The commercial with the couple arrested in Turkey is flawed, embarrassing and fundamentally wrong

The arrest of the Oknin couple has become an advertisement for an insurance company, because that's the world we live in now.

Trauma is now a farce, anxiety is a joke.

The rough mix created here between amused action in an insurance commercial and a disturbing news affair puts the two components on the same silly threshold

Nadav Menuhin

09/01/2022

Sunday, 09 January 2022, 09:21 Updated: 09:25

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Everything is squashed vulgarly into the same sticky paste in order to sell a product.

In other words: this is not really escapism, this is nihilism, and this is one of the deepest problems of Israeli television in the current era.

In the never-ending news sequence everything mixes: what happened yesterday in the United States with what happened yesterday in Jerusalem, murder with political drama, new corona regulations with, well, old corona regulations. Things that happened two months ago already seem like a distant folklore, a strange anecdote that might, at best, go into a trivia quiz one day. Sometimes, after the news systems finish chewing a story from all directions, it is reborn as an advertisement.

And here's an example, pardon the word, topical: the arrest of the Israeli tourist couple Mordi and Natalie Oknin in Istanbul that was experienced here as a national trauma very recently. The inconceivable ease of arrest, the unfounded suspicion of espionage and the diplomatic channel behind the scenes occupied an entire country. But in a country where people wake up every morning to a dramatic affair, and no one can remember what happened just last week - this story, too, was swallowed up in the machine, came out of it as an insurance company broadcast, and is almost unrecognizable now. Trauma is now a farce, anxiety is a joke.

The couple was matched with Lior Raz, the non-hero of "Fauda", for the new commercial of Direct Insurance.

The company's series of commercials presents Raz in two situations: as a man who lives on the edge, a super-warrior who goes all out when he has insurance, and as an unfortunate whiner who is forced to beg for his life when he has no insurance.

In this advertisement, when he has insurance, the exhausting and disturbing saga of the return of tourists to the country is described as a light-hearted and arrogant journey of heroism that makes fun of the negligent Turks.

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To the full article

This is what it looks like in the alternative reality version: in a situation where he "closes insurance", Raz bursts into "Khortot" prison (high level of humor, what can I say), crawls into a ventilation cave, drops a Turkish guard in the back with a slight effort and breaks through the cell door The real Oknin. She counts days in jail; And he is apparently trying to dig a tunnel. Before they escape, they ask him for a picture - with a kind of wink about the unfortunate reason that led to the false arrest - only to receive a friendly reprimand: "You did not learn anything, did you?". The three escape from prison while the guards who are supposed to guard are busy pouring tea or coffee. Then, in a situation where he is "without insurance," the unfortunate Raz asks for a tow and rescue in the middle of the night, only to get a negative answer. Those who take him out of the bar are - you guessed it - the Oknin couple, who arrive on an Egged bus.

Amusing, no? The truth is not entirely. From such a short distance between the occurrence and the commercial, this salad just feels damaged and embarrassing, wrong, certainly insensitive. Of course, the Oknin couple have every right to make lemonade from the dubious lemons that Erdogan's regime has provided them. Raz must also be allowed to make a living. But that is not the point, and no one denies it. This is the advertiser required in mental arithmetic, for what is ridiculous here is different: the rough mix created here between amused action in an insurance commercial and a disturbing news affair puts the two components on the same silly threshold in the sequence of images, as if there is no abysmal difference. Everything is squashed vulgarly into the same sticky paste in order to sell a product. In other words: this is not really escapism, this is nihilism, and this is one of the deepest problems of Israeli television in the current era.

After all, this commercial is not alone on screen: we see again and again the way television is willing to turn everything - personal things and serious people - into a silly joke, rather than a satire.

Like Itamar Grotto singing in a mask, like Noa Kirl parting ways with Margie's double in Yes's commercial - this recycler swallows everything, and vomits.

It's not healthy for us as a society.

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