The Genius of Advertising

Just about everyone today has noticed that drug companies spend a lot on television advertising, creating demand for cures to diseases and conditions that probably don’t really exist. Does the idea of RLS, “Restless Leg Syndrome,” sound fishy to you too? The names of the drugs themselves are silly enough. Prilosec – is that “The Purple Pill?” The ads don’t even identify what this drug actually is meant to cure. And then there's Flomax, which helps men take a more substantive leak and at more convenient times. And Flonase to keep your sinus cavity clear (imagine mixing them up for a while and eventually taking your leaks through your nose?) But the long list of side effects, read on the commercials at lightning speed with 4 point type flashing on the screen – are the real killers. Is it Viagra that tells you to call a doctor if you experience a four-hour erection? My doctor is cute, but if I have a four-hour erection there are some other people I’m going to call first. There’s actually a medical term to describe a person who has such an erection, but I’d be inclined to call him “popular” or perhaps “stud.”

On a less onerous level I’m enamored with the way advertisers enliven our language, sense perceptions and life experiences by describing their products in such vital, imaginative and uplifting ways. I recently started a new stick of deodorant and realized that I had purchased something inspired by the smell of “Ocean Surf”? When I don’t use deodorant I smell more than a bit like the Jersey Shore, so why exactly wasn’t I smart enough to try something more in line with the smell I was aiming for? I’m surprised in our celebrity-loving age, for example, that I couldn’t find “George Clooney” or “Mark Walhburg” Speedstick at my neighborhood supermarket. On a similar wavelength, do Irish springs really smell like soap? Do the fish mind or have they just gotten used to it?

Sometimes advertisers and their clients just cut corners in doing some proper copy editing on their products. I once used an acne wash that claimed to offer “100+ uses.” It took me three years to figure out that this meant I could wash my face about 100 times before I ran out of the product. But for at least three years I would be lost in thought while taking a shower wondering what those “100+ uses” might be. Okay, I suppose washing my face, back, chest, upper arms and buttocks could technically be considered five distinct uses of acne wash, but that leaves me with 95 more to come up with. Perhaps I could clean the stovetop with my acne wash. This I came up with because Clearasil wash looks familiar to the very effective Softscrub cleanser that I have in my kitchen pantry. But would I really want to use such a product on my face? Okay, we’re up to six uses. I could make art out of it, because, as you know, you can make art out of anything here in the 21st Century. How about salad dressing?

"Into the Wild"

Sean Penn’s movie "Into the Wild" is a landmark cultural event. It might not be seen that way now, but over time this film’s straightforward story-telling and illumination of deeper human truths will stand in the starkest contrast to the false values and cruel lies that characterize far too many aspects of American life during the second Bush Administration.

By chance, I was reading Jon Krakauer’s original book version of Into the Wild at the time the advertisements for the film first appeared, and I’d encourage anyone interested in seeing the film to read Krakauer first. The book’s journalistic rigor – entirely admirable, even necessary – presents an all-sides view of Christopher J. McCandless, the young man of privilege who escapes the confusion of his family life and the perceived falseness of his parents’ imperfect marriage, in the search for a more truthful existence on the road and ultimately in the Alaskan wilderness. While Krakauer is clearly sympathetic to McCandless, he centers much of the character’s wanderlust in an adventurer’s almost genetic longing for new experience. In Penn’s vivid adaptation, the clay of Krakauer’s way with the story is fired and brought fully to life. The literary inspirations that moved McCandless– from Thoreau to Tolstoy and Pasterrnak, his psychological trauma, his profound attraction to nature, his guilelessness – all of these come together in a way that leaves you feeling that McCandless wasn’t foolhardy or careless, but simply doing the only thing that was right for him.

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth,” Thoreau implores in Walden, and these words are perhaps the single greatest inspiration fueling McCandless’s quest – indeed, they are the underpinning of his entire life. And Penn has given us just that: the truth not only about who McCandless was, but also where the true American spirit resides.

Penn’s respect for McCandless’s story is complete: not one scene is too long, nothing is underlined for effect, clichés are nowhere to be found. As the film progresses the spiritual dimension of McCandless’s quest grows ever more powerful and rings ever more true. The lonely McCandless, trapped in the wilderness, succumbing to starvation, is revealed not as the idealistic and tragic fool. Rather he is shown as a martyr whose life can be held up as a mirror to hordes of people who have long forgotten how to seek the truth and long for a better life and more just society.

During Bushes’ reign of error, it’s has been near impossible to utter the phrase, “I’m proud to be an American.” Sean Penn has flown to Venezuelan and to Iran to meet with their people and leaders to make political statements, but his strongest and longest-lasting anti-Bush statement has been made in this scrupulously honest, spiritually joyous and profoundly American film.