First of all I must admit my ignorance in that I didn't know that it was a Whitman poem. Now having said that I don't believe that Levi has in any way distorted any of the Whitman poem, if anything it inhanced it...Levi did in fact made a corrleation between the both. Look Levi jeans have been around longer than the poem. The were the pioneers of the jean industry. They were the first of the rugged paints of the working man. Whitman himself, at first glance, was a pioneer of the work that he did and if you look at him he is also a very rugged man. If Levi had conveyed that more, in other words made it known that it was Whitman's voice and poem, then the public maybe would have understood it more, and also the message that Levi was trying to give out.
I had seen the ad's before, and I for one just change the channel when any comericals come on, that is why I have a remote. I had on the occacion been subject to the commericals and at first was not sure why or how anything related to the selling of the jeans, and frankly I still don't see the relationship between the subject matter and the selling of the jeans.
I think that McCracken's claim may have more truth in it than anyone will admit to. Look, most of the public are just like I am when it comes to poetry, mostly ignorant to it. Some is taught in school but not enough to be remembered. But advertisers are out there in the public domain, TV. Everyone that I know has a set. Most have cable or satalite link and are therefore exposed more to TV than they are to litature. TV is available to the masses just as the poets of the past had the masses. People back then had noTV and so were exposed to poetry more than they are now. Its just a sign of the times. In the past, life was more laid back, more down to earth, people cared about one another more so than they do now; nowdays it is fast money, fast people, fast sex, and faster cars and no one cares about anyone but themselves.
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I have been thinking off and on this weekend about what that guy said. To an extent it may be true but if advertisers really are taking the poet's job it is done without conscience, and is not even a conscious decision to do so in most cases so no weight is attached to it. I mean, they're real responsibilities are marketing effectively and selling products. I think in the sense that they interpret what is beautiful to the public, or they point out the beautiful in something mundane that advertisers do the job of poets. Even then though we still have journals, books, songs, and movies that collectively (I think) fulfill that role much better and have an influence over the public because they can be taken a bit more seriously than advertisements.
ReplyDeleteI am totally on the same page as you! I like that you bring up the fact that TV affects millions of people, because it really brings in that point from one of te questions about advertisers becoming the voice or great influencer of the people. It's so true- and scary!! They also say that if you watch more than a couple of hours of tv than you are mroe likely to gain weight-yet people still choose to watch it! They know what they're being subjected to, and what the purpose of the ads are. They want to sell us everything that they can, and they will tell us anything they think we want to hear in order to get that result. Whitman's poetry might not have anything to do with jeans and the wearing of them, but it doesn't matter. We'll still buy it because Whitman says to.
ReplyDeleteI have evaluated blog posts and written a summative comment on the course blog (which also includes a note about the midterm): http://academicsandbox.com/E372blog/
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