The product is secondary to the main message to this commercial. The main message is one of revolution. Not of a democratic, tyrannical, or even ‘snack’ revolution, but rather a hedonistic and anarchistic revolution spread and propagated by ‘others’ who walk amongst us.

In the spot, the revolution is started by a woman who grabs the microphone from a airport employee. This is the first move of change—the ability to reach the masses. The mic is stolen, rather than received by the woman. The attendant looks angry but tolerates the woman's actions. This parallels the actions of the news media of today. According to the commercial, the media has had their power usurped and it is their apparent complacency with this matter that will ultimately lead to society's fall.

The first person to agree with the mic-woman’s liberal babble is a hippy chick. There is no surprise there—the radical ideas are always first picked up by the radical people. The hippy chick in this ad radiates a very non-threatening aura. It is almost as if she is a double agent: a good-looking suburban girl masquerading as a hippy. It is here that semiotics unmasks her. The connotations drawn from her precisely-crafted hippy-dome and the connotations drawn from the hippies of the 60’s just do not match up. The fact that she is in an airport is enough to take her out of the ‘true hippy’ paradigm. Therefore, when she accepts the idea, it is not met with frowning conservative disapproval, but rather an almost familial acknowledgment of this new idea.

As the idea grows in popularity, a chant rises from the crowd. People begin to act purely for pleasure. The slob who was in a depressing state at the beginning of the ad is now dancing with all abandon. Hedonism has taken its hold. Mob rule is now the only law. But one man does not get it; he looks down his nose at all that is going on. He refuses to chant. The stuck up business man even gets hit in the head with a bag of Chex-Mix. However, he will not move. He represents the upper-class, afraid in their decadence to accept the change of the times. As the mob crushes in around him it is apparent that he will either be rode out on a rail by the mob or killed and eaten.

The people have become pleasure seeking monsters at the end of this spot. The only one to escape is the woman from the first of the commercial. Like a demon or a propaganda agent she hops off, her job now done, to plant her seed of decadence elsewhere.

The Chex Mix commercial sets out to identify their product with a revolution in the model of a Marxist upheaval. The commercial paints a picture of a normal day waiting for a plane in an airport. The scene upholds an idea of normalcy and adheres to the status quo until a woman steps up from the masses and whips her comrades into a frenzy after facing down the stern visage of an imposing black authority. This upstart achieves her goal by assuming the voice of the authority she has just opposed and using it to awaken her fellow airport goers. She interrupts the established order (the order that has apparently been supplying its subjects with greasy, unappealing potato chips) and replaces it with an egalitarian society where the scowling authority figures have no power to hold people to standards of decorum. The fuel for the revolution comes in the ten delicious new flavors of Chex Mix.

The perfect, long-haired hippie woman in the crowd stands up to reaffirm the slogan of “Snack On” put forward by the revolution’s starter and become the first acolyte. From the woman’s long ponytails to her flowing clothing, she embodies a counterculture ideal reminiscent of the Vietnam era. The slogan spreads and this slice of society dissembles into a commune-style orgy of dancing and chanting. In opposition to the hippie and the revelers, the airport staff and a sitting man in a suit adjust to the revolution. The sitting capitalist, embodying everything that crumbles around him, uncomfortably nibbles at his flavored piece of dried cereal. The flying bag of Chex Mix virtually assassinates this vestige of restriction and self-control.

Chex Mix is everything you wish your boring life was. Chex Mix is something that everyday red tape is not. Chex Mix is a perfect communist utopian party life.

“I have something to say.” Everyone in the airport stops and listens as the god-like voice echoes throughout the terminal. It’s a miracle. Chex Mix has 60% less fat than regular potato chips so now we can “snack on”! The masses begin to chant and convince themselves that the news they’ve just heard is the biggest thing since Martin Luther nailed some paper to a door. Suddenly they break into a festive jig and wave bags of the immortalized snack food around in the air as if their lives have been changed for the better. They’ve been released from the mundane world of regular potato chips and have a slightly higher chance of avoiding an early heart attack since they will obviously be consuming much less fat. Their savior is here at last.

The references in this commercial to religion, or cults rather, jump at the viewer more than the people in the commercial are prancing about. The loudspeaker announcement is almost like a god, a higher being, or a “chosen one” telling every traveler in the air port to switch to Chex Mix. “Snack on” is repeated slowly at first and then more quickly and numerously as though the idea is being engraved in their brains. “I must snack on, I must snack on.” It can be loosely tied to prayers and verses read at alters to worship those that lead the masses. It’s as if Chex Mix is being made the Eucharist of the Snack Food Religion; it must be consumed on a regular basis for ultimate holiness and salvation to be achieved.

A worship dance quickly ensues once the word has spread about the amazing new snack food. The miraculous bags of holy Chex Mix are held high in the air so all can bow down and praise their hunger suppressing superiority. Nothing like this has ever been seen before. Chex Mix is the only way to snack. It’s the best way, at least, that’s what the fine producers of this commercial want the “Masses” to believe. I must snack on. . . .

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Last update: 1/22/2005