Julian Penrod
4 Fairfield Avenue
West Caldwell, New Jersey 07006
(973) 220-1601
julianpenrod@comcast.net

December 4, 2005




Letters to the Editor






Dear sirs:

A malignant as it is to engage in the corrupt and low, it is just as unethical to be aware of them and not acknowledge it.

It has rarely been the case that big business has been as suspect in mass criminality as in the past couple of decades. In fact, since the days of the "robber barons", public suspicion of corporations has not been as high. Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken showing that the stock market, apparently, is rigged so the rich only get richer. The CEO's of Enron, Tyco, WorldCom and Global Crossing using fraudulent accounting. Enron, itself, evidently even engineering a fraudulent "energy crisis" in California, and destroying many people's savings in the process, for the purpose of installing an evident compliant, witless dullard, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as governor. Pharmaceutical houses like Merck churning out what seems to amount to little more than petrochemical waste, like Vioxx, Bextra and Celebrex, and touting it as "medication". Carmakers apparently deliberately installing the patent safety hazard of absurdly elevated trunk lids, and associated minimized rear windows, necessitating the expensive installation of closed circuit TV, to avoid accidents. Credit card companies instituting a system whereby anything from taking out a loan to falling behind in payments to other credit cards will automatically hike your interests on every card. The Bush Labor Department issuing a list of recommendations whereby employers could literally stiff their employees the pay for overtime. And fewer and fewer people seem to doubt that the invasion of Iraq was done for the purpose of allowing Bush's criminal corporate cronies to steal their oil.

Yet there seem many who insist on walking in blissful ignorance through the minefield that evident rampant corporation corruption apparently threatens to make of the world, using the convenient "excuse" that CEO's say they did nothing wrong, and that should be good enough for anyone. But, when malevolence is as saturated as it appears to be in the corporate world, today, you can expect to find it at every level. And it is. You need look no farther than the average commercial, these days, to find evidence of the criminal mentality that seems in control of the business world, today.

Consider, for example, the commercial for the Hyundai Sonata. A model of the car is seen driving through a gigantic warehouse, picking its way through hazards, avoiding obstacles, stopping short before obstructions, weaving around road cones and maneuvering through water. A large part of the commercial, literally, is a collection of gigantic metal walls and blocks that slide out in front of the car, forcing it to sidestep them; or open and close, forcing it to accelerate through; or shoot up out of the floor, forcing it to stop on a dime. It's intended to demonstrate the handling capability of the car. Except that every one of the "barriers" is a computer generated image! Apparently, the car was just driving on its own through the warehouse, maneuvering as well as its questionable workmanship provided, then the "walls" and "blocks" were inserted later, in accordance with the car's handling, to make it appear as if it can deal with obstacles! How much truthfulness can be expected of a car company that would resort to such deceit?

A commercial for Buick's Lucerne starts with an apparently maliciously insincere description of a snowflake. With evident mock innocuousness, the voice describes a snowflake as “no two alike” and “a miracle”, then proceeds to say, arrogantly, “and there’s nothing we like better than eliminating it with a blast of heated windshield wiper fluid”. Malevolently, the voice then adds, “That’s gotta hurt!” It is nothing less than a sign of depraved indifference to applaud the fact that something will cause pain, and, if Buick is so willing to display viciousness, in this way, what compassion can they be expected to have for the evident pigeons suckered into buying their cars? The fact that it seems to involve an extra expense in the design of your car seems to thrill them, too, but you’re not permitted to think that they did this entirely to jack up the price of your car. Just like they and other carmakers, who developed outlandishly elevated trunk lids, and artificially narrow rear windows, order you not to think that that was undertaken so they would have an excuse to install enormously expensive closed circuit TV cameras on your car, for safety and insurance sake!

Hewlett Packard promoted its Pavilion laptop computer, by displaying its potential for use by students to watch everything from movies to music, while in class, instead of paying attention to the teacher!

