Whither Economic Realism in Fictitious Media? Or: The Other Jeffersonian America
We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.
— Madonna
Does advertising actually work? Take The New Yorker, one of my favorite magazines, whose pages I linger over every other week or so. I cannot tell you a single product ever advertised therein. Nor would I ever ask for a prescription drug due to having seen it on television. I don’t smoke, or drink Coca Cola or Pepsi. Sure, advertising works on kids, as evidenced by the Nike sneakers of my youth (as a Magic Johnson fan!), but I always doubted whether advertising had much of an impact on my adult life, until recently, when I began to reflect on The Tab That Ate America, as James “branded” it.
So. Americans spend tons of dough, on credit cards, and save nothing, ever. It’s as if everyone imagines they’re a lot richer than they actually are. And why might this be so? One reason, I posit, is that most Hollywood films portray characters whose houses and possessions could only be had on 6 figures a year, even though the characters are playful twentysomethings working in creative fields, or wedding singers, or own an independent children’s bookstore. Another is that Monica Geller and Rachel Greene inhabit an enormous Manhattan apartment on the salaries of a chef and a coffee shop waitress, Seventh Heaven portrays a guy on a minister’s salary comfortably raising seven kids in a huge house, and The OC, Gossip Girl and Beverly Hills 90210 are the most widely watched portrayals of high school life for successive generations.
Whatever happened to All in the Family? It went off the air, and the Jeffersons took their dry cleaning profits to the Upper East Side, where they bought a deluxe apartment in the sky. Three’s Company, Night Court and Family Ties were game portrayals of the working man, sure, but then the Cosbys were normal — perniciously so in just this one case! — and you could only be lower middle class in cartoons like The Simpsons, and even then you got all the beer, donuts and noticeably improved animation technology you wanted.
So okay, some shows are aspirational, or else play on the schadenfreude/train wreck impulse of tweaking the rich (the genius of The Real Housewives of OC is that it is the former for some people and the latter for others). And the rich are able to fascinate, and always will be. But surely the fact that today’s shows are at root vehicles to sell consumer products, and thus targeted at the increasingly sought after rich consumer, is partly responsible for the fact that 95 percent of fictional portrayals of American life create the illusion that people with your job are a hell of a lot richer than they actually are.
I’m unemployed, so I’m gonna witthold certain compelling examples in an effort to sell an essay on this topic somewhere that’ll pay me for it. And you know where that won’t be? A glossy magazine! They are guilty as anyone at targeting content that appeals to a demographic most of which cannot afford the products advertised on the same pages. Especially wedding magazines — damn you Sarah Gray Miller. Even the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, an advertising vehicle concerned so little with actual swimsuit fashion that it often takes to body painting “swimsuits” on the models, nevertheless opts, when it does feature actual garments, to present two pieces that go for like $875 (surong not included!). What middle income guy can get away with buying that for their girlfriend or wife, to use a double entendre.
Is there something to this? Is advertising ruining our capacity to assess what constitutes a normal life by affecting, infiltrating and infecting our films, TV shows and magazines? If so, can we hire De Beers marketers to drum up demand for diamonds in China, pass a law by which the United States government nationalizes our nation’s bling, and sell off our least defensible, least useful luxury items to get us out of hock, as if China were our pawn shop (which, Jim Fallows, is there anything to that analogy?)?
The dubious appearance of double question marks is causing me to end this post immediately.
UPDATE: And music too.
You cannot name a single product advertized in The New Yorker? Not even the “poke boat”? Really?
— Noah Millman · Feb 13, 02:55 PM · #
Re: the minister’s salary. I grew up in an affluent Southern suburb, and ministers at large churches (1,000-plus members) often made six figures, some as high as $300,000.
— E · Feb 13, 03:02 PM · #
If I were really rich and my sense of irony were entirely off the leash, I would do all my Christmas shopping from the weird tranche of vendors in the back of The Atlantic. Authentic French berets for everyone!
I’ve spent hours in a “poke boat” on the Chesapeake Bay. Its infelicitous name is only one of its various uncool aspects (my mom got it for her own use, which should give you pause right there), but it was among the first mass-market plastic kayaks out there. Back before every SUV had a sea kayak on top in the summertime, there was the poke boat. Thanks for the reminder!
