Television Man

Television Man - Talking Heads

The man on television, or rather, the actor portraying a Main Street barbershop owner, buries his head in his hands. His little enterprise is about to be eradicated by the superstore settling right next to his shop – in this case, a hair dresser dynasty promising its customers a six dollar haircut. The ratty looking billion dollar operator rubs his paws and polishes his whiskers in anticipation of all the virgin small town hairdos about to come his way. No insignificant business owner can compete with that!
You can see the horror toiling away at the poor barber’s face. How can he ever survive this stock market listed bottom price tsunami? Outdoor lights and running water alone cost him six dollars per customer. Luckily, our small American businessman is a cunning customer. He speeds off to Office Depot, an office supplies superstore. There, from the same mogul that saw to it that the town’s mom and pop stationery shop went bankrupt the year before, our barber buys a couple of markers and a banner, all at bottom price. He writes something on the banner, and nails it to the facade of his shop: ‘We fix six dollar haircuts.’
In the next shot, we see that the superstore next door has been shut down. The windows are boarded up. All employees are fired. Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts have pulled back their planned investments in the town. The small town barber grins a wide grin. Main Street beats Wall Street. Up yours, corporate America! And all thanks to the bottom prices at Office Depot. Thank you, corporate America!

America is a fidgeting equivocator. Or, to put it another way, America is a contradiction in terms. Or: America is paradox incarnate. It all depends who you are writing for. Fact is that, in the small town barber commercial for Office Depot, it takes the company about half a minute to come to terms with that contradiction. Office Depot (but other corporations, too, like Walmart, K-Mart, Staples, Target) advertises with large = cheap = better. Bottom prices for stationery save the little man. And little men are what make America great.
Only thing is, the Office Depot commercial simultaneously conveys to the viewer that large = cheap = bad. The demon tycoon hair dresser, stock-marketed embodiment of evil, ruins not only the small town barber, but also the little man’s hair. What was so great again about the no-competition bottom prices of super corporations? Oh, but then of course the small town barber dreams about one day ruling a stock market listed barber dynasty of his very own. What was so bad again about the no-competition bottom prices of super corporations? It’s tricky.

Television is a great place to get a front row view of exactly that American incongruity in all its naked glory. And, of all the figurative nudity on television, commercials flash it the most brazen. The forgotten zit on an otherwise touched up, fidgeting ass. Or, to put it another way, the frontal nudity, the money shot, the teabag. It all depends who you are writing for. Of course all that insightful nakedness does not apply to every commercial. Forget about the universal promotional activity of the Swiffer or l’Oréal kind.
Those commercials are the same all over the world, and the only paradox smiling you in the chest is Sarah Jessica Parker. First, the television star lets someone else be pregnant for her. Then, she takes every media opportunity to announce that her body has stayed all nice and natural – she might not be fooled into some unflattering pregnancy, but she won’t be tricked by any Botox wrapped promises either. Meanwhile, the l’Oréal commercial shows her airbrushed almost beyond recognition into something of a Sarah Jessica Marker. Anyway. If you are looking for a good round of hypocrisy, universal commercial messages made by multinationals will do, but that is not what the American paradox is about.

The clothes come off in commercials made by all-American mega companies, for the all-American people. They infallibly put their finger on that complex entity of corporations versus the individual; that battle between pursuing the gargantuan American Dream and protecting personal American values. Somehow, those colossal corporations effortlessly get away with mashing together these conflicting opposites.

Take car manufacturer General Motors. Hemorrhaging money for years, bad management, underpaid workers, overpaid non workers and skyrocketing bonuses for the suits in power. It had to go wrong. And it did. The economic crisis of the past year finally snuffed the all-American company. No to a buy-out, yes to bankruptcy and eventually the U.S. government stepped in and took over. The company’s second beginning started with ending the production of three out of their seven brands of cars, and god knows how many jobs. But still, there are a lot of General Motors cars lying on the shelves. By the end of 2009 General Motors presents their ‘bankruptcy commercial’ to the public. The end of the American Dream. Or is it? General Motors has the answer.

‘We’re not witnessing the end of the American Car. We’re witnessing the rebirth of the American Car,’ a reliable male voice assures the viewer. Onscreen, we see the company’s big city industry (a skyline, a General Motors factory, thousands of commuting workers stepping onto a train platform and crowding a metropolitan sidewalk, the car assembly line and a parking lot filled with brand new General Motors cars). The images are alternated with all that is American and good: an athlete running with a prosthetic leg; a hockey player bent double on the ice; an American football player throwing a decisive pass. Will the athlete make it to the finish line? Can the hockey player get up from the ice? Will the pass turn into a touchdown? I’m sucked in. Popcorn at hand, I’m riveted to the screen. It’s Rocky, in one minute two. Big question is: am I watching Rocky I (Stallone loses the fight, but wins the moral battle), or Rockies II trough VI (Stallone wins the fight; there is no moral battle)?

‘Reinvention is the only way we can fix this… And fix it, we will,’ the voice hums. It’s not Rocky after all. General Motors goes Yoda and Star Wars. Yoda? If anything, aren’t they more of a Darth Vader in this scenario? Or at least that one guy who’s just in it for the money? Meanwhile, onscreen: a community pulling up the wooden front facade of someone’s new home, together. A carefree family dog, its head and tongue sticking out of the carefree family car. A united soccer stadium filled with moms and pops. And then, in rapid flashes: the first landing on the moon, Mohammad Ali, a butterfly, American football players all toppled over each other on the field. ‘This is not about going out of business; this is about getting down to business,’ the voice divines.

What did we just watch? A bankrupt company blatantly putting itself on the same level as the biggest and financially most successful blockbusters in movie history. A dehumanized corporation that failed on every account, comparing itself to the brave individual – the unfortunate athlete, Rocky Balboa, Luke Skywalker. Normal guys, reaching for the stars; who lose sometimes, who fall on their faces before they get back up again. But who never stop fighting for what they believe in. The little man that makes America great. The American Dream. That’s General Motors, according to General Motors.

Office Depot says that big companies are the good guys. They help the little man get rid of the big companies. Because big companies are the bad guys. General Motors says big companies and the little man are one and the same. They are Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, the guy who is only in it for the money, the robots, that hairy guy and and the gold bikini all rolled into one. That’s the American paradox in a nutshell. The larger than life corporation that worships the little man as it wrings his little neck. The little man cursing the mega company that ruined his Main Street stores – every weekend, in the mega check-out line. The little man who’d rather go bankrupt than get rid of the superstores and pay more than bottom price for his commodities. Who shakes one fist at the dirty money of Wall Street, while the other tries to grab a share.

Question is: who in this story is trying to break the little man’s back? The government? Government control is one of the biggest fears in the heart of the American. No more taxes! But in his State of the Union of January 2010, Barack Obama pointed out how it is exactly the little man who has profited from government interventions in the past year.
Wall Street? But Wall Street provides the little man with cheap stationery, and cheap haircuts and bottom price clothes and groceries and insurances. Wall Street is what keeps the little man alive in a time when all financial bets are off.
It isn’t the government, or Walmart, or Wall Street that's closing down Main Street – Main Street is closing down Main Street. And television man has known it all along.