The engaging and highly entertaining backward glimpse at the chain-smoking, hard-drinking, chauvinistic ad men, (and women), of the ‘60s may seem nostalgic and quaint, but, in fact, it portrays the tip of a nation-sinking iceberg as seen in our rearview mirror.  Advertising, and television advertising in particular, which began in earnest fifty years ago, has never been as much about selling products as it is about selling the desire to have and/or believe in them.  For most of our lives, we have been inundated with overt and subliminal sloganeering, claims of nutritional, health or social benefit, sadly, with little or no oversight as to the truthful nature of it all.  Certainly we can all agree that Frosted Flakes® taste grrrrrrrrrreat!  And maybe Chevy does run deep, (I don’t know what that means so I really can’t dispute it).  But everything else, with perhaps one or two exceptions…pure crap.

Politics, which has always been about bullshit slogans and unfulfilled and unreasonable promises, fully embraced the era of TV advertising, pandering to the hopes and fears, (mostly the fears), of a confused and predominantly uninformed electorate.  The upper echelon of advertisers, aka lobbyists, have even succeeded in manipulating the rules that are meant to regulate their spheres of influence.  The Supreme Court’s 5/4 decision in favor of Citizens United, (the citizens named here would be the top-grossing corporations in America), allowing unlimited financial influence in politics, has given rise to a non-stop barrage of slickly produced, emotionally volatile advertising intent on winning public support for publicly damaging proposals.  From championing the absurd concept of “clean coal” or the safety of hydrofracking, to the demonizing of universal health care, environmental protection and the mandate for first rate public education for all, the America being advertised from CNN to the WB has a singular passion…the promotion and protection of corporations to make shitloads of money.

I’m not sure that Marshall McLuhan was entirely correct about the media/message deal.  Advertisers have become much more psychologically adept over the years, learning that we love to identify with the messenger…even more than the message.  So we love Tony the Tiger, and we find the cutesy-mom-like-lady-that-tells-us-about-clean-coal to be, well, cutesy and mom-like.  And, if you need car insurance, the Gecko, (with that sincere Aussie accent), has to trump that whiny Progressive chick.  However, if you’re looking for a Republican candidate…keep looking.