The Cadillac ELR commercial that was made for and launched during the 2014 Winter Olympics, was called “Poolside.” It featured actor, Neil McDonough, blond, handsome, and cocksure, touting not so much the car as the people who made it and, more importantly, the people who can afford to buy it. In fact, if you don’t watch carefully you don’t even know it’s about a car. It was about hard driving, innovative, creative Americans and it poked a playful stick in the eye of those laconic, lazy Europeans.

It opened with McDonough standing beside a swimming pool in the backyard of a house. He walked into and through the house as he spoke:

Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff? Other countries they work, they stroll home, they stop by the cafe, they take August off. Off. Why aren’t…