On this Easter Sunday, I'm feeling in a nostalgic frame of mind, no doubt inspired by the shifting array of attack ads given the surge in popularity of the NDP. Thanks to the last two years of Conservative ads attacking Michael Ignatieff, we have become so conditioned to seeing him as the enemy, the sheep in wolf's clothing, the fifth colonist, if you will, that it is somewhat jarring to learn that we've been wrong all along.
Now, it turns out, according to the latest word from Stephen Harper, Jack Layton is the true threat to all things that we hold dear:
Perhaps it was this ad that got me thinking about The Twilight Zone, a favourite of mine when I was a young lad. One of its most memorable episodes was entitled, “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” perhaps the finest exploration of mob psychology ever presented in popular entertainment.
Without giving away the entire story, I will say that it revolves around the aftermath of an apparent meteorite flying over Maple Street, an ordinary suburban neighbourhood, on a mild and relaxed Saturday afternoon. Soon, the people find themselves without electrical or automotive power, and the situation quickly degenerates into suspicions and accusations that someone in their midst is responsible for the power loss, and may not be who he seems to be. The ensuing confusion and mayhem, seen in the last third of the episode, represents the kind of mentality I suspect is at the heart of such attack ads.
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