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Blanketing
homes, businesses, and automobiles in the American flag in response to
the terrorist attacks of September may have been more about hysteria than
patriotism, but don’t tell that to your neighbor. Like a medieval
town frantically dispensing garlic to its citizens to ward off the vampire
that haunts their nights, the swiftness with which the flag was dispatched
across the nation suggested a sustained panic from the shock of those
surprise attacks, rather than an expression of belief in the merits of
its democracy. As Americans drown themselves in red, white, and blue to
mask the anxiety of wondering how or where terrorism will strike next,
the fearful climate caused many to practice a kind of media fundamentalism
suggested by their inability or reluctance to try to distinguish fact
from fiction. Those who sought the invocation of patriotism as a sincere
reflection of support for ‘America Under Siege’ or ‘America
Attacked’ or ‘America Strikes Back’ are willing customers
for a commodity that has replaced the pre-9/11 dot-com travesty (which
will now forever remain unexamined) with a ‘wartime’ diet of
nostalgia and sentimentality.
If dot-coms offered novelty and technology fetish, the rhetoric of the
New Patriotism is a re-run of Reagan’s ‘Morning in America’.
Reagan’s campaign commercials made liberal use of small town flag
waving, and his cold war reference to the ‘Evil Empire’ finds
it current parallel in Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’. It would
be a mistake though, to imagine that the influence of the man who sold
patriotism like soap had suddenly reemerged out of nowhere. The long shadow
of the Reagan years could clearly be seen, if one looked closely enough,
in the background of the hyper-consumerism that characterized the Clinton
era. In the decades that spanned from Reagan to Clinton, the collusion
between government and business to usurp citizenship with consumerism
has neared its completion. Unfortunately, for Bush, the freewheeling new
economy was beginning to ebb when it was his turn to host the party, leaving
him in need of some meaningful distraction to take the public’s attention
away from that tawdry election business that placed him in the White House.
The overachieving consumer culture of the mid to late nineties, having
lost some steam, was in danger of being revealed for what it mostly was,
a mass hypnosis that depended a great deal on what is known in theatre
as the ‘suspension of disbelief’. As long as the obsessive acquisition
of goods and services functioned as an end in itself, separated from actual
need, consumer culture could continue to manufacture needs through advertising.
This was part of a process known as ‘Freedom’, and the fact
that our country had it and others did not made it a commodity that should
not be taken for granted. As the Internet bubble burst and people lost
jobs in other sectors of the economy as well, ‘Freedom’ started
to lose its luster, or, if you had bought into the Dot-Com thing, it wasn’t
quite as ‘cool’. The next best interpretation of ‘Freedom’,
and one that is implemented in times of perceived or actual threats to
America’s sovereignty, is being ‘For’ or ‘Against’
something. This kind of freedom functions on a different kind of suspension
of disbelief, requiring wholesale investment in basic concepts such as
good and evil. Like consumerism, this type of freedom functions best when
engaged in by a huge majority.
Correcting
the Politically Incorrect
Pop culture, the great arbiter of tastes and polls, was clearly up for
the job of helping us make the shift from one form of freedom to the next.
In helping the country transition from the ethos of absolute self-indulgence
to unfettered pride in our nation’s true purpose, no time was wasted
in identifying which sentiments would be embraced and which were suspect.
With the consumer/citizen in no mood for the media’s usual combination
of laugh tracks and Armageddon, pious statements blossomed in late September/
early October as we were told that irony was most likely finished and
that popular culture would certainly reevaluate its dependence on violent
imagery (this as the Twin Towers were burning as dependably as a Yule
Log in our living rooms). A sudden surge in World War II nostalgia brought
Spielberg’s ‘Band of Brother’s’ much needed attention,
while repeated television broadcasts of the ‘Die Hard’s 1- 5’,
as well as a steady diet of Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester
Stallone beginning in late September are some indication of where the
reevaluations lead.
Aggressive responses were clearly in and rational equivocation was out.
One of the more ironic instances of an outré moment came on the
television show ‘Politically Incorrect’. A show that normally
contains such gems as Inside Edition’s Deborah Norville shrieking,
" I live in New York and I’d never even heard of the Brooklyn
Museum!" during a debate about that museum’s censorship crisis,
was suddenly under fire from its advertisers because of a comment made
by its host, Bill Maher. After Maher, usually not one to find himself
associated with leftist causes, had echoed Susan Sontag’s New Yorker
piece that questioned Bush’s characterization of terrorists willing
to die for their cause as cowards, the threat of mass defections on the
part of their sponsors forced Maher to apologize on his never so aptly
named show.
