Too frequently, the public takes the media way too seriously, which is exactly what media producers want the public to do.
It is a situation that calls for deconstruction. Let’s call it “Deconstructing Media.” By deconstructing media products, the public can get a picture of how the media does its work to inform, entertain and manipulate mass audiences. The public sorely needs educating in this subject – none of it is taught in K-12 – and I will make Deconstructing Media a regular feature in this blog.
The Carl’s Jr. television commercial for its “Flat Buns” hamburger is a good product with which to begin. Its release a couple of weeks ago created quite a stir, which was one of the goals of the producers.
Like all media products – information, entertainment, manipulation – this commercial was constructed by professionals using a set of media codes. The codes in play here are sex (very popular media code), conflict, proximity, demographics, and the television revenue formula.
The mission: get boys ages 10 to 18 (the demographic) to buy at least one of the new Carl’s Jr. Flat Buns Patty Melts. Like every patty melt before it, the Carl’s Jr. version is made on rye bread, which wouldn’t spark much interest in the 10-to-18 libido or palate. “Flat buns,” though, has a sex connection. First, the media producers wrote a rap song about flat buns (“Flatness makes a better rear, Stand sideways girl, you disappear”) that appealed musically, and maybe anatomically, to the demographic.
The company had success with the Flat Buns angle as a radio commercial, so they ordered a television version. The rap music would still work, but using flat buns as a visual hook might not. That, obviously, from their selection of the “schoolteacher” in the commercial, was the producers’ conclusion. She had round buns and a tight skirt. Blonde hair. About 25. Black patent pumps, five-inch heels. Danced on the desk. Like no schoolteacher you ever saw. Sex, when she was on-screen, was more important than flat buns; that connection was achieved by boys chalking round buns on the blackboard and then erasing them “flat.” It was pretty corny.
People who were upset said the woman “demeaned” teachers, and education, and the classroom. But she wasn’t a teacher. She was a professional entertainer and a good one. She was a model and a dancer and probably has played roles in Shakespeare. The two rapper boys weren’t really rapper boys; they were young actors, with years of hard study behind them to land such roles in a national commercial.
The people in the commercial were only acting, and their roles were written around sex, conflict (classroom setting, rap, sex) and emotional proximity to the demographic (“Don’t you wish our classrooms were like that?”), to get the demographic to identify, and want flat buns, too.
How many boys did identify, do you think? Census estimates at the end of 2006 show about 21 million boys in the 10-19 age group. It is never the intention of a media producer to capture the entire audience. In marketing, a response rate of 3 percent is most satisfactory, particularly in television marketing, which is an exercise in the power of small numbers. It also means that 97 percent of the boys did not respond, which is a good number to remember when you start worrying about the effect of the commercial on the future of civilization.
Enough people did worry, though, for the commercial to make news, which the media producers love, because it means more people know about the commercial, which almost always drives sales up. Making news is how Madonna made herself so famous.
September 18, 2007
September 17, 2007
Acorn Fever 2007
In some parts of the world, it is hurricane season. In Southern California it is Acorn Fever season, and this year it looks like we may have dodged a bullet.
Acorn Fever is serious. It happens when we get our first little cool snap. In Southern California, near the coast, that can happen anywhere from mid-August on. After weeks of heat and monsoon humidity, temperatures will drop overnight into the 50s at the coast and the 60s inland, with cloud cover and a thick, drizzly cloud deck we call the "marine layer."
The danger is in feeling a need to pull on sweaters and sweat pants, first thing when you get out of bed in the morning. That is the first symptom of Acorn Fever. Other symptoms include oatmeal for breakfast, a compulsion to build a fire, an urge to rake leaves, a sudden craving for apple pie, and an impulse to get into the car and drive to one of our nearby mountain (low mountains) towns and drink apple cider.
When it hits, a person with Acorn Fever will wear tweeds, woolens, sweaters and scarves to work. People may even turn on their car heaters. It is very dangerous. It feels good at first, and there is a strong suggestion of welcome coziness on downtown streets, watching workers entering buildings with their chins snuggled into Burberry scarves.
The problem is, by noon the temperature may be back up to 80-85 degrees, and even warmer inland. Acorn Fever victims get caught in the heat, and pretty soon the emergency vehicles start to roll, the responders looking for heaps of soggy woolens on the sidewalks, and smoke curling from chimneys, or residents in Pendletons out on the lawn, raking imaginary leaves.
