Went to see the latest Harry Potter flick last night and got —
no, I won’t say “assaulted”, I’ll say “oozed on” by the infomercials
Regal Cinemas started running earlier this year, some sludge called
“The 2wenty” that tries to be trendy and hip and cool and attractive
and fails miserably on all four counts.
I deduce from the existence of this thing that either (a) ad
executives have the brains of planaria, or (b) they’re engaged in a
conspiracy to waste their clients’ money. The 2wenty isn’t even the
kind of in-your-face bad that leaves an impression — it’s just
unbelievably lame-ass bland, a kind of elevator music dressed up
in video effects.
It’s all the more unbelievable that this thing got produced
because, presumably, it was done by people who get paid to be current
with popular culture. I’m just a 47-year-old white computer geek but
it is dead clear that even I have way more street cool than
whatever “creatives” they found to put the 2wenty
together, fo’shizzle. How did that happen? On the
production values alone they have to be sinking at least $300K a pop
into these, and they can’t out-hip one single aging baby-boomer?
Geez…I think I’m offended as much by their incompetence as by
its results.
Neil Postman and Naomi Klein and their ilk have made a growth
industry out of running around whining about consumer culture, how
it’s all a spectacle designed to distract people from what’s really
important. Never mind that their definition of “what’s really
important” is tired Marxist bullshit…if this is
representative of what the merchants of spectacle are pumping out,
they have no worries. The 2wenty couldn’t do an effective job of
distracting a hyperactive three-year-old. It’d be more likely
to put the tyke to sleep.
Ah well. I look on the bright side. When Big Media wastes money
and putative talent on this scale, it’s good news for the rest of us.
It’s resources they’re not spending on screwing up our culture or our
legal/political system in more effective ways.
UPDATE: After some discussion, my wife and I think we may have identified the 2wenty’s target demographic — early-teenage girls of the mall-rat persuasion.