Alfa's New, Terrible Ad

  Alfa Romeo may hold the record for glorious failure.  I struggle to think of another major manufacturer that has survived on laurels past for as long, has managed to move as much inferior product by comparing it to all-but-forgottten triumphs, and has produced as many happy owners of cars that slowly ruin their lives.
  I say all of the above as a proud Alfa Romeo owner, whose car is sitting at home right now, because it's a little cold out by the standards of Southern California, and it all but refuses to start.  This is the classic Alfa owner dynamic.  It long ago became cliche; especially in the US, where the youngest cars are now aged some twenty years since the marque packed up its things in 1994.  In the rest of the world, the company has long moved on to producing cars of greater quality and reliability, but far less character; to the point where the glories of old have perhaps never been more important, or less relevant.
  So perhaps it's not surprising to watch Fiat-Chrysler bring this bullshit...

... in an effort of re-launch the brand in the US.

  I'm... I'm honestly not sure where to begin; with the hackneyed automotive cliches, or the fact that the people writing and speaking about the cliches, clearly don't even understand them.  Talking about how the essence of your brand "defies description" is just lazy and melodramatic.  The appeal of Alfa Romeo's cars isn't an unsolvable mystery.  Alfas are cars that place an emphasis on enjoyment, style, and character, and over time their quirks reenforce a Stockholm Syndrome-like bond with their owners.  The 4C stands to add proudly to that tradition.
  Unfortunately, Fiat-Chrysler seem to think you only want to buy it because it looks like a butt, specifically, a female butt.  This point is rammed home as the throaty narrator speaks about the "inexplicable design of the 4C" while a female butt slides across the frame, and onto a man.  Her butt is only one of several female body parts in the commercial, all of them bringing a man some kind of pleasure and arousal.

This post is making me angry, so I put this here to remind me that I actually like these cars.

  This is perhaps the number one cliche about Italian cars; that they somehow equate to women, and that driving them is like great sex.
  Here though, is an ad that plays on that idiotic notion to an extent I have never seen.  Alfa couldn't spell the idea out any clearer had they intercut the scene where the (Male, because of course he is.) customer avatar uses his mad driving skills to switch on launch control, and let the car do all the work of getting from 0-60, with footage of an ejaculating penis, and overdubbed the engine with a satisfied grunt.  Why not just come out and say "It looks like a cute ass!  And you can drive it, dudez!  You can drive that sweet ass!"  They could also point out that this ass never wants to talk about your relationship while you're trying to eat a sandwich (Amirite?!), and only makes appropriate purring (no muffler), and gasping (wastegate chuff) noises, in response to your masterful caresses.
  Your car, any car, is not an attractive woman.  Driving it, no matter how fun, is not like having great sex.  And if you think it is, then you've never had great sex, because no matter how much fun you're having while driving, the car isn't getting anything out of it.  Everything you feel from the car was put there by an engineer.  All the feel, all the performance, the car is an appliance designed and built with the intent of giving you that.  If that's what you think great sex is, then you're not looking for sex at all, you're looking to masturbate against another human being.
  If that's a bit much from a car blog, well, this ad really gets under my skin.  I love Alfa Romeo, and I like when other people love it.  This ad makes that all more difficult, and it's completely unnecessary.  The 4C is a car that sells itself.  It's a tiny bauble of a thing.  It's exceptionally pretty, obviously quick, and designed to be enjoyable first, and useful, well, last.  All Alfa had to do was take a few nice photos of the car, and put them on TV.  Job done.  People of all walks of life could create all the fantasy and pretense needed to justify the purchase price.  And a lot of those people, would have been women.
  They still might be, but for every woman who has seen this ad, the purchase will now carry an extra cost, a need to overcome the message, and an understanding that they're not the customer Alfa is looking for, but are at best another lifestyle accessory, that customer might wish to acquire.
  On my ridiculously limited friends list there are female Robotics Engineers, College Administrators,  Archeologists, Story Producers, Writers, Editors, Executives...  Many of them would have liked this car.  Some might have bought one because they had the means, and loved it.  Some would have made sacrifices to buy one, and loved it all the more.  In short, they are no different from the men I know, and Alfa has just told all of them that they don't matter as customers, only as props in advertising.
  All of which leaves me feeling more than a little sad.  I really wanted this car to be a success, to be Alfa's actual glorious relaunch in the US.  Sure, it already turned out to weigh more than the new Mazda MX5, and the steering isn't nearly as good as it should be, and it's not exactly inexpensive, but it stood a chance of introducing a new generation of Americans to the joy having Alfa Romeos around.  It could have made people want beautiful, exciting cars.  Now though, I sort of want the whole thing to backfire.
  I just don't want a company who excludes half my friends to succeed.  So ladies look into a Porsche Cayman, or a new MX5; they're better driver's cars anyway.