Mad Men: For Immediate Release (the shortest recap ever)

Over at Slate, Seth Stevenson writes:

I liked the overall energy, the jazzy vibe of the episode. I think we all enjoy Mad Men more when Don is on his game and crushing life. We’ve got a whopper of a new account to pursue. A merger that might spice up the office with new personalities—including Harry Hamlin!

You see, they agree with me. They rain hate on Don all the time, claim he is over and done with and that they're eager for the moment he's finally gone but they're bored when the show does what they want it to and love it when Don and his big, swinging swagger is back.

What did I think? I thought, it's only rock and roll but we like it. That's an inside joke only hard core stones fans will get. After the boys cranked out that little ditty, it was greeted by general praise. But Mick Taylor said he thought the song was a failure. He said the problem was that they were too busy trying to make a classic Rolling Stones record. That's the problem with this episode. It's too busy trying to be a classic Mad Men episode. And that's a problem because they are looking backwards and trying to repeat themselves.

I hope they sharpen up soon, but so far, this season is ... well, it's like the song, which is to say,  like the Rolling Stones in 1974, it's still a hell of a lot better than anything else but it suggests that the glory days is over.

Mad Men: the mix up and the delay

Update: the nice man with the Texan accent at Apple Support solved the problem.

As you may have heard, this week's episode of Mad Men (ironically entitled "For Immediate Release") was accidentally (we hope) leaked on iTunes. By the time I got up this morning, it wasn't available at all on iTunes, which means that I haven't seen it.

That's going to be tough on my stats as about five times as many people come here to read my Mad Men commentary than my regular readership. Oh well, these tings happen.

To add insult to injury, someone reading an old post, put up what has to be the stupidest comment in the history of the blog,

Another image: follow-up

Note: This post has been edited and then reposted because I changed my mind about a few things.

It's often noted that you get a very different sense from looking at one side of a person's face versus the other. I was just about the close the blog for the weekend, when I noticed that an overlapping image had accidentally cropped the face of the woman in the ad I was commenting on earlier. The effect was quite jarring.

Although the combined image is of a woman who clearly is thinking of making a big change in her life and wants to be somewhere else, the right side of her face alone is more resentful but in a wistful and passive way:

The expression on left side, on the other hand, is much more aggressive but also very erotic.

The difference is quite jarring. It's hard to see how they could both be part of the same face.

Yet they are the same face.

From a male point of view, the the whole face is more threatening than either side. However challenging the woman of the left side , there are possibilities there. However distant the woman on the right side, she's passive not passionate. Combine that aggressive eroticism with the sense that mentally she has already moved on and left you behind that the right side gives you, however, and there is lots to be threatened by. The combined face says, "You should see me when you're not around ...":

Another image: What is it selling?

I commented on a campaign of a local shopping mall called the Rideau Centre a while ago. They have a new ad up this week. The theme is similar but, as a piece of advertising, this is a huge improvement over the last effort.

These days people talk about ads that are "edgy" all the time but that ad really is edgy. They are using an unhappy couple to sell stuff!!! It's not hard to guess who it's aimed at. Just ask yourself who you'd most want to be or to know; this man or this woman? And that is really important. Money spent on an ad campaign designed to attract men to a shopping centre is money wasted.

Let's spell it out. Advertisements work when they feed your needs. This ad will speak to every woman who feels a need to change her life. She wants to change this conversation but, even more than that, she wants to change the story she is living.

What's limiting her? The answer is her boyfriend or husband. But it can't be her husband in an ad like this. That would be a little too edgy. As was the case last time, the ring finger is visible to reassure us that they are not married (and, trust me, this is a detail most women never miss in a picture like this).

There is a little ambiguity because the ring finger is right at the edge of the picture, but it's there so you can check.

To finish the narrative, we have a woman who wants change in her life, we have the limiting boyfriend looking diminished, small and resentful, and, most importantly of all, we have the woman thinking of change. And by getting the women who sees this to associate the need for change with the Rideau Centre, the advertisement succeeds. It makes going shopping a little like cheating on your boyfriend and that makes it more of adventure. And that is edgy: shopping as an act of sexual betrayal!

Edgy ads aren't to everyone's taste, of course, but if edgy is what you want, this is about as good as it gets. Congratulations to who whoever put this one together.

Compare it with the previous ad from a  few weeks ago and the difference is quite striking.

[Added: The Lemon Girl, just home now, points out that they probably have used the same two models in the two ads.]

If this ad were for a film noir with a femme fatale, it would draw men like flies. Well, if you made the man look even vaguely heterosexual it would. It's a frantically erotic ad because she is talking on the phone. That makes you wonder who she is talking to. And the obvious answer to that is her lover.

Now look at the ad at the top of the post. The man is resentful and angry. They've had a fight. The woman is thinking. What is she thinking of? Change.

