View From the Phlipside Radio - Sofia Vergara

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

I’ve always been amused by the disinclination of many top American actors to do commercials in the United States market.  The idea has always been that you don’t want to get “over-exposed” because then the audience might get tired of you.  As a general rule many of these same stars have absolutely no problem what so ever about doing commercials overseas.  The money is generally great, advertising shoots are short and then you’re back home.  I’ve never really bought that argument.  It seems more likely that in the quick turn around world of advertising the stars don’t to play star the way some of them would like.

There used to be an argument against doing commercials that involved the dread concept of “selling out”.  Now this is more of a ‘60’s generation thing because stars prior to that did advertising all the time.  Even as a child of the ‘60’s myself (meaning that I was in fact a CHILD in the ‘60’s) I’ve found this one to be pretentious nonsense as well.  Selling out is advertising a product or service you actively don’t believe in just for the money.  For most actors it’s mostly advertising products they don’t care one way or the other about.  It’s a job, and I have no problem with that.

But I have to admit I really respect what actress Sofia Vergara is doing.  Vergara is the drop dead gorgeous Columbian actress who currently stars in ABC’s “Modern Family”.  She’s moved her career from hosting shows on Univision to multiple Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Emmy nominations.  She’s reached the point where she probably doesn’t NEED to be doing commercials any more.

And she’s doing a new Pepsi ad anyway.  In fact flying in the face of the old school thinking she’s doing the Pepsi ad in part as recognition of the place Pepsi has had in her career.  Early in her career she did a spot for Pepsi that Vergara gives a great deal of credit for launching her.  So she’s remembering who helped get her here and is staying loyal to them.

That’s selling out in the best possible way, selling out to loyalty.  I don’t think we should ever get tired of seeing that.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.