http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0699216/
Simpsons fans may recognise the blog title as a line by the one-off character Lieutenant L T Smash in an episode about hidden marketing messages. In response, Lisa asks "What's super-liminal?" Smash demonstrates by yelling "Hey you! Join the Navy!" at Lenny and Karl as they walk by the window. I was reminded of this by an article I saw on imdb.com recently about lawsuits being flung around by those involved in the movie 'Righteous Kill'. Apparently, some psychological manipulation was afoot:
"...the shot of Pacino wearing a Tutima timepiece in the 2008 drama has already sparked a legal battle between the movie's production company and the watch firm. Bosses at Millennium Films accused Tutima executives of failing to hand over a $50,000 (£35,000) fee for a three-second close-up shot of one of their watches... and now both of the film's stars have become embroiled in the case, filing suit against the film's distribution company Overture Films claiming they never authorised a commercial tie-in with the watch company. De Niro and Pacino accuse movie chiefs of failing to tell them about the deal with Tutima and insist they would never have agreed to the plan. The papers state: 'Had their permission been sought, both De Niro and Pacino would have flatly refused to consent to the use of their names, voices and/or likenesses in connection with the tie-in.'"
I believe that Al Pacino would indeed have refused to sully his profession, and his art, by wilfully contributing to a subliminal advertisement, but what I base that belief upon is anyone's guess. I don't know him, I'm only ever seen him acting - that is, quite fundamentally not being himself. I have assumed that his artistic integrity would not knowingly allow him to be a shameless hawker of a posh piece of jewellery. And further still, I have assumed that the concept of 'artistic integrity' I just carelessly used in the previous sentence can be defined in that way, or in any way, and that it is a mutually accepted definition by at least myself and who I am judging. Having never met the man, some pretty big logical loopholes have been ignored in my decision to empathise with him. And yet I do empathise. He must feel like a patsy. I would too.
My point is that in the world of the arts and entertainment, fans like us have a twisted relationship with those whose work we follow. We inexplicably assume there is a common ground between us. For instance, I just demonstrated that my admiration for a fine actor cannot be extended to the point where I can simply guess at his morals and expect myself to be right. I might as well claim to know, having twice seen 'Donnie Brasco', what he had for breakfast this morning. It's a shame, because we like to hold strong to the belief that even Hollywood mega-bucks can't fuck with our own personal appreciation of the people we respect, or the creative output for which we respect them. This extends to music, literature and god knows what else. When all the salesmanship and psychology and soundbites and demographics are removed, we are left with a single artistic statement communicating with a unique human being. This is how the lefties and paranoiacs like myself are comfortable with consuming mainstream culture - we separate the artists from the management, the source from the middle men, and ourselves from the crowd. It may indeed be that Al Pacino supports this kind of anti-mass-marketing approach to his movies, and I'd like that to be true. Art is timeless, after all, and advertising is transitory by its very nature.
The scary thing is that the middle men can so successfully taint both sides of this dialogue between artistic creation and artistic appreciation, to the point where I don't know I'm being advertised at, and Al Pacino doesn't know he's the one doing it! That is fucking absurd, and lamentably commonplace too. But hey, perhaps the Tutima executives are 'just trying to make an honest buck' and 'what's the harm?' I mean, I hadn't even heard of them before I read about it on imdb.com. Now I know the name of several different watch manufacturers, and I don't even wear a fucking watch, or want to. If you play that game, it's not manipulative to want to get your company's name out there on the screens, the billboards, the magazines, the sides of buses. Most normal people won't care, and most normal people aren't human-shaped grey holes for marketing execs to manipulate either. So who are the real crooks in this story? Maybe there's no crooks, and we're all just suffering from an irrevocably disjointed miscommunication about what we are all supposed to do within society.
Hence: Neo, there is no spoon. Have a good weekend.
