Commercials are a necessary evil of television. If we didn’t have people selling us things, we wouldn’t have network TV–it’s what pays the bills. And that’s fine.
But recently, advertising agencies have been destroying the line between our minds and our wallets even more than usual, and while we understand their motives, this isn’t how it should be. We’re fine with you selling us things; just get out of our heads.
Get. The. Fuck. Out.
We don’t appreciate being entertained by commercials. Art has little place on TV, and it especially does not belong in ads trying to sell us shaving cream or the latest technological advances in genital herpes medication.
Television is like a body: The shows that we love are the skeleton, and the commercials are the fat that bloat our bodies and will eventually make our hearts fail. Now the fat is becoming so tightly wound around the skeleton that it’s hard to tell the difference. It’s time to go to the gym.
Commercials should be commercials, and TV should be TV. Period. And don’t market ideas or “coolness”–market products. At some point, when everything is a lifestyle and nothing is of tangible use, the bottom of the paper-thin boat is going to collapse, and marketers everywhere will drown in a sea of consumer apathy.
While we here at TV Party aren’t female teenagers, we can’t imagine how that stupid Alicia Keys DOVE brand show-mercial that aired during MTV’s The Hills could possibly help sell a product. Yet it kind of makes sense. Women do love to be clean.
More bothersome than MTV’s rampant mix of hardcore marketing and entertainment or Two and a Half Men‘s crass product placement are TV spots that play out like mini-art films. They aren’t to be trusted.
Oooh, look at the cool animation in the Zune commercial. Neato! And they’re playing my favorite Cat Power song. It’s like I’m watching a Jim Jarmusch movie! Cool!
(Vomits.)
We don’t want to forget that we are being brainwashed. We want to consume commercials like we consume anything else–on purpose.
So what do we do? How we do combat the tidal wave of advertising death that bombards us constantly? How do we fight ad agencies that use psychologists to mindfuck us, finding the way to best use our emotions against us?
We could stop watching TV altogether. (Bad idea.)
We could get a TIVO or similar product. (Good, expensive idea.)
We could … buy things?
Yes. We could buy things. Perfect.