Some years are worse than others, of course depending on weather conditions. This year, it looks like we'll get away easy. Two or three weeks ago, we had a hot spell that drove temperatures into the 90s even at the coast. In that scenario, Acorn Fever could be sparked by temperatures dropping into the low 70s. Two days after the hot spell broke, I in fact wore my sweatshirt outside to get the papers. I checked the temperature on the porch. It was 71 degrees. The virus can't exist in temperatures above 67, so I knew this was a faux fever.
Warm, but not hot, days, followed, with lower humidities. Thank goodness. An August outbreak can be critical, with September traditionally being one of our hottest months of the year. Now it is Sept. 17, and temperatures are trending down again. It was very cool and breezy overnight. This morning I thought about, but didn't don, sweat pants. The weather bureau says tomorrow will be slightly warmer, but then a system coming down the coast could bring very cool weather – even some rain – by Friday. I can guarantee the smell of woodsmoke over the city on Saturday, and an increase in mountain-bound traffic. It will be a day to watch weather patterns developing for next week. If we get through that, I think we may get home scot-free.
Acorn Fever is serious. It happens when we get our first little cool snap. In Southern California, near the coast, that can happen anywhere from mid-August on. After weeks of heat and monsoon humidity, temperatures will drop overnight into the 50s at the coast and the 60s inland, with cloud cover and a thick, drizzly cloud deck we call the "marine layer."
The danger is in feeling a need to pull on sweaters and sweat pants, first thing when you get out of bed in the morning. That is the first symptom of Acorn Fever. Other symptoms include oatmeal for breakfast, a compulsion to build a fire, an urge to rake leaves, a sudden craving for apple pie, and an impulse to get into the car and drive to one of our nearby mountain (low mountains) towns and drink apple cider.
When it hits, a person with Acorn Fever will wear tweeds, woolens, sweaters and scarves to work. People may even turn on their car heaters. It is very dangerous. It feels good at first, and there is a strong suggestion of welcome coziness on downtown streets, watching workers entering buildings with their chins snuggled into Burberry scarves.
The problem is, by noon the temperature may be back up to 80-85 degrees, and even warmer inland. Acorn Fever victims get caught in the heat, and pretty soon the emergency vehicles start to roll, the responders looking for heaps of soggy woolens on the sidewalks, and smoke curling from chimneys, or residents in Pendletons out on the lawn, raking imaginary leaves.
Some years are worse than others, of course depending on weather conditions. This year, it looks like we'll get away easy. Two or three weeks ago, we had a hot spell that drove temperatures into the 90s even at the coast. In that scenario, Acorn Fever could be sparked by temperatures dropping into the low 70s. Two days after the hot spell broke, I in fact wore my sweatshirt outside to get the papers. I checked the temperature on the porch. It was 71 degrees. The virus can't exist in temperatures above 67, so I knew this was a faux fever.
Warm, but not hot, days, followed, with lower humidities. Thank goodness. An August outbreak can be critical, with September traditionally being one of our hottest months of the year. Now it is Sept. 17, and temperatures are trending down again. It was very cool and breezy overnight. This morning I thought about, but didn't don, sweat pants. The weather bureau says tomorrow will be slightly warmer, but then a system coming down the coast could bring very cool weather – even some rain – by Friday. I can guarantee the smell of woodsmoke over the city on Saturday, and an increase in mountain-bound traffic. It will be a day to watch weather patterns developing for next week. If we get through that, I think we may get home scot-free.
September 07, 2007
A Southwest circle closes
Kyla Ebbert just tried to take her long legs and Hooters waitress body onto a Southwest Airlines flight 35 years too late.
Kyla, a 23-year-old college student in San Diego and, yes, a Hooters waitress, wanted to fly from San Diego to Tucson recently. After she had boarded and taken her seat, she was motioned to the front by a Southwest employee named Keith. At the front, Keith said Kyla was not dressed appropriately and would have to leave the aircraft.
Kyla, blonde and tanned, was wearing a bra, a white tank top, a sort of short-sleeved green sweater that buttoned underneath her Hooters credentials, and a decidedly short white denim miniskirt. After a chat, and then an argument, in hearing range of passengers, Kyla was permitted to remain on the plane to make an important appointment in Tucson. She said she was deeply embarrassed. From Tucson, she called her mother in tears. From there, the story found its way into Gerry Braun's column in The San Diego Union-Tribune, and then, this morning, onto the "Today" show.
