Gilda

I had severe PMS today and took the day off. Once the industrial strength painkiller Dr. Cohen prescribed took effect and the migrane and cramps wore off a bit, I watched some daytime game shows, and noticed something I've seen before.

I call it Media Creep in my Humanities course.

Example One:

In the 60's and 70's, at the end of a game show or daytime talk show, during the credits, the announcer would read a list of sponsors, as in This show brought to you by Prell, Doritos, etc. Just a list of names.

This eventually became a list, with a slogan, as Proctor and Gamble: Making the products you use at home!"

Now, each sponser has it's own, fully produced 10 second commercial. Except it isn't counted as a commercial, because it's a sponsor identification; it occurs during, and gets counted as, program time.

So each program is getting away with selling an extra minute or so of commercial time that gets packaged and sold as part of the program itself.

1A: During closing credits, the credits will be shrunk down, and a promo run in 2/3 of the screen. This again, gets counted as program time.

Example Two:

Next.

When we here the word next in a promo, we don't expect the program being promoted to come next. We expect commercials, possibly a promo, and then the program. The programmers are pretending that commercials don't exist, that they'll be going straight from one program into the following one without interruption. They're lying to us, and we accept the lie, we allow them to redifine the word for thier purpose, which is to deny that they're showing us commercials.

But then, in the 90's some people in programming hit on the idea of doing away with the commercials between programs; run one program immediately after the other to prevent viewers from switching channels. They would also be shrinking the credits to run a promo for the following program. You know, the one that actually comes next. But they can't say that "Houston Blues" is next, because they've perverted that word to mean "after these commercials". They can't be honest because the viewer has come to accept the lie, and to say that a program comes next would be to defeat the purpose of not having commercials. The answer is "now". Of course, they'll say, "Houston Blues, NOW", but since they say this during "The Dodo Show" what is meant is "Houston Blues is next". And we, as the audience, understand that "now" means next, but without commercials.

Example three:

Fill in the blank:

Don't settle for anything ____________ .

In the 70's and 80's the proper word would be "else". The problem with "don't settle for anything else" is that it's making a claim of quality, namely that other products aren't as good, therefore to buy them is "settling." Someone saying this is actually claiming that their product is the best.

Now you'll hear "don't settle for anything less", a very clever little bit of deception. First, it seems to imply that other products aren't as good, but does it really? No. It says "don't settle" in other words, accept lesser quality, "for anything less" in other words, of things that aren't as good. It makes no claim whatsoever regarding whality, it just says if you get "something less" it won't be as good--you'll be settling. It implies quality, while all it really does is define the word "settling". "Don't settle for anything less" is true of every product, regarless of quality, even the worst product on the market.

Comments?

Anyone else have examples?

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