In contrast, a television personality that we could have complete faith
in was one of America’s land-marked talking heads, Dan Rather. Mixing
up a bit of groveling with not one, but two tearful displays during a
spot on David Letterman’s September 17th show, Rather proclaimed
that all his President had to do was tell him where to show up and he
would "get in line" to support our country. For all its sincerity
(Letterman held Rather’s hand during one of his trying moments) even
this event was not without irony. For those who could recall, back in
the 1980’s, Rather was celebrated for being one of the few American
journalists to crawl up and down the Afghan terrain that we’ve now
become so familiar with, reporting on the then heroic mujhadeens’
(read: future Taliban) use of billions of dollars of U.S military aid
funneled to them through Pakistan in America’s final Cold War effort
to destabilize Russia.
American responsibility, though, was not what the media’s sights
were going to focus on. Through a combination of calls for retribution
and efforts to cajole a fearful public to resume its patriotic duty and
return to airports and shopping malls, the goals of our trusted pundits
and leaders was to side-step at all costs the possibility that the shock
of what had happened would be jarring enough to cause some Americans to
reexamine their lives. The trauma from thousands of deaths combined with
the symbolic loss of both a great monument to the strength of the American
economy as well as the sudden vulnerability of our military’s center
of power threatened to break the daunting spell under which many citizens
have unquestioningly conducted their business. While ‘ground zero’
continued to smolder, Giuliani, the formerly lame duck mayor but lately
the newly anointed hero of New York, took a cue from his President and
encouraged consumers that ‘now more than ever’ their duty to
their country, regardless of the repeated yet ambiguous warnings from
Homeland Security that another terrorist action was imminent, was to present
themselves at stores, restaurants, and airports and consume their way
back to normality.
Four-Wheel Drives and the Fight for Freedom
"The most important thing for citizens of any age–for themselves
and for their Uncle Sam and as a tribute for the thousands who likely
died-would be to call a broker and buy stock in American companies this
week, and the next, and the next"; "this is a time to stop worrying
about your future, your ‘career’, your nest egg."
Liz Smith, syndicated gossip columnist, 9/18/01
The dual role that mass culture played, as both the public’s protectorate
in the ‘aftermath’, and eventual cheerleader, prodding the consumer/citizen
to shake off all doubt in these uncertain times and ‘stay in the
game’, was crafted with care. The first signs of ‘cultural adjustment’
appeared in the week following the attacks, with many seemingly benign
pop songs suffering the indignities of a ‘suggested’ no-play
list from anxious PR people at Clear Channel, a Texas-based radio network
that owns 1,100 stations across the country. The list seemed to be the
product of hastily scanning America’s traumatized psyche and arriving
at a selection that, in order to protect a suffering patient, judiciously
avoids even the most remote connection to all details associated with
September 11. Carol King’s ‘I feel the Earth Move’ was
out, as well as ‘Ruby Tuesday’ by the Rolling Stones. ‘Leaving
on a Jet Plane’, ‘Ticket to Ride’, ‘Benny and the
Jets’, Steve Millers ‘Jet Airliner’, the Zombies ‘She’s
Not There’ and also "everything by Rage Against the Machine"
made the list of cultural untouchables that was cobbled together in an
effort to protect us from an accidental triggering of flashbacks from
9/11. Although cries of censorship caused the network some embarrassment,
the critics had missed the point. The list had less to do with censorship
than with the corporate media caught in the role of babysitter to an infantilized
public.