— Matt Frost · Feb 13, 03:28 PM · #
Advertising doesn’t work on you, Conor, because you have no money. When you have some money, and need to purchase, let say, a family vehicle, you’ll notice that advertising for minivans become enthralling!
To the larger point, well yes; amongst a certain class of young people (and maybe others) there is a huge gap between how they think things are in real life, and how things are in real life in matters of remuneration and personal finance. My beloved city teems with post SATC aspirants, who (it seems to me) having found out they can’t afford Carry Bradshaw’s shoes or Carry Bradshaw’s apartment, content themselves by drinking Carry Bradshaw’s latte; but if they had any sense, they’d brew coffee at home, and use the difference to pay down their credit card debt.
I know I know, this is the same tired refrain of countless generations of alter cockers before me. Kids today. they’ve got unrealistic expectations and a bizarre and unfounded sense of entitlement. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
Anyway, it looks like the bill’s come due for the lattes and the Mc Mansions and all the rest of the things we bought that we didn’t need, couldn’t afford and don’t make us happy. Expect more shows that look like “Rosanne”.
— Tony Comstock · Feb 13, 03:30 PM · #
“Another is that Monica Geller and Rachel Greene inhabit an enormous Manhattan apartment on the salaries of a chef and a coffee shop waitress….”
I just saw a relevant episode (I like to stay in touch with my old friends) and the apartment belongs to Monica’s grandma and is rent controlled. They are there illegally.
About advertising working, I have two words for you: death tax.
— cw · Feb 13, 05:30 PM · #
“The Simpsons” was the only lower-middle class show? Uh, “Roseanne” was on top of the ratings all through the late-80s, early-90s.
— e · Feb 13, 05:41 PM · #
I’ve always been doubtful of the argument that “consumerism” is the fault of advertising and/or the media. It’s always seemed a bit simple to me, and it’s always seemed to put a heavy discount on people’s free will and common sense. I’m never going to buy a car just because an ad told me to, but all those drones who go around living beyond their means because of what they see on TV! I’m not saying that’s what you’re saying, but it’s often what the argument sounds like.
American politicians pander about “the American worker” but I as a Frenchman am very grateful for the American consumer. In every past recession, commentators opined that, ah, this will mean that finally, the American consumer will have to stop living beyond his means, will have to be more reasonable. And in every past recession, the recession ended faster than most anticipated precisely because the American consumer, well, bought a bunch of stuff, and pulled the tractor out of the ditch. Financiers used to talk about the “Greenspan put” but it was really a “consumer put.” As a European whose economic fortunes ebb and flow with the US’s, I’d like to tip my hat to the American consumer, rather than berate him for buying whatever he wants. (Of course the current crisis is a crisis of leverage so the American consumer might not be the parachute he once was, but he has served us quite well in the past!)
A better answer to “Why the hell do Americans buy so much stuff?” might lie with the permanent income hypothesis, one of Milton Friedman’s main contributions to the dismal science. This holds that people don’t decide how much to spend and how much to save on the basis of their current income but on the basis of what they think they’ll earn over their lifetime. And Americans are an optimistic bunch! Polls routinely show that they’re more likely than Europeans to think their economic fortunes will improve. If you think you’re going to get richer it makes sense to get a down payment on the future.
The American consumer’s “over” consumption may have put us in a bind today, but it certainly served him and the global economy quite well for almost thirty years of tremendous economic growth. And I believe he will continue to do so.
— PEG · Feb 13, 06:51 PM · #
“One reason, I posit, is that most Hollywood films portray characters whose houses and possessions could only be had on 6 figures a year, even though the characters are playful twentysomethings”
A+ Post! And I think there is room to expand it. (I read something like this once, but it was too Attack Dog The Democrats – remember 2005? – and missed the greater points in trends in consumer, and labor, demographics.)
I also want to note the vast amount of entertainment dollars spent portraying higher-end lawyers as having a fun, stressful-in-only-a-quirky-way job.
— Rortybomb · Feb 13, 07:05 PM · #
Maybe you can tap Bill Bennett to do a “Book of Virtues” for those who aspire to work in the glamour professions and/or live in desirable cosmopolitan areas.
— Tony Comstock · Feb 13, 07:33 PM · #
Our country is run by the Banksterium, which creates money out of nothing through the Federal Reserve. The banksters long ago bought up the mass media and heavily subsidize it as a propaganda tool. Advertising doesn’t have to make money, it’s just there to create the illusion of a free market and free society.
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