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Your Soda Now Includes a Stance on International Affairs

soda

Ah, the Super Bowl. As one of your other Baffler blog correspondents recently pointed out, there’s nothing more American, for unclear reasons. Like any big event, it was not without controversy. There was the young gentleman we got mad at for acting in a manner consistent with how athletes are generally supposed to act. But there was also a controversy with international geopolitical implications! I’m speaking, of course, of the actress Scarlett Johansson’s decision to make an ad for purveyors of homemade soda, SodaStream. You may know her as “Leather Bodysuit Lady” from The Avengers, but she also really, really likes homemade soda and sparking debate about the two-state solution in Israel.

For those with other controversies on their minds, a refresher: Ms. Johansson wanted to make an ad for SodaStream. She also wanted to be an ambassador for the anti-poverty organization, OxFam. OxFam officially opposes Israeli buildings in settlements. SodaStream has their factory in a West Bank settlement. Oxfam gave Scarlett the heave-ho after she refused to back off being a “brand ambassador” for SodaStream. To boil it down even further, Scarlett Johansson would rather shill soda than work with an anti-poverty group. Isn’t capitalism beautiful?

Sure, there’s a little bit of nuance here. Gawker sent a reporter out to talk to people who work at the factory and, as it turns out, they like working there. They don’t have a ton of other options, and SodaStream pays decently. But it seems to me that it would have been possible for Johansson to say that while she didn’t think SodaStream was the villain here, her anti-poverty work was important enough for her to relinquish that paycheck, and that being a “brand ambassador” (do you go to other brands’ countries and talk about your brand?) was of less importance than continuing to work with OxFam.

She didn’t, though. She went ahead with her ad. Let’s take a look at what’s more important than fighting poverty:

Well. That’s the scandalously banned version, because the company hasn’t posted the one that actually aired during the Super Bowl. They weren’t allowed to air this one, not, as you might suspect, because it is terrible, but because Johansson mentions Coke and Pepsi off-handedly. Obviously, the most important offended parties in this whole mess are our true soda overlords, Coke and Pepsi. The ad aired during the game was essentially the same, though. She likes soda. She wears a sexy dress. Who needs OxFam and their stance against West Bank settlements?

In the generally chummy world of organizations shoveling money at attractive famous people for lending either their countenances or their dulcet tones to causes/products, it would seem there’s a lesson here. If you are a celebrity who wants to do something useful with your famous face and/or offset your terrible behavior, maybe investigate the charity you work with to make sure you don’t have a fundamental difference of opinion on one of their big policy positions, a difference that will lead to you accidentally becoming associated with people who call OxFam anti-Semitic. If you’re a charity, well, if you want to benefit from a pretty, famous face, be prepared for some competition that can offer up a whole lot more money than you. And if you’re a soda company, why the fuck are you setting up your factory in the West Bank? Were there no other options?

Congratulations all around: you’ve successfully turned a tedious and generic ad commodifying a woman’s body into a discussion about Israeli settlement policy.