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THE DEPTHS OF SHALLOWNESS
When the makers of Teen Talk Barbie had finally mastered the technology of cramming tape-recorded sentences into the foot-high doll, they were faced with the daunting challenge of deciding what the famous icon's first words would be. Mattel came up with the following: "I love shopping," "Meet me at the mall," and "Math is hard." This is as good as it gets in America.
Even among experts, there's a lot of debate over how to gauge advances in shallowness. The quality I give the most points for is general obliviousness. While many people repress the knowledge that we are turning the planet into a parking lot, more are just clueless. These are people who consider Hollywood Tonight deep. These are people who were genuinely surprised to learn that some people in the Third World dislike us (undoubtedly because of our "freedom"). They don't live in a world where people go hungry, but in a happy virtual reality bounded by MTV, Baywatch, and weekly trips to the cathedral -- the shopping mall. These are our legacy to the world.
It's quiz time. Guess what our most popular spot for tourists is: the Liberty Bell, the Grand Canyon, Graceland, Walt Disney World, or the Alamo? All wrong. By far, the largest bio-mass of tourists has been going to discount shopping malls. The Travel Industry of America reported that shopping is far and away the most popular activity for travelers. In Philadelphia, for instance, the 215-store Franklin Mills Mall drew an estimated six million tourists, four times as many as the Liberty Bell. America's most popular mall was the 400-store Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, which drew twelve million tourists, "more than Walt Disney World, the Grand Canyon and Graceland combined." The Wall Street Journal proudly declared, "Now, shopping is the vacation." Signaling this change was a Vermont travel brochure that promised "The Best Hiking in Vermont." In place of rugged mountain trails, it displayed a collection of shopping malls.
American consumers are offered a way to get back to nature without ever having to leave the safety of their favorite shopping malls. The Ogden Corporation, taking advantage of their vast experience catering airplane food, opened eight American Wilderness exhibits as part of what they call "shoppertainment." For a mere , customers can view 60 different animal species in six different wilderness settings, traveling through desert, forest, mountain, valley, and seashore ecosystems. To enhance the experience, artificial trees and plants were added as well as hidden canisters that emitted natural fragrances. After a brief tour, customers are returned to their natural habitat, the mall, where they can shop at the Naturally Untamed Boutique or eat in the Wilderness Grill. The experience, says Ogden V-P Jonathan Stern, is ideal for "people who prefer nature in small doses." (Isn't that the best way?) Stern adds that people are so accustomed to hurrying today, the average visit to the Grand Canyon is only 22 minutes long, coincidentally the same length as the average TV show minus commercials. Time for another channel, I guess.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that shopping malls must allow access to citizens who want to engage in peaceful leafletting. Lost in the clamor for free speech was any concern for those who could be harmed by unbridled speech in our citadels of consumption. Raising this issue was Nancy Sterling, spokesperson for the Wells Park Group. She declared, "Our bottom line is customers deserve an intrusion-free shopping environment." Going even further was Mark Shoifet, spokesperson for the International Council of Shopping Centers, who warned the Court's ruling would "place an undue burden on the malls of New Jersey, their tenants and especially on their customers." This marked the first time in history the reading of leaflets and the prospect of having to think about the issues raised have been recognized for the "undue burden" they place on shoppers. Hopefully, activists will have felt duly chastised.
Have you ever had one of those days when everything you do just seems to turn out wrong? Well, that's the kind of year Mattel Toys has been having with Barbie, the doll they say gives "the message to young girls that they can be anything they want to be." Mattel tried to counter Barbie's stodgy, white, middle-class image by introducing diversity into her world. They even allowed "diverse" workers in China to assemble Barbie and her friends for .20 a day. But that only led to people boycotting Barbie. So Mattel developed a wheelchair-bound friend for Barbie and everybody applauded. Christened "Share a Smile Becky," she was intended by Mattel to help change people's attitudes toward the handicapped. That should have kept the critics happy, but it did not. No, it seems there was a small glitch. Barbie's world, it was discovered, was not wheelchair accessible. Becky's wheelchair couldn't fit through the doors of Barbie's Dream House or her Malibu House, so Becky couldn't party with Ken. How true to life our toys are today.