Kyla said all she wanted was an apology. Thirty-five years ago, she might have received an invitation to become a Southwest flight attendant.
I remember flying Southwest when it was a start-up, serving Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. This was in the early '70s. Southwest was the way to go. They flew jets, early-generation Boeing 737s. They were cheap, they were on time, and they were fun. If you've flown Southwest, you have heard the echo of the old good-time spirit that pulled the airline's first passengers onboard all those years ago.
It was a short flight between any of Southwest's original cities, so management figured if drinking time was short, it only made sense to pour doubles, if a passenger wanted a cocktail. The doubles were served in real glasses, with lots of ice, and they were $2 each. You didn't get that on Braniff or American or Continental.
Whisking the cocktails up and down the aisles were stewardesses – a 1970s term for flight attendants – in outfits still worn onto airplanes in 2007 by San Diego college students named Kyla. Orange short shorts. I don't remember miniskirts as part of the uniform, but I remember the short shorts, and the high (well, 2-inch) heels, tight tops, and cleavage. I figured Southwest management decided Texas wasn’t much to look at through the window, so they'd give us something to look at inside.
I hope Gerry Braun is already on the telephone to a Southwest stew from the early days. His story is already stirring up a lot of coverage, so to speak, and happy reminiscences. My pal Jon Standefer flew Southwest a lot. We were talking about Kyla's plight today, and we agreed that the old Southwest outfits looked very much like early Hooters. He told me one day he was on a flight leaving Dallas for Houston. But they had to hold the flight on the tarmac while a mechanical problem was fixed. It wound up taking a couple of hours, but nobody cared. Inside, the lead stew had announced the delay and said, "Drinks on the house."
Is that any way to run an airline? Lord, it was. I have a sort of bond with Herb Kelleher, who was a Southwest founder and didn't retire until just recently. On my desk is a wrapped roll of Scott Tissue from one of Southwest's airplanes, and it is inscribed: "For Emergency Use Only! – Herb Kelleher."
That's another story. For now, I think I'll ask if he can dig up Southwest shorts and top, circa 1973, to send to Kyla. And I'll take a $2 double.
Kyla, a 23-year-old college student in San Diego and, yes, a Hooters waitress, wanted to fly from San Diego to Tucson recently. After she had boarded and taken her seat, she was motioned to the front by a Southwest employee named Keith. At the front, Keith said Kyla was not dressed appropriately and would have to leave the aircraft.
Kyla, blonde and tanned, was wearing a bra, a white tank top, a sort of short-sleeved green sweater that buttoned underneath her Hooters credentials, and a decidedly short white denim miniskirt. After a chat, and then an argument, in hearing range of passengers, Kyla was permitted to remain on the plane to make an important appointment in Tucson. She said she was deeply embarrassed. From Tucson, she called her mother in tears. From there, the story found its way into Gerry Braun's column in The San Diego Union-Tribune, and then, this morning, onto the "Today" show.
Kyla said all she wanted was an apology. Thirty-five years ago, she might have received an invitation to become a Southwest flight attendant.
I remember flying Southwest when it was a start-up, serving Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. This was in the early '70s. Southwest was the way to go. They flew jets, early-generation Boeing 737s. They were cheap, they were on time, and they were fun. If you've flown Southwest, you have heard the echo of the old good-time spirit that pulled the airline's first passengers onboard all those years ago.
It was a short flight between any of Southwest's original cities, so management figured if drinking time was short, it only made sense to pour doubles, if a passenger wanted a cocktail. The doubles were served in real glasses, with lots of ice, and they were $2 each. You didn't get that on Braniff or American or Continental.
Whisking the cocktails up and down the aisles were stewardesses – a 1970s term for flight attendants – in outfits still worn onto airplanes in 2007 by San Diego college students named Kyla. Orange short shorts. I don't remember miniskirts as part of the uniform, but I remember the short shorts, and the high (well, 2-inch) heels, tight tops, and cleavage. I figured Southwest management decided Texas wasn’t much to look at through the window, so they'd give us something to look at inside.