The New York Times, in an almost apologetic effort to soothe its readers’
worried minds after serving them up so much unsettling news, ran a series
of ads that simultaneously paid homage to the Guggenheim Museum’s
stunningly prescient man of the moment, Norman Rockwell and, implicitly,
themselves. On the back page of the ‘A Nation Challenged’ section
over several weeks the Times wore its flag on its sleeve by ‘re-creating’
Mr. Rockwell’s neighborhood in full color, full page splendor. Slight
but important alterations confirmed for us (in case we weren’t already
aware of it) Rockwell’s current relevance. The cute, attentive students
in their folksy classroom who once studied readin’, writin’
and rithmatic’ were now focused on a map of Afghanistan. The world-weary
dad checking in on his sleeping son now holds a folded copy of ‘our
newspaper of record’ in his hand, which, if you look close enough,
you’ll see the Twin Towers burning under the headline ‘America
Attacked’. Continuing with the family theme, another hybrid Rockwell
features an Old Salt and his Lil’ Sailor son, with their eager (what
else?) puppy, looking on forlornly from across the Hudson at the recently
altered contemporary skyline of Lower Manhattan. Such unabashed schmaltz
on the part of a media company with the power to not only report news
but to shape it might make any sane person nervous rather than reassured,
but sanity was not what the major media seemed interested in appealing
to in this time of crisis.
The Automobile industry, visibly anxious that too much post-attack apprehension
would be bad for their bottom line, took the aggressive approach early
on. Perhaps recognizing that storming through the backcountry terrorizing
nothing but untouched wilderness in your SUV would pale in comparison
to storming into Kabul with guns blazing, they ratcheted up their slogans.
Echoing the President’s less than eloquent calls to arms, they were
not shy in identifying with Bush’s sudden surge in popularity as
the Commander in Chief of the world’s lone superpower was about to
show his wrath. Buick’s September/October, 2001 ‘Keep America
Rolling’ campaign ‘A Sense of Security the Whole Country Can
Share In. Safety. Security. Peace of mind. Never have these qualities
been more precious to us or our families. Qualities this important can
never be taken for granted. They must be pursued and protected.’
Range Rover’s SUV ad in the Sunday New York Times Magazine issue
devoted to September 11 took it a step further, featuring their product
on a dark, cloud filled horizon and boldly proclaiming ‘All SUVs
Promise Freedom. Few Have Actually fought for it.’ Range Rover goes
on to boast that their vehicles were used in action as recently as the
Gulf War, having been ‘commandeered by coalition forces and to no
one’s surprise, performed dauntlessly.’
The End
of Glitter
Although others in the media business felt just as protective towards
a consumer based economy as gossip columnists and politicians, their approach
was gradually altered to reflect what they saw as our new reality. PR
firms and advertising executives understood that the best route for continued
access to the public’s wallets was, as always, through the advanced
techniques of pop psychology. Recognizing that the first step was to consult
the chapter on ‘trauma’, they took careful notes and shared
their findings with one another on various industry websites. The consensus
suggested that the goals remain the same; to track and manipulate public
sentiment into a ‘belief’ in brands that rivals their loyalty
to family, God, and country. What has changed, of course, is that ‘current
events’, which were once as relevant to most consumers as community
board meetings, suddenly, because of the public’s profound sense
of vulnerability, had a relevance that was impossible to ignore. The take-no-prisoners
style of advertising, where the ‘mark’ is humiliated by their
lack of identification with the ad’s brand, suffering only disappointment
and misfortune until they relent and consume the car/toothpaste/ insurance
that their neighbor/boss/classmate has so cleverly done, would clearly
have to be trashed as all the such-and-such.com ads had been, disappearing
from regular rotation at the end of the boom.
Facing a new frontier, the message was from the ad agency grey.com was,
‘The feel-good spirit is what we need to seek in our advertising.’
but realizing that a traumatized public is also a sensitized public, they
made sure to add, ‘But we must be very deft at execution to avoid
being unreal or melodramatic or saccharine. Insincerity will be even easier
to spot.’ Forever realists, advertisers seemed tuned in to the fact
that this new crisis may have thinned the ranks of the wide-eyed and the
gullible that had helped them so effortlessly achieve their bottom line.
Questioning all the mainstays of the techniques that had performed so
well during a boom that lasted so long, the experts now cast a cold eye
on what barely a year ago had been part of their regular diet:
‘Narcissism and cynicism are attitudes of the last century. Glitter
will soon be gone. The frivolous and fashion-driven will be looked at
with a critical eye. People won't want to hear about the rich leather
seats and burled wood dashboards of car interiors. Being safe, being in
a cocoon, will matter more.’ ‘Images of conspicuous consumption
are becoming tasteless. Provide comfort. Psychoanalysts speak of people's
need for self-soothing"- a skill many lose after childhood. Certain
products and brands can act as psychic props that help people relax and
feel safe. Hot tea, candles, knitting, and comfort foods can fill this
need.’