One of the most telling details about American attitudes toward civic life transpired when Dial Soap announced they were dumping their classic advertising slogan, "Aren't you glad you use Dial." The jingle's demise, I suggest, may provide anthropologists of the future with major insights into postmodern culture. In the words of The Wall Street Journal, the slogan "wasn't relevant any longer because of what is going on inside of soap users' heads." (Don't laugh, at least they report something going on.) Dial's ad agency argued that people today are not primarily worried about offending others with body odor, but mainly want protection from the germs of the outside world. In the words of DDB Needham ad executive Joe Belmonte, "It used to be 'I'm trying to make myself presentable to you.' Now it's more about 'I've got to wash you off of me'."
In a similar vein was a report on a change in the way fences are built. It used to be that the "good side" of the planks faced one's neighbors and the framing was on the inside. This custom has now been reversed in most "better" neighborhoods. I guess you could call it "keeping up with the Jones' narcissism."
Are you interested in "Backpacking Chevy Van Style," or do you even understand the concept? If not, you need to catch a trend-setting ad from Chevrolet's RV department. Since the literary style of the ad's text far exceeds my meager abilities to reproduce it, let me just quote it at length: "Years ago, you used to go backpacking to smell the flowers, watch the sunset and just get away from it all. A sleeping bag and a mess kit were all you needed. Well, now that you are used to life's luxuries, it takes more." Just imagine being out in nature without a TV and dishwasher? Or even a cell phone? And when you "backpack" Chevy Van style, you can, because of its powerful Vortec engine or optional 6.5 liter Turbocharged Diesel V8, "count on years of communing withnature in reliable ruggedness." For an even fuller "communion with nature," you might try revving the engine.
Similarly, Chrysler Daimler's Jeep Grand Cherokee has been, we are told in a magazine ad, "ingenuously engineered to help you escape the metropolis -- just not its luxuries." Finally the solution to the age-old dilemma of not being able to have your cake and eat it too. Cynics might compare it to escaping prison in a portable prison cell, but let us ignore them for now. Besides the usual luxuries that cultured people like me have come to expect in a fine car (like a steering wheel, a brake pedal, and extra duct tape), the Jeep Grand Cherokee comes equipped with a mini-trip computer, radio stations for two, and a Homelink Universal Transmitter. This item controls not only your garage door and home security system but also, and I quote from the ad, your "estate gate." Estate gate?! It's a bleeping Jeep we're talking about. In an ad in a publication reaching some 800,000 readers, it's just naturally assumed everyone has a gate for their estate. Ah, but it gets better. It turns out all these accoutrements for "roughing it" are, say the ad writers, "more of a necessity than a luxury." I know just how true those words are. I remember how tough it was when my estate gate broke down. Damn neighbor's dog ... but enough of my trials and tribulations.
Romans would chain their conquered opponents and parade them through the Coliseum. We have different means. A new edition of The Communist Manifesto came out, described by Verso publisher Colin Robinson as "elegant enough to grace a coffee table." Marx and Engels have earned their place next to Vogue and Gentleman's Quarterly because of the trend towards "revolutionary chic." Thanks also to its red-tinged pages and stylish red ribbon, both Borders and Barnes & Noble featured the book. Meanwhile, Barney's department store in New York reportedly featured the book, along with a selection of red lipsticks, in its windows as "conceptual art." Barney's creative director Simon Doonan said, "It's OK to look at the book as camp." In this light he suggests the book could, if given an attached handle, "make a snazzy accessory to a designer dress."
Meanwhile, Cuba's major revolutionary export, Che Guevera, was back in vogue with a best-selling memoir, and several biographies and movies came out about him. This was a result of the fact that, to quote The New York Times, "his image has become more vivid, complex and commercial." For example, Raichle Molitar, distributors of Fischer's Revolution Skis, held a Che look-a-like contest to sell their skis. Explained spokesperson Jim Fleischer, "We felt that the Che image -- just the icon and not the man's doings -- represented what we wanted: revolution, extreme change." This corporate pursuit of revolution, of just the icon and not the reality, is also helping to sell Swatch watches and even ashtrays. All of this commercialization has left Cubans somewhat mystified, but then what can you expect from a country without a single McDonald's.