Lending Tree displays an eminent example of misdirection in their commercial that shows a man and woman effectively “turning the tables” and interviewing banks, to see who will provide them a loan. In each case, they diffidently dismiss the interviewee and shout, “Next!” The evident message of the commercial is of the people being able to treat banks as contemptuously as banks supposedly treated them. “Lending Tree makes banks compete for your business”, the tag line runs. Carefully left unmentioned, however, amidst all the successive dismissals, is any sign of acceptance! What good is it to have a string of banks provide their credentials if you don’t find a bank with the right credentials so you can apply for a loan? Banks representatives are depicted as endlessly auditioning for your approval, but none of them is shown as actually have conditions acceptable enough to be chosen! “Lending Tree” promises only to send you a lot of banks to choose among, but it doesn’t promise to send a bank whose terms you will be able to use! It’s like the subtle technique on advertisements for antiseptics where most, but not all, bacteria are represented as being killed! They are being truthful, in that way, but seem to want you to perceive the surface as entirely clean!

Less clever, but no less blatant, in their machinations is Vonage. Their commercials seem deliberately designed to divert the viewer from the facts. There, an individual claiming to have signed on to the Vonage service, touts the “advantages” of the company. Meanwhile, weird, unrelated events take place, in the background, to the other side. In one case, it’s a man and woman plant a garden naked, in another, some bloated, worthless excuse for a “man” performs the “Robot Dance”. It’s all evidently engineered to keep the viewer from paying attention to the apparently less than desirable qualities being mentioned in the foreground. Vonage, it will be remembered, is also the company that aired a campaign of commercials showing individuals falling in ponds, getting hit with a model rocket or having a tree fall on their cars while a mocking tune played in the background. And it was all done to “illustrate” the apparently calculatedly non-forthcoming sentiment that not subscribing to Vonage would be “stupid”. Buick’s contempt for others is demonstrated through their reaction to obliterating a snowflake; Vonage made its apparent viciousness eminently clear by actually laughing at the misfortunes of others. Do you think, when things go bad for you, using their service, that they won’t laugh just as malevolently at you?

Samsung, though, seems to have raised the stakes higher than most. Their commercial details an employee at a major multinational corporation literally blackmailing his way to the top, using indiscreet and incriminating pictures he snapped of company execs at a company party! If they endorse the use of their product for a patently criminal enterprise, what kind of scruples is it likely that they keep, with respect to customers?

It is often questioned just how much ethics the average big corporation can be expected to have. The answer seems more than eminent and easily available, in the venues companies use to tout what they consider their virtues and their “philosophies”, or, at least, their ethical tolerances. It is also often opined that companies make it difficult to find out specifics about their business behavior. If that were truly the case, it could be suggested that it would be legitimate for some time to go by before any action was taken by consumers against the depredations of corporations. But, when it is made so blatantly obvious, as it is in the commercials, there is no excuse for consumers not rebelling against the evident untruthfulness and contempt demonstrated by those businesses.

When big business shows it has nothing but contempt for the public, that it sees them as witless “beasts of burden”, intended only to purchase garbage products at inflated prices, the legitimate reaction, by the public, is one of resentment and denunciation. But the public have a right to a say only if they make use of it.



Julian Penrod

BRAVO !!!! Not only that but they sponsor some of the most salacious TV movies/previews with a holiday theme that I have ever been assaulted with.

first couple paragraphs there I could argue with you if I didn't agree on the rest of it so much. Like when I go to Subway and see this awesome sandwich on the display, and what I get is some withered peice of log.

What's the call to action? Boycott TV? Write letters to all CEO's?

I don't own a Hyundai, Buick, Vonage, HP computer, Samsung anything... what more can I do? I totally agree with you on the underlying message to consumers though. The basic contempt displayed by what they think we want in advertising.

What kind of politicians to advertising people vote for?

You bring up some pretty good points there but, I'd venture to say that they are just commercials designed with the intent of getting your attention. JMO, though.

Julian:

I have to say that this is a post which deserves to be read.

Well thought out, well researched, well written, and indeed reflective of someone who doesn't "watch" TV, but one who "sees" what's on TV.

