Possibly, by the time we get to the end of this column together, you will be left with little more than the impression that I watch too much television. I can live with that. Because I have been given virtual Carte Blanche on subjects for this section, I want to get far away from the political bent of last months opus and concentrate on a topic nearer and dearer to many Americans hearts: Television. More specifically, television commercials. How do I know it's nearer and dearer? Because the percentage of Americans who have never voted is much greater than the percentage who watch television less than once a week. Site my source? I made it up! (11k .au) But I'm willing to bet.
This will be no glossy retrospective of commercials through the ages ("Taste me, taste me. C'mon and taste me, that's all Doral asks." while skinny male models in tights and wearing oversized boxes of smokes, skitter around on a slick stage.) Nor will this be a rant against the mind numbing frequency some thirty second spots are aired (currently, If I see that fuckin' Monster/Television chase that white family upstairs because the picture is so "real", I might have to puke. Thank Christ for the mute button. Is anyone else married to somebody who HATES it when you hit mute. Even on a commercial they find offensive?) I'm also not going to be getting into the whole Dennis Rodman bad-boying Santa and being celebrated for getting kicked out of more NBA games, accruing more technical and personal fouls than anyone else in the league, but lo and behold all is right in Rodman's world, because he also led the league in rebounds. This is another self-centered malcontent getting rewarded for throwing elbows and cheap-shotting opponents, because he's a virtual idiot savant at pulling down rebounds. How Nike squares this Rodman ad, the "trash-talking NY City playground" spots (where it looks like they not only laud the elbow swingers on the court, but after catching some poor opponents now smashed and bleeding nose, make it vogue to stand over his fallen body and lay smack like, "I Got That!" or "Don't even be tryin' to guard me!") How they square those with it's P.L.A.Y. campaign is beyond me. Naturally, there is no argument, what with Nike cornering the world in Athletic Shoe coolness. Along that line, I wonder how the N.F.L. really feels about Dennis Hopper playing the kind of shoe-sniffing deranged superfan who might just take a pot shot at Emmit, or Barry, or Jerry, or Troy, or Joe if their team was threatening the success of deranged superfan's favorite. Is this the image that (dot dot dot), or does the ad money simply close Mr. Paul "N.F.L. Commissioner" Tagliabue's eyes? Pardon me, I'm off the subject.
I am instead going to concentrate on a new mini-trend in selling on the small screen. I can't actually even call it a mini-trend because it feels like there's a smugness to it that underscores a belief in the subliminal so focused, that certain ad execs must believe that they can even send out the wrong message, box it up in something that sounds cool, and nobody will be the wiser. The two commercials, maybe by necessity, involve the sale of beer to the cool, active, intelligent model class depicted in beer, car, and cola commercials. Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but feel these cheeky, smug bastards (cheeky...smug? Is that a redundancy, or what?) are a little too self-satisfied with their cute inside jokes, or are they actually more dangerous than that? Are they somehow unaware of their handiwork, or is it some one person attempting to undermine the sale of beer, or playing a practical joke on...who exactly? The beer companies? The Ad agencies? Us?
I refer, firstly, to a particular Miller Beer commercial. I'm sure most are aware of the campaign. Open a bottle of Miller and what was once a sweltering day, with humidity in the high 90% range, instantly gets transformed by a refreshing snowfall, come to cool everything and everybody. You may or may not have seen the one that takes place in New York City, where the Chrysler Building bends over and, with its suddenly prehensile spire (15k .au), flips open the top of an oversized beer bottle hawking the stuff on a giant billboard. Again, once the beer is open, a not-so-gentle snowfall begins. Much to the relief of hot, tired New Yorkers.
My question centers around the choice of background music (if there is no voice over or dialogue, is it then foreground music?) and I am by no means one of these "purists (9k .au)" who are "offended" that the music of my "rebellious youth (12k .au)" is being subjugated by 90's mainstream. If Michael Jackson (9k .au) owns the rights to Revolution, and he wants to lease it out to Nike, (oh, them again.) so they can hawk another couple of hundred-thousand pair of cross-trainers, hey, that's called Capitalism. Maybe, not a perfect system, but it seems to work out all right. (I'm a little sick of hearing Like A Rock every time a Chevy truck spot comes on, but if Bob Seger wants to make another dollar and some car company wants to pay him for it, be my guest.) To the people who were offended by this Beatles Anthem sell-out I have to say, "Get A Cause!" (14k .au) It's like the whole PETA crap. There are a whole group of "activists (12k .au)" who take it upon themselves to protest the manufacture of FUR COATS! Hey! Yoo-Hoo! People are starving in the world! The rainforest is getting chewed up! The environment is taking it in the shorts! We've figured out ways to punch holes in the fuckin' OZONE LAYER! We're destroying the natural habitats of actual endangered species! I feel like going out and buying the biggest mink coat I can find, and just daring these single minded protectors of non-domesticated dogs and rodents, to toss red dye on my fur. HEY! GET A CAUSE! Oh, and Ricki Lake? Publicity stunt? Nah, not Ricki. She's too busy booking men who have a sex change so they can be lesbians.