Ken Behring, a California real estate tycoon and one-time owner of the Seattle Seahawks football team, pioneered an advance in the art of conducting extramarital affairs worthy of our postmodern age. Mr. Behring liked to have "companionship" on his long vacation treks away from his wife. To protect himself, he had his chief financial officer draw up a form for his traveling partners that is state of the art. It reads: "I recognize that conversation and conduct of a sexual nature may take place on this trip. I have voluntarily accepted Ken's invitation. I agree that I will not bring any suit or make any financial or other claim of any kind against Ken that is in any way related to the trip." Do note the fine blend of legal and personal language in this passage. This advance is offset on the other side by a growing trend among newlyweds reported by Reuters -- the renting of wedding rings "in case things don't work out."
In the 1990s, Bible sales went into a slump. As a result, Bible publishers went out and surveyed their customers only to discover numerous complaints that The Book was too difficult to read. The result, reported The New York Times, was an "industry trend to simplified text." The Tyndale House, for example, put 90 scholars to work for seven years to produce a "modernized" translation. And what does "modernized" mean? It turns out to be a text pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. Or, to quote the book jacket I cleverly tracked down in a Seattle bookstore, the new translation has resulted in a "wonderful balance of readability and authority," thus making the Bible "accessible, useful and enjoyable for every situation." Sadly, they forgot the "new and improved" and "50% brighter" parts of the ad ... And not to be outdone, Harper Collins has upped the ante with its New International Reader version pitched at a mind-numbing third-grade reading level. I'm told it reads like the NBC Nightly News.
Faced with increased immigration of foreign speakers to our shores, 22 U.S. states have responded by declaring English our official language. Now a number of small towns have gone a step further and passed laws penalizing linguistic "infringements." In Norcross, Georgia, Maria Cobarrubias was fined 5 for the name sign posted outside the supermarket she owns saying "Supermercado Jalisco." She had violated Norcross' ordinance banning signs that are less than 75% English "as determined by local authorities." The law, which ostensibly was passed for safety reasons, has also been used against several Korean churches and an Oriental beauty shop. The good news: Norcross Sgt. H. Smith believes some Spanish words are "acceptable," which should be cause for massive celebrations in Norcross' Hispanic community.
The Allied Insurance Company struck a blow for the use of the English language when they fired two workers for speaking Spanish without authorization. Unfortunately, a little confusion was created by the fact that the two workers had been hired for their ability to speak Spanish. Or, more precisely, the two Spanish-speaking women had been hired, said co-owner Linda Polk, "to speak Spanish to non-American-speaking people" -- but not to each other. Despite their outreach efforts to "non-American-speaking people," the company held firm to the principle that theirs was an English-speaking office. They even sent out an official memo about their policy, but to no avail. The two offenders refused to sign the memo because they didn't want their heritage taken away, or some such trivial reason, and had to be fired on the spot. The bottom line? Basic etiquette. Mrs. Polk said the two were "being very rude for speaking in a language we don't understand." And Miss Manners says always fire rude employees.
In 1997, six of the top eight finishers in Colorado's Bolder Boulder Marathon were from Kenya. But sharp-eyed corporate sponsors immediately spotted a problem with this result. The Kenyan runners were "marketing liabilities." So to insure more Americans finished among the leaders, race officials passed a new rule limiting the number of runners from Kenya, or any other foreign country, to three. But it's the justification for this change, presented by race director Bill Reef, that earns particular merit. "We hope to level the playing field," said Mr. Reef in what is believed to be the first time American athletes have received protection from a nation with an average income worth less than two pairs of Nike's. Then Mr. Reed enunciated what could become the sports world's own Monroe Doctrine: "It's our country, our event, our money. American sponsors want American winners, or at least Americans among the top finishers." To "level the playing field" even more, sponsors have promised to double the prize money for our athletes who finish in the top five.
