A number of my friends say they were disgusted by this new DirecTV commercial…the one that takes a scene from Tommy Boy and turns it into a pitch for the satellite company. David Spade has been criticized for whoring himself out and exploiting his dead pal — and I really don't think he deserves that. It's not like Chris Farley had some solemn dignity that is being diminished. If they did this with Laurence Olivier, okay, maybe. But Farley was a guy who would do anything — a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g — to get attention. Do we really think he would have been outraged at the idea of being kept "alive" this way and having his best movie promoted as some sort of semi-classic?
No one would think anything was wrong if they just did this commercial by running a clip of Farley and then cutting to Spade telling everyone to watch DirecTV because they occasionally run Tommy Boy. I don't see why this is all that different except that it's cleverer this way…