Going back to the 1930’s, it has been recognized that one needs to “get away from it all”. That may or may not mean actually leaving one’s home in search of a more exciting alternative. But leave home or not, reality sucked. You needed an escape.
I use the 1930’s as a benchmark because Thurber’s brilliant “The Secret Life of Walter Middy” appeared as a New Yorker story in 1939. Middy’s reality obviously sucked. and his fantasy world was amazing. Of course, the idea that nasty reality produces powerful fantasies is much older. Madame Bovary is as fantasy obsessed as Middy. But she comes to a bad end. Middy’s fantasy world is funny and harmless. There is an enormous difference between the two, as Middy’s type of world creates fantastic marketing opportunities.
The 1955 film, “The Seven Year Itch“, captures the more modern theme. Real life is boring. Fantasy is fun. The wife and kids head off for the summer (nice but boring), and dear old dad nurtures a wild fantasy world where he romances Marilyn Monroe. BTW, I love the way Tom Ewell played dear old dad. In the scene below, his fantasies go completely bonkers
So far so good. This is just fun and games. But it is a smalls step further to offer bored consumers the opportunity purchase a piece of their fantasy world at the grocery store. It is a two step: (1) persuade folks that they are bored, and (2) offer them a fantasy escape.
This comes out beautifully in the 200 film “Kate and Leopold”. Leopold is a real aristocrat from Victorian New York, transported to modern New York via a warp in time. He is hooked into acting in a TV commercial selling margarine. He has no idea what is going on, but goes along with it, until he actually tastes the margarine and finds that it is total crap. To him, this is a scandal. But “What do you expect”, the frustrated TV producer yells at him, “it’s diet!” Bingo! Promises trump reality. It is expected that reality disappoints as long as the fantasy remains intact.
It was inevitable, I suppose, that there would be a reaction against this. Not just by a few malcontents like Ginsberg, who wrote
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!—and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
Sooner or later, average folks — those who were supposed to know better — would demand real quality, rather than the inflated promise of something better than reality. And that backlash seems to be underway. Promote the product, not the promise!
It will be interesting to see how far this dangerous trend goes. Stay tuned!
Buzzography 