Wednesday, June 8, 2011

JWT Salt Lick BBQ at SXSW

We could go about investigating the confluence of forces that led to this phantasmagoria (an ad agency, a barbecue joint, and a music conference), but that would just detract from the insanity on display.

The basics are, well, basic: A cow and a pig advertise barbecue by repeatedly killing and eating each other and themselves. If that's all it was, we'd be out of here in five minutes.

But where other outfits are content delivering stale homilies about service, dedication, and self-destruction, these guys give us a tour de force of gore and depravity!

And what makes it even more chilling is the animation's reliance on the tropes of childhood. It's Wes Craven meets Sesame Street, a pairing that only the joined psychoses of barbecue, advertising, and rock 'n' roll could have conjured.











Pigs eagerly grate themselves to pulp on a monstrous playground slide. Aboard a pogo-stick, another pig bounces into a bonfire and then a barrel of barbecue sauce.

A cow slices herself into quivering slabs of flesh with a wire jumprope.

Childhood has become a nightmare! Freedom has become a nightmare! And play and leisure—nightmares. Living itself has become a nightmare! And the animals frolic gaily through the nightmare landscape, their only sadness born of the knowledge that their suffering must someday come to an end.

(Thanks to Dr. David for the referral.)









Addendum: If you must.

8 comments:

Desdemona said...

Whoa. There isn't enough analysis in the world to get to the bottom of how screwed up this is; definitely one for the (psychology text) books. I will never look at a playground the same way again! (Unfortunately.)

Anonymous said...

w o w.

i'm with desdemona; i wouldn't even know how/where to start. i've actually been to salt lick (i brought my own food and watched everyone else eat bbq) and it was gross. this makes it one thousand times grosser.

nycgirl10001 said...

There are no words. I found this....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLQIU8UJkmc. It's the ad for this sick place. So, so wrong.

Ben said...

Yep! We link to the ad right up there at the end of the post. Horrible, ain't it?

Anonymous said...

Oh. My. God! The pictures were bad enough, then I just had to click the link. Now I wish I hadn't. That will give me nightmares for sure. I've been following this blog for a long time, and this has got to be the worst thing I've ever seen. The suicide foodists have hit an all time low with this one.

Bea Elliott said...

Arrogantly evil.
Depraved beyond imagination. Disturbed beyond words.

Red said...

5 nooses for sure. Are you sure you don't want to make it 5 1/2?

Anonymous said...

But the food there is so delicious...