No S**t, Spurlock

            HOUSEKEEPING: First, thanks to everyone who is reading these posts. I'm really enjoying this format. I’ll be on vacation next week and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to blog a whole lot. When I get back I will definitely be putting together a few reports on the trip. I don't have a laptop so I can't do this from a wi-fi spot, but if I can find access to the net that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, I might update from there. No promises, though. I'll be back with regular posts for sure when I get back.

NO S**T, SPURLOCK:

            Product placement has been on my mind for a couple of reasons lately. First, because I’m mainlining season four of Mad Men on DVD as if it were heroin. Second another documentary is out from Morgan Spurlock, called “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.”

            Spurlock’s film naturally makes the point that product placement is a scourge on the film industry and an assault on your senses (I know, you much be shocked at a documentary being anti-big business and advertising and all but try to pull yourself together and read on). It is, I maintain, another line of complete bullcrap.

            Let’s start with product placement itself. First, I don’t understand why people have a problem with this. Most product placement includes car companies paying the movie to have the characters drive their cars, or soda companies paying to have a can of Coke or Pepsi sitting on a desk. I have not seen a movie in which a character stops and extols the virtues of a product for 30 seconds before going back to the plot. It’s simply a movie character using a real product.

            On “Mad Men,” the agency of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce represents many different products, some real, some not. Fillmore Auto Parts and their three owners are clearly a fictional version of Pep Boys, while Lucky Strikes and Mountain Dew are of course well-known brands. Having these real brands on the show lends authenticity to it for me. The fictional ones are realistic enough I don’t really notice those either.

            Still, I have heard and read people complain that using real products is distracting. Really?  What is distracting to me is when movies use unrealistically generic products instead. When a red aluminum can with “COLA” written across it, that sticks out like sore thumb to me the way someone in a movie giving out a phone number that starts with “555.” To me, that is the moment that takes me out of the story and reminds me it’s all just a movie. Generic products are mostly gone, replaced by store brands, so that to me is distracting.

            Seeing someone drink a Bud Light at a bar doesn’t take me away from the story. Having a character walk up to a bar and say only, “I’ll have a beer” does. A beer? Any beer? The fact that the bartenders in those situations don’t look at the guy like he’s an idiot and ask, “What kind of beer, jackass?” does take away from the movie for me.

            I find using real products makes it more realistic. And so what if those products pay to be there? Major studio movies cost tens of millions of dollars to make, distribute and market. They are also supposed to make money for the studios (which are, after all, for-profit companies). A character getting a UPS delivery or driving a Honda might help a movie you like get financing.

            Morgan Spurlock of course is the man who made “Super Size Me,” a documentary that targeted McDonalds. He also had a series called “30 Days” where he lived the life of a particular demographic for a month to see what it was like, such as living on minimum wage, living on an Indian reservation or spending 30 days in a wheelchair.

            Has anyone ever gotten more mileage out of stating the incredibly obvious without being a sports color commentator?

            Spurlock’s “Super Size Me” informed everyone that – wait for it, prepare to be astounded – if you eat three super-size meals at McDonalds every single day for a month, it’s bad for you.  

Seriously. That was it. That was his whole point. Eating super-size fast food and nothing else for a month is bad for you. No kidding? Thank goodness Spurlock was around to tell us this or we’d never would have known. As for his TV show, he taught us it is difficult to live life in a wheelchair. Again, thanks Morgan. I thought it was a breeze. And Spurlock’s thesis on living on minimum wage? It’s very hard. You don’t have much money to pay your bills. Another brilliant revelation! Whatever did we do without this guy?

What’s next, Morgan? Maybe he’ll astonish us by laying out in the sun without sunblock every day for a month and finding (gasp!) he develops a nasty sunburn. That would be right on the level with the rest of his “findings.”