The big difference between the two ads is who it's aimed at. The one immediately above, as I note when I first commented on it, is an ad for men. We see the man in the ad enjoying the erotic power the woman has and enjoying feeling helpless in the face of it. It would be a great ad for an erotic thriller. In the ad at the top of this post, we see a woman feeling the need to break out. There is an erotic potential in it too. She could have an affair after all. But a woman in her situation would use the affair as a way to break free. The sex might be great when she got to it but that wouldn't be why she sought it. She'd seek the affair as a way to change her life. In the meantime, she can go shopping and, who knows, that may be enough.

The irony here, by the way, is that the ad with the clear sexual content is much less threatening if you're a man. It's an edgy male sexual fantasy to be sure but it's your edgy sexual fantasy. (Assuming this particular fantasy appeals to you; if it doesn't it's just a weird ad.) The ad at the top of the page is very threatening to a man. I could explain this myself but I'll leave it to Lyle Lovett instead:




Have a great weekend everybody.

Tyler, the Creator is a racist

Hey, don't blame me, blame the associated press. They are the ones who called him a  racist.

Really. It all has to do with this Mountain Dew ad you're never going to see now. Here is how AP describes the problem:

PepsiCo is once again learning the risks of celebrity partnerships after an ad for Mountain Dew was criticized for portraying racial stereotypes and making light of violence toward women.

The ad in question was the work of Mr. The Creator.

Where is the racism, you ask? Well, that's an interesting question with no obvious answer. Here is the thing about the ad that got people upset.

The ad was part of a series developed by African-American rapper Tyler, The Creator, and depicted a battered white woman on crutches being urged to identify a suspect out of a lineup of black men.

A goat character known as Felicia is included in the lineup and makes threatening comments to the woman, such as "Ya better not snitch on a playa" and "Keep ya mouth shut."

The woman eventually screams "I can’t do this, no no no!" and runs away. The word "do" is in apparent reference to the soft drink’s "Dew It" slogan.

Think about that for a moment: a black recording artist makes an ad that glorifies sexual violence against white women and the ad is criticized for portraying racial stereotypes!

Yeah, that makes sense. A black man celebrates violence against women therefore the ad is racist. It is even, "Arguably, the most racist commercial in history".

But, again, notice what happens here. Here is the money quote from Syracuse Professor Boyce Watkins,

Mountain Dew has set a new low for corporate racism. Their decision to lean on well-known racial stereotypes is beyond disgusting. This doesn’t even include the fact that the company has put black men on par with animals. The holocaust of mass incarceration and the glorification of violent prison culture has taken a tremendous toll on the black community. Corporations are making it cool for black men to murder one another, while gun manufacturers ensure that the streets are flooded with the weapons necessary for us to complete our own genocide.

Mountain Dew has set a new low for corporate racism? What about Tyler, the Creator? Does he get any blame at all?
 

What kind of modernist?

There is a paradox at the heart of a lot of modernism. On the one hand, many modernists argue that the world has changed and that art and religion need to change or to be changed to better respond to this changed world. (The word "modernity" is often used to describe the changed world while "modernism" is used to describe the strategy adopted in response to modernity.) At the same time, modernists argued and argue that we need to change the world.

Consider, for example,  Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss. These  two scientists argue that religion is no longer relevant in the modern world. But if that were true, religion would simply disappear the way calling cards, morning suits and spats have done. Instead, the opposite has happened. Every day, the percentage of religious people in the world increases. Atheists, meanwhile, are decreasing both as a percentage of the world's population and in absolute numbers. (Among other problems, atheists are much, much less likely to have children than believers.)

But Dawkins and Krauss face an even deeper problem, a problem they share with many, probably most, other modernists. You can see the problem in the following quote from Krauss:

Somehow people get the sense that religion is sacred – if you’ll forgive the pun – and nothing should be sacred. Everything is subject to discussion and that’s what makes life worthwhile. (Emphasis added.)

And there he runs against a brick wall for the vast majority of people cling to sacredness. In fact, we keep trying to make more and more things sacred. You can wish and hope and dream otherwise but the world simply will not be desacralized as long as there are human beings in it. And that is a rather staggering thing given how much the powerful forces of our society have tried.

A long time ago now, Voltaire and Casanova had an argument in which Voltaire took a position not unlike Krauss's. Casanova's response was to ask Voltaire what he meant to replace all the religion and superstition with once he had done away with it. I'm sure the question made no sense to Voltaire, just as it makes no sense to Dawkins and Krauss today. But history has vindicated Casanova. Take away religion, and people go charging for substitutes. And they tend to go for the most appalling nonsense when they do.

This isn't what you think

Here is an erotic video with no nudity, no vulgar language (although she almost says something), in fact, with no explicit sexual content.



Explanations below the fold.