Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The U.S. Navy Is on a Boat

. Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Many of you may have already seen this, but for those who haven't: it's very funny but contains strong language.



This amateur video is a knock-off of the famous SNL skit, which itself is a satire (and also has strong language):



But as Attackerman notes, the Navy version has been removed from YouTube despite massive popularity. He speculates that somebody in the Navy wasn't too pleased:

Everything that follows is on the presumption -- not fact, but presumption; I don't know what really happened here -- that the junior officers who made the video got in some trouble for it. Again, I don't know if that's the case, but given the military's uncomfortable history with the blogosphere, it certainly can't be ruled out. Anyway: there is nothing offensive to the Navy about this video. If I was in the Department of the Navy and I saw this, I would think, "Great! These sailors glorified the service by making a four-minute commercial for it based on a popular-with-the-young-people sketch! They even put John Paul Jones in the T-Pain role!" A friend tells me it was getting a hundred thousand hits daily and you can see a number of sailors with similar ideas. Unless you want to tell me that sailors are offended by harsh language, this ought to be seen as a positive thing for the Navy. It's extremely unlikely that anyone the Navy might want to recruit could come away from that video thinking, "A Naval career is less attractive to me now."


I see his point, but I can also see the opposite view: even if the Navy thought this particular video was benign, there is a clear interest in not setting the precedent that junior officers can do almost anything they want on Navy vessels (and in Navy uniforms), post it to YouTube, and suffer no repercussions. Especially when tax dollars and public equipment are used on the project (which may have been the case here; see the helicopter shots).

Either way, I love this video and I'm glad it made it out.

0 comments:

The U.S. Navy Is on a Boat
 

PageRank

SiteMeter

Technorati

Add to Technorati Favorites