Deviating somewhat from the politics, as has previously been discussed on this blog, I wanted to bring attention to the topic of this compelling documentary: Merchants of Cool.
The documentary can be accessed for free here:
http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=159
By the way, this a a pretty cool website anyway. There are all kinds of documentaries that can watched for free.
To anyone watching the documentary, I feel like I should warn you. In exposing what makes up this entertainment package sold to teens, the documentary has a few parts of objectionable material, including blurred nudity and foul language. Personally, I think it is appropriate for mature viewers given the context- I would rather watch these clips to understand what goes on in the teen world then watch full shows and movies. Even so, for those of you that still would prefer not to see those things, or for younger viewers, I went through and edited the most objectionable parts without destroying much of the documentary's essence. If you want, simply pause and skip past the following sequences:
23:44 - 24:00 (blurred nudity)
24:15 - 25:05 (Howard stern - worst clip)
29:30 - 29:42 (partial nudity)
36:10 - 37:09 (sexual content)
40:50 - 41:24 (course behavior)
43:20 - 43:40 (very bad language)
45:25 - 45:30 (language)
I'm interested to see your thoughts and opinions. Personally, I would strongly recommend this documentary to anyone, especially anyone that has or works with teenagers in any way. It is one of those films that really has opened my eyes to a lot of what goes on with teens and our entertainment industry. It is an important tool to understand how teens are being exploited, in order to help them to understand and wade through it, as they are bombarded with this media 24/7. The documentary is done by author and media critic Douglas Rushkoff. In it, he explores teen culture, and how it is defined and manipulated by cooperate America.
Teenagers are a very interesting and complex group of people. Ever wonder what creates the typical teenage world view: That parents are creeps, teachers and authority figures are laughable, adults are stupid, boring, and incapable of understanding them? Well there is an exception. The "cool" adults in the teen world view is the cooperate sponsor. The music and other entertainment that is packaged and sold to them somehow remains cool and "understands them", while further affirming the stupidity of all other adults. So how do they do it? How do they sell "Cool"? The documentary reveals brilliant marketing techniques that are used. The problem is that in so doing, morality and responsibility go out the window, with shocking results, as you will see in the video.
I have been wondering since I have seen it: What can be done? I don't watch/ won't allow MTV anymore. I guess thats a start. It would be extremely hard to boycott Viacom yourself, though, much less have your family keep it out of your home. I don't think its possible to keep out these teen images of the "Mook" and the "Midriff" (as explained in the documentary) that are sold to our kids so subtly. Competent, responsible parents can try to explain to teens the dangers, but will teens ever listen? They are captured at an early age, and besides, all their friends are doing it. And what about the ones without responsible parents? Is there some kind of governmental control needed? But would that violation of first amendment rights? Where do you draw the line?
The scary thing is that this type of thing isn't just corrupting our country's youth, but our media goes out to the whole world... And we wonder why Islam is pissed at us.
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2 comments:
Great post Hyrum. The documentary was very interesting, informative and disturbing.
When I was in junior high a certain brand of pants was very popular, they also cost $70 which back then in the late 80s was a lot of money. They were dress pants with the brand of the company conspicuously displayed with a tag on the crotch. Everyone who was cool had a pair. I imagined how cool I would be, how many friends I would have if I could only get some. I truly believed that those pants would change my life. I begged my parents and constantly schemed for ways to get them. If I didn’t have such frugal\intelligent parents (thankfully) I think my pleading could have convinced them. It is easy today to see that I was a tool in a capitalistic scheme that probably originated with agents of cool in some rented high rise in a major metropolitan area. Those agents of cool in turn were trying to survive in the extremely competitive shark filled waters of corporate advertising. In this sink or swim business livelihoods depend on the exploitation of the need for awkward teenagers to belong. In this marketing environment the agents of cool who choose to pull punches end up as shark chum. For better or worse that is how the free market works. The Darwinian force that drives the free market does not pause to ask ethical question like what the possible side effects to a certain marketing campaign may be. It is easy for me to judge Viacom advertisers but in my own struggle to survive, to excel, to put food on the table and live a healthy comfortable life I often ask myself how far I would go to achieve, especially in a tough economic circumstance.
Here in America we have more of a free market approach then some Islamic countries for example. I believe that this system which rewards individual choice more than virtue is the best system for overall progress, individual achievement, and overall quality of life. It is based on the idea that everyone (including teenagers) has the ability and right to ultimately act in their own self interest without having their access to choices filtered.
So what can we do against exploitative, greedy, soulless corporations? We could regulate them. First of all this idea makes a major assumption: The belief that the government can be counted on to carry out a social reform you favor. If the advertizing market were regulated the achieving sharks would not work there anymore. What would they do now? Would they automatically become advocate of virtue? No, that’s not where the money is. Then, keep in mind that the newly minted regulatory agency would hire people not based on virtue, but on political clout or connections. So people just like the banished agents of cool would now control the agency that was set up to stop them. Would they be more interested in public service or power? The difference now would be instead of being supported by the suckers that buy their wares they’re supported by taxes. The principle here is that greedy, power hungry people will either rise in the ranks of the free market, or big government depending on whether we live in a capitalistic or socialistic society.
The other alternative is to put on our boxing gloves and fight the merchants of cool who attempt to exploit society on all levels (not just teenagers). That is why religions and scriptures are so important. That is why we need to spend more time with literature of substance instead of the flashy shallow media that means to exploit us. This is not a battle that can be fought on a collective level with the state spoon feeding us the information that they deem edible, but by individually filtering what we see and consume. Teenagers need to be presented with other propositions that are obviously superior to MTV’s and then given the opportunity to decide for themselves. The presenting of those other proposition is the main thing we can do to counteract corporate greed, even more than turning off MTV or running away from media influences. I think the fault lays not so much with MTV but more so with parents not spending the time to show their children the alternatives to “cool”.
It is interesting for me to see exact parallels in today's marketing/ media world with the ones shown in this video, as our culture continues in this downward spiral. The "marriage" of Sprite to hip hop has now been done with energy drinks (monster, red bull and rockstar), but I think on an even larger scale. Also, the old "family friendly" WB has been replaced by ABC family... Their idea of a "family friendly" show is for one friend giving advice to another to use protection when his girlfriend wants to sleep with him.
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