5.17.04
Natal Gazing
-- OR --
Fetal Product Positioning
Parochial school, summer camp at the art gallery, and even guidance on how to paraphrase the encyclopedia for History papers: I like to think I had a solid educational foundation. But not by today's standards. These days, if the marketers have anything to do with it, newborns will be getting diapered and diploma-ed.

As featured in a 4/29 edition of Jeffrey Zaslow's Moving On column in The Wall Street Journal, a trendy preoccupation among pregos has prompted a host of gadgets to facilitate pre-born pea brain stimulation. It's known as "belly-talk," a cutesy term for speaking adult language to unborn babies in the hopes of advancing their intelligence.

According to the piece, research findings of psychologist Anthony DeCasper which have shown "that babies in utero hear and recognize their mothers' voices" are being exaggerated to "advocate for 'pre-natal' education and 'fetal stimulation' devices." No longer will Franz Kafka flash cards or quasi-cultural learning devices like Baby Einstein DVDs do for maniacal moms like the one mentioned in the article who "wanted to know how she could 'maximize' her baby's time in the womb." Now only wee-ones with parents dupable enough to buy a $150 BabyPlus Prental Education System that "takes fetuses through a 16-week course on rhythmic sounds" or a $50 WombSong Prenatal Sound System that "lets parents address their fetuses via microphone" will have a pudgy widdew weg up on the competition.

Dr. Spock is rolling over in his crypt-crib right about now.

I mean really, how gullible can you get? What kind of a consumer lemming would buy a piece of equipment to project sound into her body when the sound emanates from within her body in the first place? I don't doubt that buying fetal instructional items is usually done with the best of intentions by genuinely caring parents. But it's bad enough when misguided mommies and daddies force grown-up lifestyles on their still-growing kids, forgetting that childhood is for children, not miniature adults. Can't they even wait until the little bundle of brains is birthed into this Brave New World to initiate the indoctrination?

As for the pedagogic product purveyors, it's tough to have respect for companies that market paranoia and insecurity. Talk about a Baby Industrial Complex. All we need is a few conspiracy theories to surface about how Gerber is behind the War on Drool.

Sheesh. At this point I'm wondering how long it will take until we hear about the obstetrician who performs an A-Section on some grade-fixated, overbearing mother-to-be.



Potent Quotables
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Super Sized Denial
We all owe Morgan Spurlock a debt of gratitude. Not only has the dyspeptic director of Super Size Me enlightened us through his heroic efforts to prove that -- get this -- too much fast food is bad for us; Spurlock may be exhibiting an all new fast food induced ailment: McDelusion.

As documented in Spurlock's flick Super Size Me, which trails his descent into greasy gluttony, the sludge swallowing star fell victim to weight-gain, sexual dysfunction, depression and gastrointestinal distress as a result of ingesting nothing but McDonald's vittles for a month. In his 5/5 interview with Salon.com, Spurlock discusses Soso Whaley, a woman who lost weight on a month-long all-Mickey D's diet conducted under the auspices of free-market policy organization Competitive Enterprise Institute in order to counteract Spurlock's anti-burger blowout.

"Well, you know," observes Spurlock, "she's limiting the amount of calories she eats in a day, and she's exercising more: the two things no American does…. We overconsume and we don't exercise. I think she's kind of missed the point of what the film is about. She's looking at the movie as an attack on McDonald's."

Ya know, he's right about Whaley missing the point. I mean what could have possibly given her the idea that Super Size Me is an attack on McDonald's? It couldn't have been the fact that the film's central mission is to document a guy's daily intake of McDonald's food. I'm sure it wasn't the fact that Spurlock attaches the "Mc" prefix to Quarter Pounder-induced bodily functions such as gas and vomit (i.e. "McGas" and "McVomit"). And surely it has nothing to do with the movie's title which makes only a vague reference to McDonald's branded term for extra-large portion sizes.

Spurlock goes on to downplay Whaley's credibility, stressing, "The other thing you should be aware of is that she is a fellow at a lobby group based in Washington, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is a lobby group funded by the food companies and by cigarette companies and, god, who knows who else. You have to question their motives."

Yet again, Spurlock is right on. According to some information The Lowbrow Lowdown Lackeys dug up on PRWatch.org, CEI donors include Philip Morris Companies, Inc., Texaco, Inc., Dow Chemical and the Coca-Cola Company, provider of beverages to McDonald's. So, obviously her far-fetched conclusion that Super Size Me is an attack on McDonald's is a direct result of her involvement with misguided right-wing conspirators.

