Jermaine Clement
As I am on top of all the latest trends, I just came across a series of ads featuring Jemaine Clement– one of the stars of Flight of the Conchords–that debuted during the Super Bowl in 2006. They’re for the Outback Steak House, and they’re good-natured and entirely disarming.
Clement, who is all bee-stung lips and self-effacing mannerisms, sits in a roadhouse restaurant that doesn’t really look all that, well, nice. With a plate of functional looking food in front of him, and speaking in a fake Australian accent, he slides into a slightly surreal digression that charmingly, always ends up off topic.
As always, Clement perfectly captures the Beta-Male character. In spite of his obvious good looks and accidental charm, he’s a passive observer in his own life, steamrolled by the more aggressive forces around him. A New Zealander, his cultural relationship to Australia, where the Outback Steak House originates, is similar to Canada’s relationship to the United States. In this, Clement, and the creators of the ad, manage to walk a fine line. What I get when watching it, and Flight of the Conchords in general, is the perfect marriage of a sensibility that’s simultaneously perplexed by the culture around him, and envious of it, very much wanting to join in, but still remain himself, and I guess, in the end, that’s what we all want.
Or something like that.