Back to the Miller Beer commercial, A Buffalo Springfield classic punctuates this Chrysler Building animation. Remember, this is an ad with a very specific place. We're in New York City. The tune plays out, lyrics evident:
Sure, it's been edited. They're not going to play the whole song. That would be the longest commercial on record. But, here we are: New York City, Alcohol, a hot day, and the lyric they edit out, in order to cut to the chorus:
Oh, very funny, Miller. Now, I'm not saying the Miller people are advocating anything except the consumption of their watery beer (13k .au), but it's not like we've never heard that tune before. Seems to me, and I'm just guessing, this would not be the message these beer salesmen would want to get across. Next Lyric?
So, let me get this straight. If the viewer feeds all the pertinent info into the hopper of his or her mind, they might come up with: "Yeah. That's right. I guess I'll skip that next drink." At least the urban dwellers among us. I'm not sure how often alcohol is involved in acts if violence, but after having worked (in New York City, actually) in a bar, I can say, my own experience conjures up memories of an increased readiness to throw, the more inebriated the patron is. Whatever the case, Guns and Alcohol? I don't think so. Is it a humorous coincidence that the setting is the cliché of high crime that is New York City? Maybe. Or maybe some ad exec is having a little chuckle at, really just a sick joke. Or is the song there only because the last line of both the chorus and the commercial (except for the ubiquitous Get out of the old, get into the cold!) is:
Like beer, get it? It's like a double (triple? quadruple?) meaning. The temperature and the beer are both "going down". Maybe the violence will "go down" if the heat is under control. Maybe "going down" is part of the "sex sells" mentality. Put a pretty girl and the phrase "going down" in the same spot and perhaps the beer drinker will make the logical leap to: "If I drink enough Miller beer, maybe pretty girls will be going down..." Maybe I'm giving these clowns too much credit.
All of this more than pales in comparison to the Molson Ice commercial, giving us snowboarders doing the radical stunts of ski bum snowboard ultimate fantasy (9k .au). Forgetting for a moment that my sisters ex-boyfriend, who was an expert skier and on his college ski team, has difficulty walking without a limp to this day because fifteen years ago he was standing on a slope, waiting for his friends when a drunk skier barreled into him, tearing up his knees so badly he got one of those, "You'll never walk again" speeches from his surgeon. Forgetting for a moment that it may very well be up there with the coolest lick in Rock and Roll history, at least to my friends and I at seventeen, growing up in So Cal. Hell, this magazine is three-dimensional, listen in for yourself. (41k .au) If that don't define Metal for the first half of the seventies, I don't know what does (Cat Scratch Fever? Perhaps. But, I'm still partial to Nugents other classic with perhaps the best ever lyric in Rock and Roll, "Wang Dang, Got a Sweet Poon Tang, Shakin' My Thang in her Wang-a-dang-a-dang-a, Right On.") Anyway, the snowboarders in question, kicking up white rooster-tails on powder, all for the expressed purpose of selling (admittedly less watery) beer, do so to the Black Sabbath classic, Paranoid.
Once again, I am fascinated by this musical choice. Maybe I'm concentrating too hard on the lyrical element of said song (but, then again, I'm a word guy. That's what I do.) Now, using the lyrics from the song, how might that conversation go?
Paranoid? Snowboarding? Beer? A man with a gun over there (in New York City)? I don't get the connections. Am I supposed to? Am I not supposed to? Do you? Or am I watching too much TV?
These are rhetorical questions. I don't actually look for an answer.
And speaking of rhetorical questions, maybe I should just pay attention to those crazy folks at Budweiser and, Why Ask Why? There is a comedian I know named Scott Blakeman who's already ranted about what Why Ask Why(?) really means. I don't know if it's original with him, but I'm giving credit. Why Ask Why?...or...Don't think. Drink.
Nice message.
