Coca-Cola is a very disturbing brand

[snousle]

I just watched The Road, which is a fairly bleak post-apocalypse movie that is interesting in part because it is serious about how an apocalypse would actually play out. It doesn't even say what the causative disaster was, because that's not necessary; it's a story about people, not technology.

The plot and imagery does not disturb me per se; everyone ends up in the grave, this is just another way of getting there, and the filmmakers had the balls to serve it up straight without a "happy ending". What did disturb me, though, was one small scene that involved a Coca-Cola product placement.

The scene was almost identical in structure to another product placement, in a Chinese film whose name I cannot remember. In both cases, the sensual pleasure of the drink was being experienced for the (nearly) first time in a context of extreme deprivation, establishing a kind of psychological wormhole between the characters' harsh, cruel environment into our own luxurious and decadent one. And something about this makes us feel good about ourselves - not guilty, maybe not even grateful. The word that comes to mind is universal. The inherent goodness of Coca-Cola is established by these scenes as indisputable, with any contrary opinion becoming emotionally inaccessible. Our pre-existing values are validated and reenforced.

So far so good. What bothers me, though, is the impossibility of imagining any other soft drink in that role. Surely a Dr. Pepper would taste every bit as good, post-apocalypse, as a Coke. How is it that Coca-Cola has such an iron grip on this psychological technique? Why does it represent an authentic message from our own world, when other brands are not?

Imagine the film continuing with the boy getting sick; having never experienced the intense combination of sugar and acid, it might have made him puke violently. The cola might be an unwelcome, alien intrusion from a world that no longer suited their needs. How would that have played out? What emotions would that bring up? Would it have made the film better, or worse? Would it even have been possible to include such a scene without getting sued for brand defamation?

I get the feeling that there must be some academic theory that describes this emotional monopoly and identifies how it comes about. If I knew what it was, maybe it wouldn't be so disturbing. But it leaves me feeling like I'm in the grip of some kind of mind control, and makes me wonder where else I'm granting these subconscious allegiances.

I do not want my mind to be owned by a corporation.

Comments

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

I dare say it is a well-developed field, but who pays its practitioners? The more a science has to do with human beings, the larger the proportion of questions in it that are party questions, and the harder it is to tell it from a religion or a racket.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Hard to tell advertising or psychology from a religion or racket? Yyyyyyyyes, I'll grant you that, but I find the premise of the assertion problematic in that it is impossible to tell a religion from a racket, and a solid case can be made that they are one and the latter.

I'm not sure what is meant by "party questions".

[come-to-think.livejournal.com]

By "one and the latter" do you mean "one and the same"?

A party question is a question that is typically answered according to one's allegiance rather than according to the evidence. If I were to venture an opinion on nature vs nurture in the causation of some ability or other, or on whether the rich or the poor are a greater burden on society, few people would pay much attention to my arguments or evidence; most would look at them just long enough to determine what gang they think I belong to. I have never seen the inside of a promotion department or an advertising agency, but I strongly suspect that in such milieux, statements about the effectiveness of this or that project are judged chiefly by their usefulness in protecting & expanding the speakers' jobs.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Yes, "one and the latter" was my economical way of saying "one and the same, and they are both the latter, i.e., religion is a racket". Perhaps too economical.

Thanks for the elaboration on party questions. Pigeonhole questions, one might also call them.