I just watched the trailer for the new Matt Damon movie, “The Adjustment Bureau.” It is based on a Philip K Dick story. In the trailer, Matt Damon is an aspiring politician whose chance encounter with Emily Blunt runs against the plans laid out for both of them. It’s about free will, chance, and love, of course – and a malevolent cadre of men whose job it is to keep the world in order and everyone on their pre-ordained path. Here they are, on a NYC rooftop:
Interestingly, all these Observers (as they’re called in Fringe, a series I’m a fan of, and who share at least some of the responsibilities of the Adjusters) all dress in the garb of the 50s. In particular, fedoras.
Like clockwork, John Slattery is there as one of the Adjusters. He appears to be making quite a living as our stand-in for masculinity of this era. (It is his build? His silver hair?) This, shortly after performing beautifully as Tony Stark’s father in Iron Man 2 in a great archival footage scene that felt like it was ripped from the cels of the original comic. I searched for John Slattery and fedora, and there are shockingly few of him in Mad Men with a fedora, but plenty of Jon Hamm.
When we meet Matt Damon, he is dressed in a suit. Modern, not hat, stylish, respectable, etc. But clearly, at some point in the movie, when things get sufficiently dramatic and thrilling – yup – he’s wearing a very, very conspicuous fedora. No tie. No jacket. Just a very odd fedora. The before and after is striking in it’s shift of power from the full suit to it’s dismantling – replaced by the hat alone. Before:
After:
Which reminded me of this, from the introductory essay written for the 1997 publication of “Within the Context of No Context” by George W.S. Trow. It’s all very confusing, really, but suffice it to say that the original was published in The New Yorker in 1980 and had a subtitle of “The Decline of Adulthood” and the quotes below are taken from the essay in 1997, when he revisits the original, called “Collapsing Dominant”:
When I was very young – four years old, that is, and five – it was my habit in the late afternoon to stand at a window at the east end of the living of my family’s house, in cos cob, connecticut, and wait for my father to come into my view. My father commuted on the new Haven Railroad in those days, and walked home from the station. When I spotted him, I waved. I usually saw him before he saw me, because my eyesight was much better than his. When he saw me he waved back and walked (I believe) at afaster pace until he was at our door. Once inside, he put down the bundle of newspapers he carried under his arm (my father, a newspaperman, brought home all three evening newspapers and, often, one or two of the morning papers as well), and hugged my mother. Then he took his fedora hat off his head and put it on mine. Read more…
My regular TV viewing was recently interrupted by the new ad by Gotham in NY for 7 Days Croissants. It’s new to the States, I presume, but to my eyes, what was so jarring about the ad was it’s non-Americanness. Everything about it seemed to fall into that odd and relatively new category of “global.”
This is a new global, however, cuz it’s cultural and at the level of the consumer. For an American, it feels European. Or a kind of diluted European. Cleaner, lighter, less out-sized and with a startling lack of detail – details that would invariably tip their hand. It’s an attractive (what a copout!) ad, positioning the croissant as the occasional grounding that lets you keep floating and cruising through an increasingly blurry world. I am still, however, left with the sense that it’s not from anywhere or for anywhere. which, as a matter of fact, sounds deliciously relevant. The song, which is a perfect hybrid of US pop and European dance hall (forgive my lack of appropriate language on that) is getting quite a bit of attention as well, as one commenter requested the full track.
What a challenge that is for an agency! I am very curious to have heard these conversations.
“It’s got to play in Greece as well as it plays in Sheboygan!”
“Well, baseball is out!”
“Outdoor cafes, too!”
“What about trains?”
“Of course, not!”
“Vancouver it is!”
A quick youtube search found what I can only presume is the campaign that preceded this recent effort of Gothams – which is what adweek calls “Pan-European.” Check out the granularity, the romance, the geography of relevance that is at work here. the strategy hasn’t changed at all, only the level of incriminating (and identifying) detail.
Simon Sinek reinforces the necessity to get beyond language and to explore the imagery and the assocations that constitute the imaginative reasoning that is at work in decision-making. He begins with the familiar conversation about our brains and it’s division of labor:
“If you look at a cross-section of the human brain, looking from the top down, what you see is that the human brain is actually broken into three major components … The neocortex is responsible for all of our rational, analytical thought and language; [O]ur limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings, like trust and loyalty. It’s also responsible for all human behavior, all decision-making, and it has no capacity for language.
