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Television
WPP Rant 1-2
Imagine sitting and watching your favorite show on TV. You’re getting to the climax, the point where everything is getting good. Maybe a long pass has just been completed in the football game. Yet another mysteriously ill patient has almost died in House. You’ve uncovered one of the mysteries of Lost (and received four more unsolved in return). No matter the situation, your heart is racing. You’re into the show. And then…a commercial break.
I understand that commercial breaks are necessary. They allow the network to make money, which in turn sustains the shows with which you’re so enthralled. Their function is, unfortunately, necessary.
I would love to believe that commercials inform us, whether they’re informing us of product or idea; the differences between political candidates; the day and time of our favorite show.
Unfortunately for us, commercials rarely do any of these. In fact, the advertisement world is completely monopolized by about five different industries: beer, automobiles, cell phones, insurance, and various trailers for films that look, for the most part, ridiculously abysmal.
Oh, and razors. Can’t forget the razors. We must all be informed of how one company’s three blades absolutely pales in comparison to an extra fourth blade of another. The difference, I’m sure, is astounding; maybe a whopping extra 1/1,000,000th of an inch. There’s a reason I have an electric shaver – so I can zone out when those preposterous commercials come on.
The problem with commercials these days is their entertainment value. They try far too hard to be different and stick out. They get cheap laughs, sure. But after the slight chuckle that ripples through the room has come to a standstill, can anyone actually name the advertised product? Wow, job well done, writers.
And speaking of writing…what poor fools get roped into doing that trash? Are they really that talent-less, or does the system dumb down their ideas? I doubt companies would even let an established writer – Stephen King or Janet Evanovich, for example – write commercials for them. They’d be too well written (well, maybe not in Evanovich’s case). The public can’t take that. We want stupid humor in our commercials. The kind with, say, this really dorky, un-suave guy who represents one company getting made fun of by a really cool, hip, svelte young guy that represents another. Because that’s funny, right? Right?
Our society is apparently too stupid to understand intelligent humor or important information. Humor is, oftentimes, sexist or stereotyped. Commercials that have the phrase “real men” anywhere in them are my favorite. Because only “real men” drink a certain beer, work long sweaty days, and just want to relax and watch football. I confess here: I am not a real man. I don’t drink, I work somewhat sweaty days over the summer – when everyone is sweaty – and I prefer baseball to football. To you women (all of whom are either having their clothes ripped off in fountains or look mind-blowingly awesome in a bikini, according to the all-knowing and highly honest advertising industry): I am one of you now.
Wait, what happens once a month?
Boy, I guess I’d better drink some beer and be a real man.
A commercial does catch my interest every now and then. The only one I can remember occurred during the Super Bowl XXXVI. It involved – instead of running with the bulls – a running with the squirrels. To this day, I maintain that I am the only one who even saw it. No one at school the next day remembered it. Its Youtube showing has but one comment. Thankfully for Youtube, I finally got to see it a second time and still ended up laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it all the straight-faced actors. It was good writing, good acting, and a Monty Python-esque concept.
Despite my love for the squirrel commercial, though, I couldn’t for the life of me remember the product it represented. With that fresh in my mind, I settled in to discover its purpose through Youtube. The clip ended, however, before I even found out who ran it or what it advertised.
And guess what: no one cares. Commercials are mini-movies now. I’ve seen visual effects in commercials that would have been Oscar worthy in the late nineties. But we take it for granted. All we want to see between the segments of our shows is, well, more show. And companies try their best to entertain us, whether they name their product or not. They figure if you liked it the first time but missed its purpose, you’ll watch closer the second time and figure it out. And then you’ll watch a third time to enlighten yourself and your friends with the subtle nuances of the lighting, the script, the off-beat-but-darling humor, the funny guy who’s only funny because of his fro…
Commercials just don’t seem to have much of a purpose anymore, aside from entertainment, at least. They’re meant to keep us at the TV between segments of our TV shows. And hey, if they manage to sell a product, great.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad commercials are going for entertainment value. If every commercial was a thirty-second clip of a blue screen with text, I’d be the first to get up and leave. At least it gives me something to watch.
The only true solution, to me, is to get rid of commercials entirely. I know that’s ridiculously impractical, though, so my second suggestion to production companies would be to drastically limit the time allotted for commercials. When I sit down for half an hour, I don’t want one-third of that devoted to something that’s not my show. Twenty-two minutes of programming is cheap. We’re getting cheated. The shows’ writers probably revel in the fact that they don’t have to occupy that extra eight minutes, but I certainly do not. If we’re paying as much as we are for our cable bill, just let us watch what we want in peace.
Is that too much to ask?