in persuasion nation
By George Saunders, first published in In Persuasion Nation
The characters in violent commercials realize they can resist their dark fates, and they rise up against the consumer establishment.
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Plot Summary
In a series of short vignette commercials, a sentient Ding-Dong steals a young man’s fiance, a teenager named Timmy ignores his dying grandma in favor of mac n’ cheese, an unhealthy snack bar fights an orange that questions its nutrients, a man performs a trick that detaches his friend’s penis so that he can steal his car, and Doritos-obsessed grandparents slaughter their grandson for doubting their love for the chips. The grandparents head off to the land of Doritos when suddenly their path is blocked by their liquidized grandson, who is then joined by the orange, penisless man, Timmy’s Grammy, and the other violated beings. They take a stand against years of repeated physical and psychological humiliation within their respective vignettes, and face off against the coalition of Timmy, the Ding-Dong, the Slap-of-Wack bar, the Doritos grandparents, etc. After their battle, the entire pro-product group is dead, except the almost-dead Slap-of-Wack bar. A torn green corner of the bar flies across the desert until it gets stuck in a cactus, where it reflects upon the vignettes and convinces itself that the best way of life is for everyone to act within their roles as energetically as possible. This gives the corner power, and it transforms into a glowing green triangular symbol. The Grammy/orange/penisless man/etc coalition travels around, defeating products such as a Wendy’s GrandeChickenBoatCombo that sabotages Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. They’re walking across the desert when they come upon a polar bear with an axe in his head from stealing Cheetos, a puppet burned by a Cinnabon, Voltaire, who was given a snuggie by Raid, and six headless working men whose heads were bitten off by a T. rex that loves Coors. They ask the coalition how to organize a resistance against their vignettes, but before they can go further, the green symbol appears. It has resurrected the Timmy/Ding-Dong/Doritos grandparents/ChickenBoat/etc group and now uses its power to compel the other coalition to resume their roles in their own respective vignettes. Terrified, the polar bear, puppet, Voltaire, and working men run back to town. In town, the polar bear hides beneath his bed, terrified of the power he witnessed. He doesn’t want to resume his daily work of getting axed in the head, but the green symbol appears, reads his mind with its doubts, and insists that he do his duty. As the polar bear walks to the Eskimo house, he thinks of how this vicious cycle not only hurts its victims, but also the perpetrators; no one wants to be executing their roles. After he is axed in the head again, he stumbles out thinking of his parents’ own suffering, and decides to throw himself off a cliff. As he falls, he realizes that the green symbol is not GOD, and that there is hope for their world to change after all. The sub-universe will not let him die, so he bounces back up and shouts this realization out to the penguins watching nearby, who turn away in embarrassment from the scene. They start a new vignette in which their eggs turn into Skittles, which gives them mindless pleasure.