As the critical shopping season of Christmas approached some good news
was in store for the nations retailers. The Taliban were being routed
in one Afghan city after another, contradicting the Commander in Chief’s
(inflated) assessment that the war would be measured "in years, not
days". This statement, although sending chills down the spine of
those who understand that prolonged U.S. involvement in international
conflict is beneficial only to certain sectors of the economy, was meant
to extend the patriotic fervor yielded from this conflict into as many
areas of the globe as the administration deemed necessary. But that would
be later. Right now, the focus was on haircuts and beard shavings in Kabul.
On dancing in the streets in the newly liberated capitol. And for those
whose business is to ‘shape hearts and minds’ not for war, but
for commerce, it was time to roll up their sleeves and determine how to
sell ourselves to this newly conquered world.
Guerilla
Marketing
While advertisers may have felt heartened that the success of the U.S.
military campaign may have taken some of the doom and gloom out of the
annual rite of consumption leading up to December 25, some of the forward
thinking among their ranks, perhaps taking inspiration from the administrations
sprinkling in food drops with their bombs, understood that even war ravaged
countries can someday depend on U.S markets to ‘mainstream’
their economy. In mid-December in a forum called ‘How would you sell
America to the Muslim world?’ on the website adage.com, Jim Ferguson,
President-chief creative officer of WPP Group's Y&R Advertising, New
York offered some unique plans for Afghanistan’s future. "I
would hire a guerrilla marketing unit. They could have fashion shows over
there. They could have movies, dances. They can teach them our decadent
way of living, how the infidels live over here and why it's so much fun.
We could recreate the Monkey Bar over there and invite them in. You have
to infiltrate their lives, and I don't think making commercials is going
to do it. You set up events. You show them movies: Boogie Nights, I'd
show them that. When I worked on the [current] president's campaign, we
kept in mind what was brand Bush. So a lot of it is like selling soap.
There's no doubt about it. The first thing is to get people to like you.
You always buy something from someone you like."
Market theory can only be truly tested in the ‘free’ market,
and the one sure- fire way to create a free-market in another country
is to seek our government’s help. While government intervention in
market forces may appear suspiciously like socialism to the unenlightened,
not the free-wheeling capitalism that remains the envy of the world, Rance
Crain, in an article called, ‘How U.S. Businesses Can Help Market
Freedom’, assures us that, ‘U.S. companies and the U.S. government
have the same goals in developing countries -- to make them feel better
about us by showing we have their interests, as well as ours, in mind.
You can make a good argument that our government should subsidize the
brand-building and even nation-building activities of companies that market
products tailored to the needs of developing countries.’
America’s Brightest Hour
"We firmly believe that with the support of the US military, Armageddon
will be the biggest film of1998, while illustrating the expertise, leadership
and heroism of the US military,"
Disney executive Philip Nemy to the Pentagon
As the smoke clears from the latest conflict, the excitement with which
the marketing crowd eyes fresh possibilities in the Muslim world is matched
only by the buzz over new targets that’s been emanating from military
and political circles. Recognizing that the perpetual aggressor role can
make even a semi-literate President appear brilliant, his handlers and
the journalists who echo their every word are now aiming their cross hairs
at Saddam, or the Philippines, or North Korea, or perhaps even a return
trip to Somalia. This last country, having tarnished the U.S. military’s
reputation after a planned warlord kidnapping caused an unacceptable number
of American casualties, returned to the spotlight with a new look, courtesy
of the long-standing liaison between Hollywood and the Pentagon.
When reading reviews of Black Hawk Down, the movie assigned the role of
reshaping the Somalian debacle, it becomes clear that the patriotic bandwagon
can barely sustain another enthusiast jumping aboard. One gushing review
worth citing was written by David Denby in the New Yorker. After chastising
the producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Ridley Scott for some dogs
they’ve produced in the past, Denby was pleased that they’ve
now renounced their sins and, with this film, "knocked boldly on
the door of virtue". After anointing the filmmakers, he goes on to
pontificate about Osama bin Laden’s use of this sad chapter in U.S.
military history as a sign of weakness in America, and how this weakness
"may have been a factor in bin Laden’s calculations of how American’s
would respond to an attack on their own soil… The point of the movie
- though it is never stated explicitly - is that it is an exceptionally
noble failure of which the country should be proud."
