Chrysler Super Bowl ad spurs political debate
DETROIT -- People rarely pick a fight with Dirty Harry, but Chrysler's "Halftime in America" ad featuring quintessential tough guy Clint Eastwood has generated fierce debate about whether it accurately portrays the country's most economically distressed city or amounts to a campaign ad for President Barack Obama and the auto bailouts.
The two-minute ad during the Super Bowl holds up Detroit as a model for American recovery while idealistic images of families, middle class workers and factories scroll across the screen.
"People are out of work and they're hurting," Eastwood said in his trademark gravelly voice. "And they're all wondering what they're going to do to make a comeback. And we're all scared because this isn't a game. The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together. Now, Motor City is fighting again."
Conservatives, including GOP strategist Karl Rove, criticized the ad as a not-so-thinly veiled endorsement of the federal government's auto industry bailouts. Others questioned basing a story of economic resurgence in a city that remains in fiscal disarray, with a $200 million budget deficit and cash-flow concerns that have it fending off a state takeover.
But is it political? That depends on whom you ask.
"I can't stop anybody from associating themselves with a message, but it was not intended to be any type of political overture on our part," Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne told WJR-AM in Detroit.
"You know, we're just an ingredient of a big machine here in this country that makes us go on."
Last year was a pivotal turnaround year for Chrysler, which nearly collapsed in 2009. The company and its financial arm needed a $12.5 billion government bailout and a trip through bankruptcy protection to survive.
Chrysler has since repaid its U.S. and Canadian government loans by refinancing them, but the U.S. government said it lost about $1.3 billion on the deal.
The ad with Eastwood, who previously publicly slammed the auto bailout, follows one that aired last Super Bowl featuring hip-hop star and Detroit native Eminem driving a Chrysler 200 through stark city streets -- and introduced the tagline "Imported From Detroit."
This year the focus was on faces and factories, and far less on cars.
But despite "Halftime in America's" celebration of Detroit, none of the new footage was filmed in that city, said Wieden + Kennedy, the Portland, Ore., agency that produced the ad.
The portions of the commercial featuring Eastwood were filmed in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and the rest of the production was shot in New Orleans and Northern California.
