casualties, both military and civilian, have occurred since the speech.

Then, the man starts putting more and more iproducts into the iRack, symbolizing all along the large number of US military troops sent to Irak to fight in the war against the counter insurgency (local fighters and Al Qaeda terrorists infiltrated in Irak).

A woman is clever enough to remark that the iRack doesn’t even want all those things in there, which is an indirect way of saying that American troops were not welcomed in Irak. As a matter of fact, it is a well-known fact that they were invaders.

Two people in the room suggest that he should take things out of the iRack  instead of putting in more things, which is yet another implicit criticism signifying to President Bush that he should pull back American troops.

Of course, he entirely disagrees and keeps putting more things/sending more soldiers in there.

Next, a man clearly says that the iproducts don’t seem to be getting along in the iRack, which symbolizes the fact that American soldiers and Iraki civilians did not get on well and even hated each other.

All of a sudden, the iRack starts to smoke but President Bush claims that this is the beginning of synergy, i.e. cooperative interaction among groups. In order to help the process along, he starts throwing more money into the iRack, which is a metaphorical way of showing the huge cost of this war for the USA.

At this point, one of the spectators speaks out and says that they do not support him in this but Bush answers that he doesn’t care, as if he no longer cared whether American citizens supported him or not, which is what must have happened in real life as George W. Bush could not run for a third term in office anyway.

Of course, Barack Obama was the one who won the 2088 presidential election against the Republican candidate.

Finally, everybody gets panicky and scared because the fire is engulfing the entire room, just as the Irak war could have spread to other countries in the Middle East.

In this desperate situation, Bush only says that there is no exit strategy, another reference to a famous speech after which the real George W. Bush could not walk out of the conference room because all the doors were locked!

As a conclusion, Bush/Jobs invite the audience to focus on Apple’s newest product called the iRan.

This is the final twist in this video and it is really well thought-out as Irak’s neighboring country, Iran, might well be the next target of an American military invasion due to the nuclear threat it is supposed to represent as Iran’s government is intent on building a nuclear bomb that would make their country a potential threat for Israel and the USA, among others.

I must admit that the mix of satire, humor, and political criticism found in this video is truly ‘explosive’.

Besides, it points out various locations and forms of power, whether economic (Apple corporation’s worldwide domination  over high-technology products) or political and military (the US government’s  tendency to rule the world according to American interests).

That’s why this video is a perfect illustration of one of the four notions studied this year, namely ‘Locations and Forms of Power’.