Enough of the sarcasm. Evidently, Spurlock believes that the outcome of Whaley's stunt is less valid than his, not only because its basis lies in personal responsibility (something of which most Americans are incapable if we buy Spurlock's arguments), but because CEI has a connection to villainous food and tobacco corporations.

Surely the same could be said of the company that enabled Spurlock's production firm, The Con, to pay for its study in excessive consumption: MTV. According to the official movie website, The Con used profits garnered from running 53 episodes of its show I Bet You Will on MTV to fund the french fried flick.

Granted, MTV and its advertisers may not have directly funded Super Size Me; however, Spurlock set out to prove a point about the fast food industry and its effects on the health of Americans and, rather than taking a more balanced approach in doing so, employed a sensationalized strike on one particular company. This is a clear indication that he has just as much of an agenda as Whaley has.

In the end I'm not bothered by the fact that both Whaley and Spurlock have agendas. Most people who engage in such rigorous endeavors do. I am, however, bothered by hypocritical people who deny the obvious and resort to knee-jerk anti-corporate dribble to discredit their critics.

It's just too bad McDonald's doesn't serve deep fried McHumble Pie.



Clenched Fists Clutch French Fries
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Chantin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin'
Mention anything remotely political and I'll pounce on it like a Pavlovian dog. But there's one thing that disheartens me whenever I hear it said during a political discussion, particularly by someone with strong political views: "I don't vote." How can anyone who's impassioned about an issue refuse to take the simple step of participating in the very process that is so inherent to affecting it? After all, true conviction is evinced through action, not words, right?

At least we the people can vote in a way that's far more immediate and arguably more relevant to our daily lives than casting a ballot for Tweedledee or Tweedledum ever could be. We can vote with our dollars. If we don't like any aspect of a product, whether it be its price, quality, manufacturer or country of origin, in most cases we have the luxury of poking the proverbial chad for some other commercial candidate. Even in a monopolistic situation, we have the option to boycott.

Believe it or not, some people in foreign lands who can only envy our flawed election system seem to take for granted their right to put their money where their mouths are. According to a 5/9 NYTimes.com story, American companies that sell their wares abroad (where the U.S. is supposedly despised for its imperialistic war-mongering ways and freedom fry-chompin' cowboy-in-chief), "say that they have so far experienced little if any disruption from discontent over the war in Iraq."

Take Brazil for instance. As highlighted in the article, McDonald's "is sometimes the target of taunts in left-wing demonstrations…but it is also common to see demonstrators eating at McDonald's after the rallies." Man, and after all that damage McDonald's does to the dwindling rain forest by leveling trees and foliage to create grazing land for cattle? You'd think those protest posers would do what any self-respecting American activist would and make a post-march pit stop at Ben and Jerry's for a guilt-assuaging scoop of Rain Forest Crunch.

We always knew Brazilians were soft. But surely Uncle Sam's corporate cronies get no love in a bastion of America bashing like Malaysia. Uh-uh. Evidently, before the official start of the war in Iraq, "the Muslim Consumer Association of Malaysia called for a boycott of Coca-Cola….But Marimuthu Nadason, secretary general of the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations, said that boycott was ignored by most of the public."

So, what gives? As noted in the piece, there are lots of reasons for the general disconnect between purported anti-Americanism and a tangible demonstration of it in the global marketplace. For one, multinational operations such as Kodak and McDonald's do their best to blend with specific cultures by hiring locals and tailoring their products, marketing and store architectural design to their particular surroundings. Other global sellers maintain "a geographically generic image, so they are not associated with any one country or culture."

There's no disputing the fact that experienced international corporations take great pains to adjust their brand marketing strategies to appeal to specific audiences whether they be in Helsinki or Hell's Kitchen. And there's no doubt customization, and possibly superior quality play a role in the success of certain American brands abroad.

The Brand America issue is far too complicated for this paltry Web column to do it justice. However, it's just as simplistic to conclude that people buy American as a result of brand positioning as it is to conclude that the only reason foreigners buy American is because we shove our inferior consumer culture down their throats.

The real reason is for the Anti-America/Pro-Big Mac disconnect? Laziness. If there's one thing we can always count on from the masses no matter their country, creed, or political bent, it's laziness. That's why people don't vote in elections, and that's why they don't vote at the till. Big Macs are cheap and easy, just like talk.

Don't our ersatz enemies realize that by buying goods from evil Bush-supporting corporate profiteers, they only end up fueling the U.S. military industrial complex? Then again, maybe there is a method to their madness. After all, who else is gonna supply their weapons for their inevitable battle against us infidels?