Wanted to break here to highlight this; that which drives our behavior “has no capacity for language.” I also learned recently from Radiolab episode on “Stochasticity” (randomness) that it is what is known as the reward system of the brain (dopamine) is the very same system that controls movement. What we want, we move towards. And we cannot express it.
“In other words, when we communicate from the outside in, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like features and benefits and facts and figures, it just doesn’t drive behavior. When we communicate from the inside out, we’re talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior.”
“Inside out” is a lovely way of imagining this way of listening which is always a . These are truths and pieces of insight that often have no corollary in communicative language. They simply are, and they are there to be found.
In my work, I am in constant amazement at the solidity and consistency of these metaphorical truths that reside within propositions – within the relationship consumers create between themselves, their world, and the brands they interact with. Metaphor is the first step towards unlocking these truths. And, as Sinek says, it is the purpose, the motivations, that consumers seek to associate with and support:
People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with anybody who needs what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.
Because I probably spend too much time thinking about the distinctions that divide generations from each other, and bind them upon themselves, I couldn’t resist . . . I s’pose they share a sense of alienation and self-deprecation, but clearly the emotional tenor of each is fundamentally different. anyhoo. I don’t want to over think this, but there does seem to be some line running through from the Fresh Prince, through Beck, to where we are now: Spose.
The year is 2009. Take a peek at the video above, from recent homegrown unlikely pop/video phenomenon Spose, otherwise known Ryan Peters from Wells, Maine.Spose seems to revel in the lack of mobility, momentum and ambition. He makes a list of all the reasons that he’s awesome – most of which appear to be symptoms of Generation Y.
“Motherfucker, I’m awesome! No you’re not, dude! Don’t lie.”
The year is 1989. I remember first seeing DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. It was 1989. I was 17. Ah, high school. The video for “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand,” which is healthily referenced in the official Spose video, is all 80’s Graffiti with a narrative focused almost entirely on school shopping and trips to the mall.
“To all the kids all across the land. There’s no need to argue. Parent’s just don’t understand!”
The year is 1993. I remember where I was when I first heard “Loser” from Beck. And I can recall pretty clearly watching the video with that sense that something new was happening and that that something was talking to me. Never mind that I wasn’t entirely sure what he was saying, I knew that it felt right.
“I’m a loser, baby, so why don’t you kill me?”
Will Smith was born in 1968. “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand” came out in 1989. Beck was born in 1970. “Loser” came out in 1993. Spose was born in 1985. I’m Awesome came out last year, in 2009.
I was struck by a moment in A.O. Scott’s profile of Greta Gerwig in this Sunday’s New York Times. It is also, ostensibly, a review of what is meant to be her breakout role in Noah Baumbach’s new film “Greenberg.” It has more to do with the current, rather slow – but perhaps accelerating – shift of our cultural center away from the Boomers, towards the Generation known as X. I was reminded of this story at Slate.com about Pavement’s reunion that argues that what was once Alternative Rock is now just rock. The Boomers definition of rock is no longer the center of American culture. Anyhoo. I very much enjoyed Scott’s evocation of Generation X and wonder how right he may be that the same is happening in film
In Scott’s portrait of this actress, Gerwig is not only representative of Gen Y to Ben Stiller’s Generation X, but is also apparently redefining acting itself (it’s subtitle acts as an odd, and generationally revealing Raymond Carver homage : “Greta Gerwig is What We Talk About When We Talk About Acting”) note: this only appeared in the print version.
It is probably also worth noting that Ben Stiller, who has most likely built one of the most successful film careers of any Generation Xer, will most likely never be embraced by his own generation. Despite having been central to such large successes and cultural touchpoints as Reality Bites to Something About Mary to the Night at the Museum Series, I look forward to his Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony and the wriggling ambivalence that will invariably ripple nationwide amongst us Xers. (Yup.)
Roger belongs to a generation whose major fashion statement is a protective carapace of irony. That he is also inescapably Ben Stiller, for 20 years a master of implied air quote and a walking compendium of complications, reinforces the impression that this is a guy who thinks too much. Read more…
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