Eccentric Flower:199901/satire is dead long live irony

twenty january

satire is dead (long live irony)

Kellogg's had an interesting television ad recently. It had a doll, like a Barbie doll, called "Diet Debbie." The doll would say things (in that insipid Barbie voice) like "Time to go on another crash diet!" and "This year I resolve to work out after every meal!" and "Only celery for me, please!" Then the camera cuts to a card which says: "Why do we do this to ourselves every January? Let's just eat sensibly all year."

It's an ad for Special K. I think it's a clever ad, in a clever campaign. (For the record, Nonelvis likes it too.)

You may recall the first TV ad in the series. It had two men in a bar, with one promising himself to "not freak out if I gain two pounds" and the other checking his own backside and saying "Do these pants make my butt look big?" The caption: "Men don't obsess about these things. Why do we?" That caption's a lie, by the way - men just don't tell anyone about it. But never mind that.

Unfortunately, the Diet Debbie ad has just been pulled, after only eleven days. Under pressure from Mattel? Nope. Under pressure from the people who treat eating disorders? Nope (although they didn't like it). Kellogg's pulled the ad because people just didn't get the satire. The anorexia groups and a lot of shoppers apparently thought it was promoting an eating-disorder attitude, rather than making fun of one. Some people even thought there was actually a Diet Debbie doll, missing the point entirely (and apparently the last ten seconds of the ad).

Satire is officially a lost art. I suspected this during my brief stint at a college newspaper drawing bad editorial cartoons. I'd draw one that purported to be from the viewpoint of the people I was making fun of - putting words in your enemy's mouth, y'know, it's an old, old technique - and people would write letters chastising me because they thought I was actually espousing that point of view!

Meanwhile, in other ad-related news, I keep seeing this add for precut, pre-seasoned, pre-sauced chicken parts from those Perdue people, with Jim Perdue holding up a package of his chicken parts and saying, "We've just taken all the adventure out of cooking."

As if this was something to be proud of.

Why on earth would it be desirable to take the adventure out of cooking? I can see taking the drudgery out of cooking, I can see taking the dishwashing and the heat and the grease and the sore back out of cooking, but the adventure? The adventure is the only real reason I cook in the first place.

I think he (or his copywriters) probably meant to say "We've just taken the cooking out of cooking," an appropriate tag for a product where all the work except the heating is done for you in advance.

But that would be way too much honesty.

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