I hope Gerry Braun is already on the telephone to a Southwest stew from the early days. His story is already stirring up a lot of coverage, so to speak, and happy reminiscences. My pal Jon Standefer flew Southwest a lot. We were talking about Kyla's plight today, and we agreed that the old Southwest outfits looked very much like early Hooters. He told me one day he was on a flight leaving Dallas for Houston. But they had to hold the flight on the tarmac while a mechanical problem was fixed. It wound up taking a couple of hours, but nobody cared. Inside, the lead stew had announced the delay and said, "Drinks on the house."
Is that any way to run an airline? Lord, it was. I have a sort of bond with Herb Kelleher, who was a Southwest founder and didn't retire until just recently. On my desk is a wrapped roll of Scott Tissue from one of Southwest's airplanes, and it is inscribed: "For Emergency Use Only! – Herb Kelleher."
That's another story. For now, I think I'll ask if he can dig up Southwest shorts and top, circa 1973, to send to Kyla. And I'll take a $2 double.
September 02, 2007
The Fifty-ninth Grade
In September of 1949, I entered first grade.
In September of 2007, I am entering the 59th grade. I will learn things this year that I didn't know in 58th grade; some good, some bad, all interesting. This year I will achieve a balance that I have been courting since the 36th grade. In that year, I decided it would be the best of worlds to have the imagination of a six-year-old, and the experience of a 65-year-old.
In March of the 59th grade, I will become 65 years old. There are liabilities associated with becoming 65 that I did not start to learn about until about the 55th grade, when the fair wear and tear of aging started to set in. I didn't much like it when some of my original parts started to fail. I could not possibly have known about this in the reckless days of 36th grade, but I think I would have been enthusiastic about being six and 65, all the same. What can happen, when imagination and experience have all day to play?
Keeping the imagination of a six-year old has required some study. Six-year-olds, of course, live their whole lives outside the box. Calvin, of "Calvin and Hobbes," the old comic strip, is our king. Calvin's pal is Hobbes, a tiger, and quite a tiger he is: funny, erudite, worldly, mischievous, playful, charming. He and Calvin have a heck of a time, out there outside the box. Then one of Calvin's parents comes in, and Hobbes becomes what he is inside the box: a stuffed animal.
That is the altogether healthy and worthwhile magic of being six, and I believe, because of Calvin, and an experience at Disneyland, that I have learned how to be six in my 60s. The Disneyland lesson occurred one day in the early 1980s. I was walking down Main Street toward Sleeping Beauty's Castle. On earlier visits, the castle had soared into the sky, spires reaching for the clouds, just like the real fantasy castles of Europe.
Only this day, maintenance was being done on the castle. Scaffolding was up. From long experience, I knew the dimensions of scaffolding. This scaffolding, overlaying the castle like a grid, betrayed the castle's true size, which was very small. It didn't soar at all, and its spires were barely adequate to reach for the top of a telephone pole.
This was a major disappointment. I looked at my kids, who were then about six and eight. They didn't see the scaffolding. Rather, they didn't see the size of the scaffolding. They had no way of knowing. And then it struck me: if Walt Disney had ever had the slightest evidence that a six-year-old knew the dimensions of scaffolding, the scaffolding would come down every morning before opening time, and not go up again until after closing.
So the problem was data. When we turn six, we go into first grade, and we start to acquire data, which starts to overlay imagination, and choke it down to size. It is the birth of the box, which it is so important to think outside of. Here's a graphic that helps describe the secret to being six in your 60s. Put nine dots on a piece of paper: three across the top and bottom, three on each side, one in the middle, so that it looks like a box with a dot in the middle. Now connect the nine dots with four straight lines, without taking your pencil off the paper.
The solution: start at the upper left-hand dot, draw a line across the top row of dots, and keep going beyond the right-corner dot. Go out far enough to draw a line through the middle dots in the right and bottom sides, to a point where a line drawn straight up will connect the left-side dots. Once back at the upper-left dot, draw the fourth line through the middle dot to the lower-right dot.
The secret is to let your brain think beyond the upper-right dot, and take the line out to the point where the second line can connect the right and bottom middle dots. That extension of the first line, out beyond the dot, is where imagination reigns. Out there, anything is possible. Out there, Hobbes and Calvin live. Out there resides a magnificent talking animal who presides over an international multi-billion-dollar entertainment kingdom. Do we believe this animal can talk? We surely do; by the tens of thousands, people put up $65 a ticket to go to Disneyland and talk to Mickey.
