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As someone who came of age during the turbulent 1960s in the United States, I valorized the artists, those songwriters and singers who laid out the musical score for my life, the minstrels who included Bob Dylan, Odetta, Janice Joplin, Buffy Saint Marie, Donavan, John Baez, Judy Collins, Jimmy Hendrix, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Tim Buckley, Santana, Leonard Cohen, The Supremes, The Beatles, Phil Ochs, The Weavers, Peter Paul and Mary, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Richie Havens, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and several others.
Before the technical revolution that followed, before the advent of the portable earphone devices such as the iPhone, and even prior to the “Walkman,” I carried these troubadours in the record library of my mind and memory as I witnessed the seemingly unending body bags transporting my generation back home from Vietnam.
From scenes of police blasting high-powered fire hoses at resisters, including the very young, against racial intolerance in the South and throughout the country, of women’s continuing struggle against a patriarchal system that has long held power and privilege over them, of people standing up to environmental polluters, and of a military industrial complex that harvests the bodies of black and brown men and youth as fodder for ever-increasing corporate profits, of the torn bodies of John and Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, those known and unknown whose lives ended far too soon.
So “Hey, Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me,” “for the universal soldier” “with God on our side” while we’re “sitting on the dock of the bay” wishing that “we will overcome” as “we all come to look for America” as “I often feel like a motherless child, a long way from my home.”
While watching my TV recently, I was disappointed and rather sickened, but unfortunately, not particularly surprised to hear one of my favorite songs serving as the lyrical backdrop for a commercial. To receive other points of view, I posted the following on my Facebook timeline:
“Paul Simon’s ‘America’: focus alienation. Why did Simon allow & Volkswagen use it in a TV commercial? Consumerism at any cost!”
This song spoke volumes to me and many others of my generation, especially in the third verse:
“Cathy, I’m lost, I said though I knew she was sleeping
And I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They’ve all come to look for America
All come to look for America…”
I am fully aware that Paul Simon does not know me. I also realize that he did not sell (out) to Volkswagen the rights to use his song in its advertising to betray my personal trust and admiration of his body of work.
I’m possibly very naïve, but I did feel somehow betrayed. Following my Facebook post, I wrote in the “comments” box, “When will song writers and singers place artistic and personal integrity and dignity over capitalist profits? Or will they ever?”
Others responded:
“That was bad, but not as bad as this.”
A link connected to a TV ad for TD Ameritrade in which a father lovingly teaches his son the “accepted” socially-constructed and enforced rules and behaviors of “masculinity” by instructing him, for example, to play baseball. Behind the “moving” images, the corporate advertisers chose “Cat’s in the Cradle” composed by Harry Chapin and sung by Joseph Angel:
“My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin’ ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew
He’d say ‘I’m gonna be like you, Dad
You know I’m gonna be like you…’”
A final image of the commercial announced: “Invest in every moment.”
So we need to ask TD Ameritrade — while based in Omaha, its largest shareholder is Toronto Dominion (TD) Bank – is the intent of your allegedly poignant ad to urge fathers to perpetuate the practice of absenteeism whose children “leaned to walk while [you were] away” and “[were] talkin’ ‘fore [you] knew it”? Is this really “Invest[ing] in every moment”?
Another Facebook friend wrote a comment to my original posting:
“The French nuclear power company AREVA used my all-time favorite disco dance tune, ‘Funkytown,’ for their advertising, and that troubled me. Also, another favorite disco tune, ‘Born to be Alive,’ was used by Bacardi rum. That was acceptable!”
A fourth responder criticized my posting:
“Simon wrote the song so he can sell it to anyone he wants. These are commercials and not real life…not to be taken seriously. I am all for artists, writers and musicians making profit from their work any way they choose. Idealism and business do not mix.”
This person painted clearly a notable problem by stating that “Idealism and business do not mix,” but more importantly, exhibited an even more grave and disastrous one by showing an utter lack of critical consciousness in the ways of media manipulation.
A few years back, I entered my university classroom and was about to introduce that day’s lesson when my eye caught a large poster pinned to the bulletin board displaying a tightly clenched raised fist, reminiscent of the iconic Black Power symbol popularized in the 1960s. Above the image read the words in large capital letters, “JOIN THE FIGHT.”
Encouraged by the sight, I walked over to the poster hoping to find some indication of resurgent social activism. To my dismay and utter aversion, however, appearing in smaller letters, the poster advertised “The Fighting Burrito,” a local fast food campus hangout. The profit motive transformed this iconic symbol into a sales pitch for burritos, tacos, carbonated drinks, and nachos.
And this shows one means by which Capitalism misappropriates and transforms artists and their art into consumerist recruiters, which ultimately coopt the potential for true and lasting progressive social, political, and economic change.
The fact remains that we as individuals and as a society should be expected to critically, reflectively, and creatively investigate and analyze media rather than simply absorb them at face “value.” Not only must our schools help equip students with communication and reading literacy skills, but they must also actively teach skills of media literacy to empower students to deconstruct, analyze, and reflect upon media images and messages that bombard them like atmospheric microwaves daily.
I am encouraged by the musical artist, Neil Young, in his 1988 song, “This Note’s for You,” (a backhand reference of Budweiser’s slogan, “This Bud’s for You) in which Young proclaimed his personal integrity and independence from the Corporate hype:
“Ain’t singin’ for Pepsi
Ain’t singin’ for Coke
I don’t sing for nobody
Makes me look like a joke
This note’s for you.”
For my Critical Thinking Checklist, press here.
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Photo Credit: Getty Images
DId you mean “Joan” Baez?
Oops, I did indeed. Thanks.
Wait a minute… wait a minute… are you saying I watched this JOHN Baez video for nothing? No wonder it was all about math and not music…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vzjbRhYjELo