Bravo.

The influence of multinational corporation, and the reality they present to people on the TV daily (in immense measure)--a reality that is accepted almost without a twitch by most people---is clearly illustrated, and I commend you for the effort you put forth in this post.

I may comment further when I have time...

Exceptionally well constructed piece.
Regards.

Nowhere is this notion more prevalent than in the advertising industry. Aside from life itself, advertising is probably the most commodified force in the universe. In fact, since lifestyle has become the primary subject of advertising and the world’s population are the subjects of advertisements, the focus of advertising has shifted from selling a product to selling an idea, a lifestyle; ads attempt to sell you your perception of reality.

As Jean Kilbourne emphatically states in “Beauty and the Beast of Advertising,” “Advertising... affects all of us throughout our lives... constituting perhaps the most powerful educational force in society” (121). She is not generally commenting on academic education, rather more acutely, she is directing her criticism upon socialization--the construct through which we form our perceptions of the world and ourselves. The issue at the core of this powerful force is identity: be it self-identity, group identity, or cultural identity. Identity commodification is the target of the advertising industry. Who am I, what, and why? This question embodies the essential conception of identity and today the answer no longer comes from within. The capitalist corporate community provides the answers for you. They define the world and they do so by encompassing the entire sphere of life. Their means is advertising. They do not want you to just buy their product, they want to sell you their ideology, make you their commodity. Kilbourne says: “But the ads sell a great deal more than products. They sell values, images, and concepts of worth, love and sexuality, popularity and normalcy. They tell us who we are and who we should be” (121).

It is often difficult to realize the vastness of a single corporation’s control, and it is just as hard to see the effort of that corporation to seize that control. Through mergers, subsidiaries, buyouts, and the such, mega-corporations like General Electric are able to softly, subtly, and stealthily surround consumers with their control and remain unnoticed to a high degree. On the surface, “We Bring Good Things To Life” appears to be a harmless and inviting advertising slogan. But when you consider it as a statement meant to encourage, cajole, and demand that we buy and consume a way of life, what constitutes good life, that there is nothing “good” enough outside of General Electric’s commodification sphere, then it is an overwhelming phrase. “In encouraging all manner of consumption, advertising helps support an economy of mass production. Thus, advertising conveys ideas that are political and system maintaining. Such ideas are ideological in nature.” These words, from William O’Barr’s Culture and the Ad: Exploring Otherness in the World of Advertising (2), reflect the intentions of GE’s slogan to have a tremendous significance in the world.

Jean Kilbourne is absolutely correct.

You bring up additional excellent points.

Advertising and the corporate structure does in fact dictate the lives of most people.

Of course, there's a remedy for this, a remedy for the effects of corporate construction of our perception of reality, and our ideas regarding what's good and not, what's beautiful and not, etc...

Don't watch advertising. Don't listen to advertising. Hit the mute button. Do it for a solid week and see how much better you feel deep inside for avoiding it. Also avoid the mainstrem news broadcast and the weather forecasts. Try it for a week. You'll come to a very clear understanding of just how much influence these things have on you, and you'll also find out just how insidious their crap is, and how difficult it is to avoid it (which is something that's created purposefully by the corporate structure).


Regards.

This has all been going on for decades. Welcome to the world.

Yes, it has been going on for decades.
The problem is that because it is so insidious, so set into the fabric of reality (indeed, it constitutes the fundamental world view for the vast majority of people), it remains very largely un-seen.

Exposing it may stimulate just a few to actually look at the effect this all has; how it constitutes their reality, and promt those few to make some changes...all of which could be for nothing but the better.

In that, Julian's exposition serves a very good purpose.

You say, "Welcome to the world," as if this is all common knowledge and he is just discovering it. Not so. He has seen something the vast majority of people have not.

If you've actually seen this, good. You are not alone, obviously.

Regards.

I tried Diet Dr. Pepper. To my chagrin it did not in fact taste more like regular Dr. Pepper.

I felt penetrated.