I wander out beyond the dot a lot, and see the most amazing, impossible, perfectly real, things, smack in the middle of otherwise ordinary days. In my readings in the last several grades, I am discovering how justifiable this is. I read that physicists, in trying to understand the universe, are starting to arrive at a point where all their data breaks down. It stops making sense. To go farther, they have to use . . . imagination. Beautiful.
In September of 2007, I am entering the 59th grade. I will learn things this year that I didn't know in 58th grade; some good, some bad, all interesting. This year I will achieve a balance that I have been courting since the 36th grade. In that year, I decided it would be the best of worlds to have the imagination of a six-year-old, and the experience of a 65-year-old.
In March of the 59th grade, I will become 65 years old. There are liabilities associated with becoming 65 that I did not start to learn about until about the 55th grade, when the fair wear and tear of aging started to set in. I didn't much like it when some of my original parts started to fail. I could not possibly have known about this in the reckless days of 36th grade, but I think I would have been enthusiastic about being six and 65, all the same. What can happen, when imagination and experience have all day to play?
Keeping the imagination of a six-year old has required some study. Six-year-olds, of course, live their whole lives outside the box. Calvin, of "Calvin and Hobbes," the old comic strip, is our king. Calvin's pal is Hobbes, a tiger, and quite a tiger he is: funny, erudite, worldly, mischievous, playful, charming. He and Calvin have a heck of a time, out there outside the box. Then one of Calvin's parents comes in, and Hobbes becomes what he is inside the box: a stuffed animal.
That is the altogether healthy and worthwhile magic of being six, and I believe, because of Calvin, and an experience at Disneyland, that I have learned how to be six in my 60s. The Disneyland lesson occurred one day in the early 1980s. I was walking down Main Street toward Sleeping Beauty's Castle. On earlier visits, the castle had soared into the sky, spires reaching for the clouds, just like the real fantasy castles of Europe.
Only this day, maintenance was being done on the castle. Scaffolding was up. From long experience, I knew the dimensions of scaffolding. This scaffolding, overlaying the castle like a grid, betrayed the castle's true size, which was very small. It didn't soar at all, and its spires were barely adequate to reach for the top of a telephone pole.
This was a major disappointment. I looked at my kids, who were then about six and eight. They didn't see the scaffolding. Rather, they didn't see the size of the scaffolding. They had no way of knowing. And then it struck me: if Walt Disney had ever had the slightest evidence that a six-year-old knew the dimensions of scaffolding, the scaffolding would come down every morning before opening time, and not go up again until after closing.
So the problem was data. When we turn six, we go into first grade, and we start to acquire data, which starts to overlay imagination, and choke it down to size. It is the birth of the box, which it is so important to think outside of. Here's a graphic that helps describe the secret to being six in your 60s. Put nine dots on a piece of paper: three across the top and bottom, three on each side, one in the middle, so that it looks like a box with a dot in the middle. Now connect the nine dots with four straight lines, without taking your pencil off the paper.
The solution: start at the upper left-hand dot, draw a line across the top row of dots, and keep going beyond the right-corner dot. Go out far enough to draw a line through the middle dots in the right and bottom sides, to a point where a line drawn straight up will connect the left-side dots. Once back at the upper-left dot, draw the fourth line through the middle dot to the lower-right dot.
The secret is to let your brain think beyond the upper-right dot, and take the line out to the point where the second line can connect the right and bottom middle dots. That extension of the first line, out beyond the dot, is where imagination reigns. Out there, anything is possible. Out there, Hobbes and Calvin live. Out there resides a magnificent talking animal who presides over an international multi-billion-dollar entertainment kingdom. Do we believe this animal can talk? We surely do; by the tens of thousands, people put up $65 a ticket to go to Disneyland and talk to Mickey.
I wander out beyond the dot a lot, and see the most amazing, impossible, perfectly real, things, smack in the middle of otherwise ordinary days. In my readings in the last several grades, I am discovering how justifiable this is. I read that physicists, in trying to understand the universe, are starting to arrive at a point where all their data breaks down. It stops making sense. To go farther, they have to use . . . imagination. Beautiful.
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