A federal judge affirmed the inalienable right of American communities to refuse to hire people who are too intelligent. The town of New London, Connecticut, has for years been hiring new police officers on the basis of an intelligence test. Those who score too high, correctly answering more than 27 of the 50 questions (or more than 54%), are routinely flunked from consideration on the grounds they will become bored with the drudgery of chasing criminals and eating donuts. When an over-intelligent candidate named Robert Jordan challenged this policy in court, U.S. District Judge Peter Dorsey ruled against him, laying down a fundamental principle of American Law: "The question is not whether a rational basis has been shown for the policy chosen by the defendants," he said. "The plaintiff may have been disqualified unwisely, but he was not denied equal protection." Expecting a rational basis from our government? That's pretty extreme. (I'm told there are even stricter standards for the range of allowable IQs for judges in this district).
San Francisco is home to one of our nation's state-of-the-art animal shelters, providing "home-style" quarters for dogs and cats with Persian rugs, skylights, couches, tables, and, of course, TV sets. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed the facilities were superior to those offered to homeless humans. That individual was the local president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Richard Avanzino, who brought forth a plan to provide lodging for the homeless right alongside the dogs. His rationale: "It would give our dogs a chance to know what it would be like to have an overnight roommate ..." Not only could humans provide this valuable service, but they would get off the streets and gain a "dog buddy who will be their best friend overnight" (the post-AIDS version of the one-night stand). And yet another benefit: I'm told the shelter also provides toilet and obedience training ...
In a major defense of traditional etiquette, Microsoft announced that in-person conversations (those occurring outside of computer networks) remain socially acceptable. Bob Muglia, a senior V-P, explained why Microsoft annually hosts a face-to-face corporate summit for over a hundred top-level CEOs. According to Muglia, "Conversation is still the most efficient networking protocol that exists. There are still benefits to physical person-person interaction." Most interesting is the use of the word "still", as if it is only a matter of time before these primitive human units are surpassed. Why is it the leaders of the Information Age sound like such weak imitations of the Coneheads? Can't you just hear a robotic voice proclaiming, "Conversation ... an efficient networking protocol"?
A national telemarketing firm named Unitel discovered it had no choice but to shut down most of its phone operations in Frostburg, Maryland, and move them to Florida. Why? As their vice-president Ken Carmichael explained, the "culture and climate in Western Maryland is one of helping your neighbor and being empathetic and those sorts of things." (I particularly like the inclusion of the phrase "and those sorts of things," as if sanitary gloves should be worn when speaking of them.) This made Frostburg the first town in America to officially lose an industry because its citizens were too caring. I'm still waiting to learn which town in Florida was deemed suitable for Unitel's corporate culture.
Students of comparative shallowness will want to put forth other decades as candidates in the search for complete cluelessness. I know the fifties have a lot going for them with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello's Beach Party movies. And who can forget California's Valley Girl subculture? But I'd like to direct your attention way back to my candidate, the slaveholding culture of the Deep South. Eugene D. Genovese, in his book Roll, Jordan Roll, describes an aristocratic culture where the "happy-go-lucky" slaves were treated as part of the family, their education through labor viewed as a "duty" and a "burden" to their Christian masters. When newly emancipated slaves deserted the plantations in droves, slave owners are said to have been genuinely traumatized by their lack of loyalty. As one "deserted" Southern belle put it, "I am beginning to lose confidence in the whole race."
Communication with the "depth challenged" presents numerous difficulties. Remember Plato's Allegory of the Cave -- those who exit their insulated cocoons too quickly risk being blinded by the light. Among the groups who have attempted a more refined outreach to Middle America is the Barbie Liberation Organization. The BLO obtained several hundred Barbies and G.I. Joes and then performed a "stereotype-change" operation and placed the improved dolls back on store shelves. Customers discovered a deep-voiced Barbie who yelled, "Vengence is mine," and a G.I. Joe who demurely said, "Let's plan our dream wedding."
On another depth-challenged front, a successful stereotype reversal operation was performed by Native American students at the University of North Carolina. Intent on communicating how it feels to have one's identity used for sports team logos, the Native American students resorted to the simple tactic of renaming their basketball team. They are now the "Fighting Whities," complete with their own t-shirts and coffee mugs (available at http://shop.t-shirtoutlet.com/whites.html). Sometimes it's humorous pinpricks, not thunderous hammer blows, that can best penetrate defenses.
Excerpted from American Newspeak: The Mangling of Meaning for Power and Profit by Wayne Grytting All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
