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The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/What’s Wrong with America: Five Proposals: Difference between revisions
The Mailer Review/Volume 2, 2008/What’s Wrong with America: Five Proposals (view source)
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{{byline|last=Mailer|first=Norman|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08mail|note=In 1992, Mailer’s agent, [[w:Scott Meredith|Scott Meredith]], was asked if Mailer would participate in “The Rediscover America Project,” a ''Time'' advertising supplement paid for by the Chrysler Corporation. The idea was that the supplement would extol Chrysler products while publishing “ideas you don’t want to hear” from a variety of writers. NM’s pointed critique of advertising probably did not sit well with the project’s editor, but this is neither here nor there as the project was abandoned when Chrysler withdrew its support. Thanks to Mrs. [[Norris Church Mailer]] for allowing its first appearance in print in ''The Mailer Review''. —[[J. Michael Lennon]]}} | {{byline|last=Mailer|first=Norman|url=https://prmlr.us/mr08mail|note=In 1992, Mailer’s agent, [[w:Scott Meredith|Scott Meredith]], was asked if Mailer would participate in “The Rediscover America Project,” a ''Time'' advertising supplement paid for by the Chrysler Corporation. The idea was that the supplement would extol Chrysler products while publishing “ideas you don’t want to hear” from a variety of writers. NM’s pointed critique of advertising probably did not sit well with the project’s editor, but this is neither here nor there as the project was abandoned when Chrysler withdrew its support. Thanks to Mrs. [[Norris Church Mailer]] for allowing its first appearance in print in ''The Mailer Review''. —[[J. Michael Lennon]]}} | ||
{{dc|dc=A|t ten thousand feet in the air,}} a hatch opens in the tail of a cargo plane and a car drives out into space. Before it plummets to earth, a parachute opens, and the vehicle floats down, lands on all four wheels, and drives away, It has been a sensational one-minute piece of film, Nonetheless, I cannot remember whether it was Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler who paid for the ad, and then it doesn’t matter, Anyone who has ever rented a car knows there is no easy way to distinguish between Galaxies, Tauruses, and Caprices. They all have little parts that fall off when you drive, What if the megamillions put into advertising went instead into improving the artifact? Could we rely then on machines that lasted a little longer? | |||
Advertising may have become the one American art form that we can no longer afford. In less than a century, it has moved from notifying the general public that a new product is available, to the all-out seduction of the consumer by massive injections (massively expensive) of high-tech video and layout. Far at the other end of the equation, that becomes equal to saying that the stuff we manufacture today is just not as good as once it was. Quality is now secondary. The aim of the advertiser is to divert the buyer from the integrity (or lack of it) in the product to the panache of the corporate name. The emphasis is on the surface — the product had damn well better look good. | Advertising may have become the one American art form that we can no longer afford. In less than a century, it has moved from notifying the general public that a new product is available, to the all-out seduction of the consumer by massive injections (massively expensive) of high-tech video and layout. Far at the other end of the equation, that becomes equal to saying that the stuff we manufacture today is just not as good as once it was. Quality is now secondary. The aim of the advertiser is to divert the buyer from the integrity (or lack of it) in the product to the panache of the corporate name. The emphasis is on the surface — the product had damn well better look good. | ||