Thursday, October 20, 2005
Capitalism can be funny, too
It took me to late August, 10 months since I started this blog, to get 1000 visitors. Now, in just over two months, my hit counter is registering 2600. I'm basking in the attention. Once again, thanks everyone for reading, and to celebrate, I'm posting an obscure Marxist joke that I wrote 6 years ago. Before everyone rushes to the 'next blog' button, this post shows I understood Marxist economics better 6 years ago than I do now. Which makes me sad, since being out of school rotted my brain, but gives me hope that it'll all make sense again. For this story, it helps to know
a) valorization: adding value to a product i.e. profiting (through workers' labour, but that's not necessary for this)
b) I was studying the circulation of capital at the time: how capital goes round and round the globe, in faster and tighter circles, profiting all the while
c) I had dim notions of becoming a screenwriter
The Setup
The latest Roots ad is for a woman named Deborah Cox. She's young, attractive and vibrant, shown high-kicking something out of the frame, her mouth open in a shout of triumph. The caption is: "Kicking." Then, "Deborah Cox." Then, "BMG Recording Artist."
I'm a capable follower of the music industry, and I've never heard of her. That was puzzling; then I remembered that Roots had Matt Damon eight stories high on a building wall before he made any movies. Apparently they're gambling that, like Matt, Deborah will become famous.
I find it interesting what her presence says about advertising. In the past, you had to become famous before you got your picture on a billboard. You had to do something, at least. To everyone except Deborah and her friends and family, she's done nothing: Roots is taking out a loan on her image, essentially, banking on the future realization of profit from her future-famous presence on their billboards. The valorization of Deborah Cox presents a novel concept: stars are passe by the time they become popular. Their star quality has been used up. Maybe because their image is everywhere and hence people get tired of it - the law of diminishing returns on famous people. Or maybe the reason is more structural: capital must circulate ever faster to realize profit. The capitalist who can get capital into a commodity, and get that commodity sold and converted into (more) money capital, wins - he gets more capital with which to do the same thing over again, eventually driving other capitalists out of the market.
Still valorizing...
So why not use a non-famous famous person? Famous people aren't fast enough; capital circulates so quickly that advertisers are selling us something with a symbol that hasn't had time to become common yet. There simply isn't time. So in that case I present a suggestion. Forget using the actors' kids, or showing a picture of a sperm bank; how about this as the ultimate tv ad for the on-the-go capitalist?
Scene
An ad is shown on a billboard; it is a picture of a generic can of cola, with the word "BUY" in big black letters beneath it. Cut to a CURIOUS MAN looking at the billboard. Cut to the CURIOUS MAN at a vending machine, pushing the button for the generic cola. He takes a sip and smiles. Play the whole scenario again, just faster. Repeat three times, getting faster each time until it is hard to discern the boundaries of each image.
VOICEOVER: Every day, ads tell us to buy things. More and more ads, telling us to buy more and more things, more quickly. It's tempting to not buy anything at all.
The camera freezes on the CURIOUS MAN smiling over his cola can. Cut to a black room with a white pedestal in the centre. A spotlight highlights the white box on the pedestal. A GENIAL MAN in a grey suit walks in from stage left.
GENIAL MAN: But Capitalist Inc. is taking away the confusion. Now you can be sure of being sold the items you think you need, without any guesswork. We do the thinking for you.
The GENIAL MAN walks to the pedestal and smiles into the camera. He places a hand gently on the box.
GENIAL MAN: Most companies hide the cost of advertising in their high prices. But at Capitalist Inc. we know your life is much too busy to make all these small decisions. That's why we've introduced our Buy Before You Try programme. For $25 a month, you pay our advertising budget. In return we decide what you want, based on the appropriate quantities of what's available. Then you go buy that product at cost: that's right, no mark-ups. All you pay for is production, transportation, licensing and profit. There's no middle-man, and no advertising to get in the way of your purchase. Just pure, simple consumption, the way it was meant to be. Capitalism Inc. - because life's too fast for decisions.
