A reader over at the Onion AV Club ("Ngah!") called this one about two weeks ago. Nice to see Mr. Bolling wrapping it up so tidily. Nothing more need now be said about this program.

I think the key thing here is panel 6 about cavemen being in fact a primitive species. This is why, as a minority, I actually love these commercials.

At the center of that statement, made all the more apparent by the use of cavemen, is an idea that there are certain things objectively true about the entire group. Couldn't some person say, "don't minorities have trouble with reading?" Standardized testing statistics will back them up. Does that make it sensible to assume certain things when you meet a person or a caveman? Is it any less annoying because people "don't mean any harm?"

I'm going to watch the pilot. If it sucks, I'll stop. Hasn't the awesomeness of the US version of The Office taught anyone to stop prejudging?

The point is the Cavemen are just as normal as me and you. The only thing that has changed is societies perception of these relationships, and if you want to consider something, look at the trailers for The (New) Heartbreak Kid, with Ben Stiller.

First he was a caveman!

Then he became a lawyer!

Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer!

"Caveman" is not a specifically scientifically recognized state in the evolution of hominids. However, when most people discuss "Cavemen" they are discussing one of two groups, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.

The Neanderthals were a separate co-occurring species of hominid that evolved separately from humans. They were probably our closest non human relatives before they all died out. Some people theorize they actually interbred with Cro-Magnons and that some of their genes are still swimming around in our pool. I personally like this theory, but there is not science to back it up.

The Cro-Magnons who the "Geico Cavemen" seem to be are essentially us. The difference between Cro-Magnons and Homo sapiens is essentially as the commercial points out is two bits (the cost of a shave and a hair cut).

As Cro-Magnons are essentially humans with primitive technology, it is felt by most scientists that if one where to be transported to our world they would have little difficulty interacting and adapting to our world (unfrozen Cavemen lawyers are a possibility, film at 11). As to Neanderthals we know much less about their intelligence level as they existed as an individual species for such a short time. What we do know about them is that they did have tools, occasionally arguably more elaborate than comparable Cro-Magnon tools, and seemed to have some sort of ritualized customs implying an awareness beyond the self. As such it is entirely possible that they too would have little difficulty (beyond that of any immigrant) to adjusting to our modern society.

I doubt there is any great cultural meaning to the ads except that it is funny that this caveman (who is essentially a hairy affluent white guy) feels put upon by his cleaner shaved brethren and receives no sympathy from his peers or his therapist. One interesting fact of the commercials is of course that despite being offended by the popular view of cavemen and feeling it is applied to himself. The main character is not in fact a caveman, in that he does not live in a cave. While he may be a Cro-Magnon he lives in a well appointed high-rise apartment building (it is not clear if he owns or rents) and interacts with a community of Cro-Magnons who seem equally affluent and urban.

Perhaps the culturally significant joke isn't about minorities but about people who claim minority status despite the fact that their status as a minority and the attendant oppression long ago ended. Various European American groups leap to mind, but I don't see a point in mentioning them here.

Either way, Cro-Magnons were not a primitive species, they were us, but hairy.

Thanks,

The mark of any great civilization is the ability to convert the obvious into academic theory.

The Neanderthals were a separate co-occurring species of hominid that evolved separately from humans. They were probably our closest non human relatives before they all died out. Some people theorize they actually interbred with Cro-Magnons and that some of their genes are still swimming around in our pool. I personally like this theory, but there is not science to back it up.

Of course if they interbred with Cro-Magnons they would not, by definition, be a different species.

By the way, Rumor has it that, assuming the interbreeding theory is true, redheads have Neanderthal ancestors.

Heretics, the world is only 6000 years old, God created the caveman in the first 6 days. The reason why they're not around anymore is because they didn't get on the ark, just like the dinosaurs. They died in the flood that formed the Grand Canyon.

The ability to create viable off-spring does not, necessarily, mean that Neanderthals are not a separate species. It's a bit more complicated than the isolation question,ie: whether the group can only reproduce viably amongst itself, because it raises the problem of species that reproduce asexually or have the same genetic information from one generation to next as well as the level of possible inter-breeding that is unknown due to a variety of ecological barriers present. It's a fairly good measuring stick, but not useful in all cases.

At its best, Mr. Bolling's humor engages the head and the heart and gives us a belly laugh too.

Set in a typically-fleeting instance of our media culture, the comic draws our attention first to the event du jour, then the human associations and meaning behind it, and finally to the absurd result.

Geico cavemen have not been with us long, and it's not likely they will trouble us far into the future. Charley, the eternal innocent, our diminished capacity Everyman, gives voice to our collective conscience: mockery bears false witness against others.

The funniest panel is the last one, Charley with a half-eaten lizard in his mouth. Wise and kind he may be, but like us, he cannot control his appetites. He is, after all, only proto-human.