The Pentagon could not have put it better themselves. The beauty of their
kinship with Hollywood is that they don’t have to. According to an
August, 2001 article in the Guardian, London by Duncan Campbell:
‘Hollywood film-makers have frequently changed plot lines, altered
history and amended scripts at the request of the Pentagon, according
to recently released military documents. Producers and directors have
often agreed to changes in order to gain access to expensive military
hardware or to be able to film on military property. On many occasions
films have been changed so that the US armed forces are shown in a more
heroic fashion. Film companies agree to the changes because doing so saves
them millions in production costs. If filmmakers do not agree to alterations,
assistance is withheld. The film companies are often shown in the documents
to be more than anxious to help.’
When, in an interview about Black Hawk Down, Jerry Bruckheimer boasted
that Somalia would become "not America's darkest hour, but America's
brightest hour", he was openly flaunting the propagandistic mission
of his film. This kind of synergy, while not new, is perhaps operating
more and more purposefully as the U.S. seeks to become an exporter of
perpetual warfare. With the increase alone in the new military budget
dwarfing many countries total expenditures on defense, the need for more
Black Hawk Down’s to ‘correct’ perceptions of misguided
military actions is as urgent as the recruitment of new troops. Not surprisingly,
recruitment is one of the roles that these movies fulfill. John Down writes
in the online journal, Open Democracy:‘For the Navy as well as at
the box office, the film (Top Gun) enjoyed phenomenal success. Recruitment
figures went up 500%. "So now there are all these poor kids stuck
on aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean who hate me," jokes Tony
Scott, Top Gun’s British Director.’
Given that the selling of the conflict in Afghanistan will be considerably
enhanced by Jerry Bruckheimer’s 13 week reality television series
‘Profile’s From the Frontline’, a ‘candid' look into
the U.S. soldiers experience in that country that will rival Somalia in
its potential for propaganda, the Navy will have no shortage of ‘poor
kids’ who are wondering why their reality is so unlike Pentagon sanctioned
entertainment.
The Old New World Order
Apart from the occasional musings from one of the directors of this film
genre, it’s unusual to find any reference at all to those in the
audience for whom the consumption of ‘brand patriotism’ had
regrettable consequences. As the country prepares itself for fresh conquests
under the guise of spreading new opportunities for democracy abroad, many
in the media entertainment business recognize the significance of the
conquest for hearts and minds at home. With the public’s confidence
in the future temporarily shattered after September’s attacks, a
new faith has arisen to thwart any doubt that could compromise America’s
purpose. As the novelty of American flags overwhelming the landscape has
subsided, the iconography of patriotism has settled into the nooks and
crannies of the country’s unconscious, functioning like worry beads
that are massaged without thought, a comforting ritual collectively engaged
in.
The new patriotism, having at the very first provided a rallying point
for explosive emotions like defiance or revenge, also addresses something
subtler, an urge to belong to something bigger than one’s own concerns.
Perhaps exhausted by the constant emphasis on overnight success that was
so pervasive in the media not too long ago, the impulse to identify with
something other than the stock market’s latest numbers is a sincere
urge that has been eagerly pounced upon by everyone from cutting edge
fashion designers to airline industry giants trying to put a positive
spin on post-September 11 air travel.
While the new economy celebrated the individual’s entrepreneurial
spirit as a means to instant success, corporate owned franchises were
quietly undercutting the livelihoods of small businesses unfortunate enough
to be in their path. As franchise culture transformed the landscape throughout
the last decade, the ensuing loss of connection to one’s surroundings
and the alienation that resulted was glossed over by the stock market
frenzy. With the focus on individual gains rather than communal losses,
those who recognized the economic and psychic damages that mega-franchises
like Wal-Mart could inflict on their communities were invisible compared
to many more who had an eye on their soaring stocks and the profits they
might see when they cashed out. As the consequences of large scale profiteering
during the height of new economy excesses come to light, the ‘we’re
all in this together’ sentiment of our patriotic moment has perhaps
faced its greatest challenge to date. Enduring an attack that many still
find inexplicable and that our government was powerless to protect us
from, the specter of past successes proving to be a mirage provides little
relief from the unseen threats that the ‘war on terror’ is designed
to confront. With the ruins of high-risk capital looking as bleak as the
post-war landscape in Afghanistan, our government and their friends in
the media industry seem to be telling those who might lose faith in our
economy to take heart; there’s always the next war to look forward
to.
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