Freeze frame of GENIAL MAN smiling.
OFF-SCREEN CHORUS:
You're a worker, you have no say
Over what gets produced and how it's made
You think you have the choice to consume -
At Capitalism Inc we choose that for you too!
a) valorization: adding value to a product i.e. profiting (through workers' labour, but that's not necessary for this)
b) I was studying the circulation of capital at the time: how capital goes round and round the globe, in faster and tighter circles, profiting all the while
c) I had dim notions of becoming a screenwriter
The Setup
The latest Roots ad is for a woman named Deborah Cox. She's young, attractive and vibrant, shown high-kicking something out of the frame, her mouth open in a shout of triumph. The caption is: "Kicking." Then, "Deborah Cox." Then, "BMG Recording Artist."
I'm a capable follower of the music industry, and I've never heard of her. That was puzzling; then I remembered that Roots had Matt Damon eight stories high on a building wall before he made any movies. Apparently they're gambling that, like Matt, Deborah will become famous.
I find it interesting what her presence says about advertising. In the past, you had to become famous before you got your picture on a billboard. You had to do something, at least. To everyone except Deborah and her friends and family, she's done nothing: Roots is taking out a loan on her image, essentially, banking on the future realization of profit from her future-famous presence on their billboards. The valorization of Deborah Cox presents a novel concept: stars are passe by the time they become popular. Their star quality has been used up. Maybe because their image is everywhere and hence people get tired of it - the law of diminishing returns on famous people. Or maybe the reason is more structural: capital must circulate ever faster to realize profit. The capitalist who can get capital into a commodity, and get that commodity sold and converted into (more) money capital, wins - he gets more capital with which to do the same thing over again, eventually driving other capitalists out of the market.
Still valorizing...
So why not use a non-famous famous person? Famous people aren't fast enough; capital circulates so quickly that advertisers are selling us something with a symbol that hasn't had time to become common yet. There simply isn't time. So in that case I present a suggestion. Forget using the actors' kids, or showing a picture of a sperm bank; how about this as the ultimate tv ad for the on-the-go capitalist?
Scene
An ad is shown on a billboard; it is a picture of a generic can of cola, with the word "BUY" in big black letters beneath it. Cut to a CURIOUS MAN looking at the billboard. Cut to the CURIOUS MAN at a vending machine, pushing the button for the generic cola. He takes a sip and smiles. Play the whole scenario again, just faster. Repeat three times, getting faster each time until it is hard to discern the boundaries of each image.
VOICEOVER: Every day, ads tell us to buy things. More and more ads, telling us to buy more and more things, more quickly. It's tempting to not buy anything at all.
The camera freezes on the CURIOUS MAN smiling over his cola can. Cut to a black room with a white pedestal in the centre. A spotlight highlights the white box on the pedestal. A GENIAL MAN in a grey suit walks in from stage left.
GENIAL MAN: But Capitalist Inc. is taking away the confusion. Now you can be sure of being sold the items you think you need, without any guesswork. We do the thinking for you.
The GENIAL MAN walks to the pedestal and smiles into the camera. He places a hand gently on the box.
GENIAL MAN: Most companies hide the cost of advertising in their high prices. But at Capitalist Inc. we know your life is much too busy to make all these small decisions. That's why we've introduced our Buy Before You Try programme. For $25 a month, you pay our advertising budget. In return we decide what you want, based on the appropriate quantities of what's available. Then you go buy that product at cost: that's right, no mark-ups. All you pay for is production, transportation, licensing and profit. There's no middle-man, and no advertising to get in the way of your purchase. Just pure, simple consumption, the way it was meant to be. Capitalism Inc. - because life's too fast for decisions.
Freeze frame of GENIAL MAN smiling.
OFF-SCREEN CHORUS:
You're a worker, you have no say
Over what gets produced and how it's made
You think you have the choice to consume -
At Capitalism Inc we choose that for you too!
