Virtuous Americans 1930's Style
On January 23, in Slate magazine, Jack Shafer wrote a great article called "Selling Virtue". Check it out at http://www.slate.com/id/2209615/pagenum/all. Reading it, I thought, Aha! It's not just me. Lately, in my nightly TV watching, I'd begun to pick up a preachy tone in commercials of all stripes: green energy, cars, insurance, detergents etc. I noticed that cosmetic companies were touting their "natural" make-up lines and pizzas were all about whole grain. Underneath the brave smiles of TV people, I sensed a certain anxiety: Here we are, about to have another Great Depression, and who's gonna art direct it?
Cotton wash dresses will be needed by the metric ton. For the guys, hats will be required: Brad Pitt newsboy jobs, stained trucker caps, and of course, the classic gray felt fedora. We'll ride bikes with big balloon tires. Cars will be streamlined and dark, but battered pick-ups will be ubiquitous, and all of them will run off old Chinese restaurant cooking oil.
You get the drift.
We have to be good now. Obama said so and Oprah's been yammering about it for years. We're going to give up childish things, like gaming, fast food, and snorting Ritalin, and start gathering around a battered Monopoly board instead. We'll have dinner as a family and gnaw on vegetables from our garden patch.
Personally, I find this late-in-the-game high-mindedness pretty irritating, especially when it comes from greed-head behemoth companies. I remain deeply offended when a large guy with a deep voice tells me I need to check out library books and carry bag lunches, especially since his ultimate aim is selling auto insurance. We're back to the basics, he rumbles, standing in what purports to be a public library. And the basics are good.
He should check out the libraries in my neck of the woods. Homeless people snore in chairs, and there's someone who shits on the copy machine. Don't even think about looking at the art books. Half the pictures have been razored out. Thanks to years of lousy funding, some of the basics are not good. In fact, some basics are barely tolerable.
I shouldn't be surprised that ad agencies feel we need direction and encouragement, especially of the hectoring variety. Ad agencies all believe that campaigns really do something, and I guess, with companies going ::pop:: every half hour or so, they're imagining the end of skin care, tampons, fast food, Viagra, and chat lines. And what will they do then? No wonder they're glomming onto responsibility, respect, and community to sell coffee and oil, then boring us stiff with baritone spokespeople, shots of church steeples, happy families wolfing down sandwiches, and old folks planting tomatoes. Cue music and logo. Show website address. End.
Yesterday I saw a couple of Mormon missionaries wheeling around the neighborhood. I thought it was a good time for them to be out and about, banging on doors. Goodness is all the rage.
In fact, it's a seller's market.
Cotton wash dresses will be needed by the metric ton. For the guys, hats will be required: Brad Pitt newsboy jobs, stained trucker caps, and of course, the classic gray felt fedora. We'll ride bikes with big balloon tires. Cars will be streamlined and dark, but battered pick-ups will be ubiquitous, and all of them will run off old Chinese restaurant cooking oil.
You get the drift.
We have to be good now. Obama said so and Oprah's been yammering about it for years. We're going to give up childish things, like gaming, fast food, and snorting Ritalin, and start gathering around a battered Monopoly board instead. We'll have dinner as a family and gnaw on vegetables from our garden patch.
Personally, I find this late-in-the-game high-mindedness pretty irritating, especially when it comes from greed-head behemoth companies. I remain deeply offended when a large guy with a deep voice tells me I need to check out library books and carry bag lunches, especially since his ultimate aim is selling auto insurance. We're back to the basics, he rumbles, standing in what purports to be a public library. And the basics are good.
He should check out the libraries in my neck of the woods. Homeless people snore in chairs, and there's someone who shits on the copy machine. Don't even think about looking at the art books. Half the pictures have been razored out. Thanks to years of lousy funding, some of the basics are not good. In fact, some basics are barely tolerable.
I shouldn't be surprised that ad agencies feel we need direction and encouragement, especially of the hectoring variety. Ad agencies all believe that campaigns really do something, and I guess, with companies going ::pop:: every half hour or so, they're imagining the end of skin care, tampons, fast food, Viagra, and chat lines. And what will they do then? No wonder they're glomming onto responsibility, respect, and community to sell coffee and oil, then boring us stiff with baritone spokespeople, shots of church steeples, happy families wolfing down sandwiches, and old folks planting tomatoes. Cue music and logo. Show website address. End.
Yesterday I saw a couple of Mormon missionaries wheeling around the neighborhood. I thought it was a good time for them to be out and about, banging on doors. Goodness is all the rage.
In fact, it's a seller's market.
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