MC Moot
06-09-2005, 12:24 PM
I think this is wicked funny:
"Saturday morning commercials for all the best cereals are teaching kids how to figure what’s cool.
They’re the first step in the indoctrination of future hipsters: Cereal commercials teach that anything desirable is supposed to exclusionary.
An inordinate amount of cereal commercials are based on the premise that a given cereal is so delicious that a fictional character would want to steal it. We are presented with this scenario time and time again. The most obvious is the Trix Rabbit, a tragic figure whose doomed existence is not unlike that of Sisyphus. Since the cereals inception, the rabbit- often marginalized as “silly”- has never been able to allowed to enjoy one bowl of his favorite foodstuff, and the explanation of this embargo smacks of both age discrimination and racism ( we are to accept that Trix is exclusively “for kids”).
An even sadder illustration of cereal segregation is Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, arguably the most tortured member of the advertising community. Sonny is plagued with self loathing; though outspokenly otaku for Cocoa Puffs, he feels he doesn’t deserve to consume them. Sonny will do anything to escape from his jones including (but not limited to) locking himself into a primitive skycycle and shooting himself into outer space. To make matters worse he is bombarded with temptation: Random children endlessly taunt him with heaping bowls of C-Puffs, almost like strung out junkies waving heroin needles in the face of William S Burroughs. The kids have the cereal, and Sonny does not. Translation: The kids are cool and Sonny’s an extremist and a failure. And as long as they posses what he does not, Sonny shall remain a second-class phoenix, doomed by his own maniacal ambition for breakfast.
Commercials for Lucky Charms star a leprechaun who replaced the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with a marshmallow-laden cereal, a narrative device that slightly over-stated the value of the actual product. The Cookie Crisp mascot was a masked rapscallion named “Crook,” whose whole self identity was based on stealing cereal. In ads for both Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles, Barney Rubble went to ridiculous lengths in the hope of shoplifting Fred Flintstone’s breakfast occasionally dressing like a woman and/or rapping like Ghostface Killah.
Time and time again, commercials for cereal assault children with the same theme: A product’s exclusivity is directly proportional to it’s social cachet, which is the definition of calculated adult coolness....."
From "Sex,Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto" By Chuck Klosterman
"Saturday morning commercials for all the best cereals are teaching kids how to figure what’s cool.
They’re the first step in the indoctrination of future hipsters: Cereal commercials teach that anything desirable is supposed to exclusionary.
An inordinate amount of cereal commercials are based on the premise that a given cereal is so delicious that a fictional character would want to steal it. We are presented with this scenario time and time again. The most obvious is the Trix Rabbit, a tragic figure whose doomed existence is not unlike that of Sisyphus. Since the cereals inception, the rabbit- often marginalized as “silly”- has never been able to allowed to enjoy one bowl of his favorite foodstuff, and the explanation of this embargo smacks of both age discrimination and racism ( we are to accept that Trix is exclusively “for kids”).
An even sadder illustration of cereal segregation is Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, arguably the most tortured member of the advertising community. Sonny is plagued with self loathing; though outspokenly otaku for Cocoa Puffs, he feels he doesn’t deserve to consume them. Sonny will do anything to escape from his jones including (but not limited to) locking himself into a primitive skycycle and shooting himself into outer space. To make matters worse he is bombarded with temptation: Random children endlessly taunt him with heaping bowls of C-Puffs, almost like strung out junkies waving heroin needles in the face of William S Burroughs. The kids have the cereal, and Sonny does not. Translation: The kids are cool and Sonny’s an extremist and a failure. And as long as they posses what he does not, Sonny shall remain a second-class phoenix, doomed by his own maniacal ambition for breakfast.
Commercials for Lucky Charms star a leprechaun who replaced the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with a marshmallow-laden cereal, a narrative device that slightly over-stated the value of the actual product. The Cookie Crisp mascot was a masked rapscallion named “Crook,” whose whole self identity was based on stealing cereal. In ads for both Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles, Barney Rubble went to ridiculous lengths in the hope of shoplifting Fred Flintstone’s breakfast occasionally dressing like a woman and/or rapping like Ghostface Killah.
Time and time again, commercials for cereal assault children with the same theme: A product’s exclusivity is directly proportional to it’s social cachet, which is the definition of calculated adult coolness....."
From "Sex,Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto" By Chuck Klosterman