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84 Lumber Super Bowl Commercial Takes On U.S. – Mexico Border Wall Controversy

By Shaunee Flowers
Published on: 15:31 PST, Feb 5, 2017

One of the most moving and controversial Super Bowl 51 commercials belongs to the building materials company 84 Lumber. They debuted a new commercial depicting the journey of Mexican immigrants making a journey to the United States border with a message to check their website to see what happens next. Well, naturally a lot of people went to see what happens next and so many were curious to see the rest of the journey that the 84 Lumber website crashed temporarily before coming back up to tell their story.

The 84 Lumber Super Bowl 51 commercial was definitely the most political of the halftime ads. With Budweiser also taking on the immigration topic, 84 Lumber took it straight to Mexico with a Spanish-speaking woman and her daughter, who are on a mission to make it across the border. While the 90-second commercial definitely delivered a message during the big game, it was not overt and in your face, eventually leading those who watched to the end to check out the rest of the story on their website.

The full ad, which can be viewed above, is nearly six minutes long and completes the Mexican immigrants’ journey, where they find the wall. That same wall that Donald Trump has been touting as the solution to the U.S. immigration problem. On the 84 Lumber website, viewers are warned that the footage is “too controversial for TV.”

On their journey, the mother and daughter are seen hitching a ride in the back of a pickup truck and hopping on a freight train before trudging forward through a storm and then a desert where the two camped. Their stance on immigration and the refugee controversy in the U.S. becomes very clear after watching the 84 Lumber Super Bowl commercial.

Once the woman and her daughter finally reach their destination after their grueling journey, they find a huge wall blocking them from entering the promised land. Feeling completely defeated after working so hard to get there, the mother breaks down crying in front of the wall. The little girl, who has been collecting what looks like trash along the way, pulls out a patchwork American flag that she had been making on their journey with the scraps of fabric, tarp, and plastic that she had picked up along the way.

That’s when a sliver of light peeks through and the mother and daughter run toward it to find a huge wooden door. They push the huge door open and walk through to their destination as the sun beams in through the now-open door. As the commercial ends, a pickup truck is driving down the road with building materials and lumber in the back. The message on the screen reads, “The will to success is always welcome here.”

Super Bowl 51 watchers are only treated to the first 90 seconds of this controversial, but enthralling commercial before being directed to the website. Many who watched the halftime commercial were interested enough to check out how it ended. The 84 Lumber company posted the commercial three days ago and then twice again on YouTube during the Super Bowl. The commercial has been viewed on YouTube alone more than 1.3 million times. There is no telling how many times it was watched on the 84 Lumber website, but it was enough to crash the site temporarily.

The 84 Lumber Super Bowl Commercial lands right in the middle of a national debate on what to do with immigration and refugees. It’s hard to argue what the building materials company’s stance might be and it was easily the most political and the most touching of the commercials seen during the shocking New England Patriots comeback win against the Atlanta Falcons.

[Featured Image by 84 Lumber/YouTube]

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