Sixty Seconds of Silence

Pepsi's Silent Commercial

Every year people look forward to the commercials of the superbowl. Superbowl XLII is no different. There is always hype around the commercials. Everyone wants to know what will be THE breakout commercial of the year.

I wasn't really interested in the Superbowl XLII game featuring the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. I was watching Superbowl XLII for the pregame show, the half time show, and most of all, the commercials.

There were all the usual advertisers. There were commercials from Budweiser, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Taco Bell and many others. But which commercial was the breakout commercial of the night? Which commercial would be talked about tomorrow? I contend the best commercial of Superbowl XLII was a commercial that actually played during the pregame show. I contend that the best commercial was the Pepsi Silent Commercial.

The Pepsi Silent Commercial was the breakout commercial of Superbowl XLII. This groundbreaking commercial featured members of the deaf community, one of which is an employee of PepsiCo. Perhaps the thing that made this commercial gripping was the stark silence. It gave a peak into the world of the deaf. The deaf live in our hearing world having to read TV programs. They often live in complete silence. In this ground breaking commercial was the first of it's kind. It gave viewers a glimpse into this silent world.

Pepsi's Silent Commercial featured two deaf men going to their friend Bob's house. The two men are communicating in American Sign Language. The are asking each other which house is Bob's house. Neither of them know, so the driver gets an idea. He starts honking his horn. I giggled as the lights of the houses came on one by one. The house that is left dark, THAT is Bob's house.

The Pepsi Silent commercial is a play off of a long standing joke in the deaf community. It featured the language of deaf America. It forced the hearing to read captioning to be able to peak into the deaf culture.